TRYING to avoid paying extra when booking budget flights can be difficult, with many charging extra fees for luggage.
And Ryanair is known for having some of the cheapest fares – but expensive add ons.
New legislation is being introduced which will ban airlines from ‘drip pricing’ which is when companies don’t reveal extra costs until the end of booking.
But until then, there are several ways you can avoid being caught out when trying to book cheap flights.
A recent study by Which? found that it isn’t always cheaper to pay for hand luggage-sized suitcases – and you can save money by taking the same amount of checked luggage.
Which? stated: “If you don’t care about ‘priority boarding’ (which can just mean you queue in a corridor) it might work out cheaper to check in one 20kg suitcase, rather than choosing two 10kg bags of hand luggage and priority boarding.
“This was £5 cheaper on our Alicante route.”
Not only that, but checking it in means you don’t have to follow the liquid restrictions, which limit you to one small plastic bag.
The research found that the Basic Fare, then paying for add ons, was cheaper than the Regular Fare which came with them already.
Which? stated it was £8 cheaper on flights from London to Alicante to pay for priority boarding, luggage and seats on top of the fare, rather than one that includes it all already.
A similar study earlier this year suggested it could save families as much as £100.
According to MoneySavingExpert, a Value Fare for £9.99 was still cheaper when paying for add ons than the Regular Fare of £21 which included them.
They stated: “Savings ranged from 9 per cent to a whopping 59 per cent of the Regular fare.”
If you don’t want to pay for any hand luggage, then there is a £13 bag travellers are swearing by that fits under the plane seat.
The MIG Travel Holdall Bag costs just £12.99, another couple revealed how they avoided paying for luggage with the Narwey duffel bag.
Some passengers have even cheekier methods to save the pennies – such as filling neck pillows with clothes or even filling a normal pillow with stuff.
And here’s a 20p hack one woman swears by when trying to avoid Ryanair’s hand luggage charge.
