What to watch out for when booking Ryanair

A family could save well over a hundred pounds on their next Ryanair flight by ignoring its recommendation of what kind of fare you should book. 

When we went to book a flight from London to Alicante for a family of four for August this year a banner popped up saying that ''Regular is ideal for your trip'.

But if we'd followed Ryanair's advice – choosing the 'Regular' fare instead of 'Basic' – we'd have ended up paying £59 more for exactly the same luggage and selection of the cheapest seats. With the 'Basic' fare you can add bags and seat selection later in the booking process, for a lower price.

If our family decided that we could get by with four cabin bags instead of the eight included in Ryanair's 'Regular' fare, then we could reduce the fare by £163 from Ryanair's recommendation.

It's just one of the ways you can save money on Ryanair's notoriously complicated website.  

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Rule one: Don't book Ryanair's ‘Regular’ fare

On the first page after you choose your flight you'll be offered the choice of upgrading from the basic fare to 'Regular', 'Plus' or – if you're travelling with children – 'Family Plus'.

If you choose to stick with 'Basic', Ryanair will try to change your mind with a pop-up banner that says 'Regular is ideal for your trip!'.

The Regular fare comes with priority boarding, carry-on luggage and free standard seat selection included, but on around 30 checks over the past two years we've only once found it cheaper.

We looked at 15 flights to a range of locations in February 2026 and only once was the Regular ticket cheaper, even if we wanted all those extras. On seven occasions it was more expensive – often just by a pound or so but sometimes much more.

We saw the biggest differences when booking for families with children. Stansted to Alicante with a family of four cost £61 more if you chose Regular – rather than Basic – for exactly the same priority boarding, cabin bags and seat selection. Manchester to Marrakech was £45.50 more.

Ryanair's 'Regular' fare also assumes that, even if two adults are travelling with two toddlers, they'll want to take a large cabin bag for the overhead locker and a bag to go under the seat for each of the four passengers. If they choose Basic and add fewer bags, separately, they'll save even more.

Return flight for four, with seat selection and at least 10kg of luggage each – prices compared

Flight from Stansted to Alicante, Spain, August 2026 booked in February 2026.

Rule two: Make sure your bag fits

Ryanair’s cabin bag rules are extremely strict. If you’ve only paid the basic fare you’re only allowed to take a small bag that fits underneath the seat in front of you. Since July last year that can be a case of 40cm x 30cm x 20cm.

If your bag is found to be bigger than this at the gate you’ll face a fee of between £46 - £60 (depending on your route).

One person posted on Which? Travel’s Facebook group last year that they were charged £400 for their family of four – on return flights – after they made the mistake of not checking the very strict rules.

Others say that they thought they did know the rules, but were hit by heavy fees for bags they’d used many times before, just because the wheels or the zip pocket at the front were slightly outside of the airline’s measuring cage.

If you have paid to take a cabin case to put in the overhead locker but it turns out to be larger than 55cm x 40cm x 20cm, you’ll have an even bigger fee of between £70 - £75 (again, depending on your route).

The crucial thing to remember is that these measurements must include the handles and the wheels. If Ryanair staff deem any part of your bag to be even slightly oversized, they can hit you with a fee. 

Ryanair argues that the measuring cage is larger than the permitted bag size, so if any part of the bag does not fit inside, the bag is not allowed on board. It said the bag in the picture above 'clearly doesn't comply' as it protrudes in front.

Rule three: Ignore Ryanair's Plus fare

The Plus fare includes a 20kg suitcase and seat selection. But on a summer Stansted to Malaga route we checked in February 2026 it was £35 cheaper for a family of four to choose Basic and get those extras separately. If the family decided they didn't need that much luggage they'd save even more.

In April 2025 Ryanair denied that it's cheaper to buy the basic fare and then add extras rather than use its 'Regular' or 'Plus' fares. It said that extras are 'dynamically priced, using the cheapest available fare at time of booking, and so the Ryanair bundles are the same price as the underlying air fare, plus the extras if booked separately.' 

We asked again in February 2026 and it said it had nothing further to add.

Return flight for four, with seat selection and at least 20kg of luggage each – prices compared

Flight from Stansted to Malaga, Spain, August 2026 booked in February 2026.

Rule four: Ignore Ryanair Flexi Plus fares

It was much the same story with Flexi Plus when we checked last year. You get the right to change your flight without a fee, the option of selecting a seat with more legroom, fast track through security and two cabin bags. 

This cost £354 extra for a couple flying from London to Alicante, but those same extras (minus the fee-free flight change) bought separately were just £186 – £168 cheaper than Flexi Plus. 

You can’t buy the flight change, which is included separately, so Flexi Plus is only worth it if you want all the extras and are unfortunate enough to need to change your travel plans. Ryanair charges £180 for two people to change both legs of a return fare. Even then, you still have to pay any difference in fare.

Rule five: Families probably don't need Ryanair Family Plus

When we checked the price for two adults, a teenager and a four-year-old on the Alicante route last year, a pop-up said a Family Plus ticket is ‘recommended for you’.

But the £260 extra it costs isn't worth it. If we instead bought a cheaper Basic ticket with seat selection, three 10kg cabin bags and a larger 20kg suitcase to check-in, we would pay £45 less. 

With Family Plus, all four – including the toddler – also get a 10kg wheelie suitcase, a 20kg case and small bags each. But you’re unlikely to need that much luggage.

Rule six: Don’t ever add Ryanair travel insurance 

The advice from our travel insurance team is to ignore any airline trying to sell you travel insurance. It’s unlikely to be tailored to your needs and could be more expensive. 

Always check to see if you can get better cover for less. We’ve rated hundreds of policies to help you get the best travel insurance.

Rule seven: Never let Ryanair do your currency conversion

If you book a ticket that starts overseas to fly into the UK, you should always pay in the currency of the country you are departing from.

Ryanair (and other airlines) advertise fares in the currency of the country you depart from, but then convert this into pounds if you are booking from the UK. For example, a family of four flying from Alicante to London this summer would pay €1,439 when we checked in February 2026, which Ryanair then converts this into pounds. But the £1,321 it charged is a terrible exchange rate.

When we checked prices on currency conversion site xe.com, we would have paid £81 more with Ryanair’s automatic currency conversion than with the bank’s rate, if we had just paid in euros. Every time we've checked in the past few years we've found the same terrible rates.

You can opt out of Ryanair’s automatic conversion rate but you have to jump through several hoops to do so. 

How to beat Ryanair’s currency conversion 

After you enter your payment card number a figure appears showing the conversion rate Ryanair is giving you. There’s also a discreet arrow downwards and the legend ‘Want to learn more about our guaranteed exchange rate?’

Click on the arrow and you’ll see the message: ‘If you do not wish to accept the exchange rate, you can pay in the currency of the flight and have the currency converted by your Payment Service Provider. However, bear in mind that the rate you receive from your bank is not guaranteed and is subject to daily fluctuations, which could result in a significantly different cost for you.’

There is also a pre-ticked box and the message: ‘We recommend you do not untick the checkbox so that you receive our guaranteed exchange rate.’

Ignore this warning, untick the checkbox and your exchange rate will be calculated by your bank, rather than Ryanair. In our research, since 2017 when we first investigated this, the bank rate has always been better. 

Ryanair told us that this claim was false and said that its currency conversion is competitive.

Rule eight: Consider checking in a 20kg bag, instead of taking two 10kg bags 

 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 an Alicante route we looked at in 2024 and £3.50 cheaper when we checked again in 2026.

However, prices vary so always check – and remember you will need to collect luggage from the carousel at the airport.

Rule nine: You do need to pay for Ryanair seat selection if you want to guarantee sitting next to your travel companion

With British Airways, easyJet and Jet2 you’ll almost certainly be seated next to your travel companion even if you don’t pay to select a seat. 

More than 90% of people in our most recent airline survey were seated next to their loved-ones without paying. 

For Ryanair that figure was only 62%. Even this means you’ve got a reasonable chance of being sat next to your travel companion without paying, but there is a significant risk of being split up. 

You’ll typically pay from £10 each way (for a standard seat) to £20 (for one with more legroom).

If you do reserve a seat here’s why it pays to choose to sit on the right side of the plane.

Ryanair told us that it's not true that it's more likely to split passengers up than other airlines.

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