An appeal’s court has confirmed a Dutch Advertising Code Committee against air carrier Ryanair for not informing customers of a significant sum of additional costs they had to pay apart from the ticket price when paying by credit card.

In their complaint, the Dutch Association of Tour operators and Travel agents told the committee that a ticket which cost €60 and paid for with a credit card was charged an additional €50 in administration fees.

The customer could only avoid having to pay these additional costs by making use of one specific type of prepaid debit card, hardly available in the Netherlands

Ryanair failed to notify the customer of the lack of availability of this specific card.

The committee in April decided that the additional costs for use of a credit card are not optional or avoidable so they had to be included in the advertised ticket price.

It ruled Ryanair in breach of the Dutch Advertising Code and recommended the airline should stop advertising in this manner.

Ryanair appealed and the Appeal Board has now ruled that the debit card was not an actual alternative so the additional costs were unavoidable and confirmed the committee’s judgement that the costs should have been included in the advertised ticket price.