avoid ryanairs credit card fees

Mr. O'Leary will love me for this but I just booked a flight and saved paying the 5euro each way/per person charge for using my credit card. It is simple and here is how:

1. Head over to entropay.com and sign up. Create a virtural card and leave it at that for the moment.
2. Start booking your Ryanair flight.
3. Don't add any extra's or bags, just pay for the flight and the web check in fee of 5euro each way/per person.
4. When you get to the payment screen, select Visa Electron and watch as the total doesn't increase!
5. Head back over to EntroPay and load your card with the required amount, down to the cent. You will be charged a loading fee, but I will talk about that below*
6. Copy the details of your new virtural card and paste them into the Ryanair website where they ask you for your Visa Electron Card (I used my own address).
7. Click Pay!
8. Once the flight is confirmed go back to the main Ryanair homepage and click manage your booking using Option 3. You can then choose to add more bags or extras. You can use your main Credit Card now as it won't be charged the 5euro handling fee!

*EntroPay charge a fee of 4.95% to load the card. Booking your flight without bags etc will cut down the EntroPay charge as it is a percentage of the amount you are loading. You can pay for the bags with your normal credit card without any fees once the flight is booked.

Please note, this method is only beneficial if the cost of the flight and online check-in is under 202euro per person (404euro for two people etc..), mine was 77.32euro. I believe my maths is sound. Here is what I just paid for my flight using EntroPay:

I know it is only a 6.17euro saving, but because it is Ryanair it is even more sweeter!

On a side note, it has been a long time since a post here, but there have been many over on tumblr! I am also in a position to talk once again about the Amazing Teaching Council of Ireland.... but that's another post!

free priority boarding

****WARNING****

This post is only for fun and meant to point out how poor security is and how easy it is to change your boarding card. Changing your boarding card may result in you not being able to board and prosecuted.
****END****

I fly a fair bit with Ryanair. I was reading their in-flight Mag on my recent flight with them to see that there is a glaring mistake in their "aren't we a great airline company" page:

That bit in the middle:

Passengers who avail of our FREE online check-in service enjoy the double benefit of skipping queues at both check-in and boarding, as Check'N'Go passengers automatically receive priority boarding onto their flight.

Besides that mistake and Ryanair stealing €5 from you each way if you want Priority Boarding, I thought what is stopping you editing your own printed off boarding card to give yourself Free Priority Boarding?

It turns out nothing! And I sucessfully managed to skip the queue on my recent trip with a modified Boarding Card. I present to you my:

Guide to Free Priority Boarding in 10 Easy Steps!

1. Book a flight with Ryanair

2. Choose: 0 Bags & Online Check-in And No to being one of the first to board the aircraft:

3. Have a PDF Printer installed on your PC. I use PDF 995, It's Free!

4. Check-in online up to 5 days before your flight and print your boarding card to PDF.

5. Open the PDF in Photoshop (YES! You can do that!)

6. Move the page down a bit to make room for the two new lines:

7. Add the text: PRIORITY BOARDING PASS in Arial, 14pt, Bold Italic.

8. Print the Image to PDF, scale it to A4 size.

9. Open the PDF and then print it to your physical printer.

10. Enjoy FREE Priority Boarding :-)

jamboree 2008

The First Irish Scout Jamboree was held in Punchestown this Summer from the 2nd to the 10th 9th of August. It was an experience.

This will be a post in pictures because Bloggers auto-save didn't work last night! So I only took my new camera out twice over the Jamboree, at the Opening Cermony, and on the last day. This is due to the fact it was really wet and I was working my ass off for most of it.

The opening ceremony.
So much promise and excitement. It was going to be great.

The box that arrived via coast guard helicopter!

It was Christy inside, our Camp Chief!!

Then lots of stuff happened... and fast forward to the end:


At the end of the couple of days, here is a view of our campsite, after the water receded.

It was way worse this this two days before.

Driving across the campsite.
Impossible to avoid the puddles!

An Taoiseach, at the opening ceremony. Someone took the original video message on their camera phone after catching him after he received communion. He was clearly reading off a sheet of paper. But it was more than we got off our Patron!
So that was the best of my pictures, more on my flickr photostream. I'm not going to get into all the problems there was and mistakes made. There is plenty of discussion on the chat forum.

Overall, It wasn't Great and I think it is silly to even suggest it. I wouldn't even say it was satisfactory. Infact thinking back I don't even want to talk about it much. I'm just posting here incase anyone wanted to know my reaction to it, and in that case.... It was a Shamboree!

am * dam

Just back from Amsterdam and I had a good time!

You can fly into Amsterdam with AerLingus from Dublin or Cork, but it was cheaper for me to get a Ryanair flight to and from Dublin than pay the huge price for the Cork flight. I've also restored my loyalty and faith in Ryanair. AerLingus are a bunch of hippies. They can't have it both ways, low fairs and high quality reputation. Has anyone been on an AerLingus flight that was on time?

So anyway we stayed in two different Hostels for the week.
De Lantaerne
This was right in the heart of the popular Leidseplein location, great for partying and bars. Be warned tho, to get to our room (which was a box, but did it's job) on the 4th floor, we had to walk up and down 88 steps!
Y Boulevard Hotel
Once we got tired of walking up and down those steps we moved to this Hotel, which was closer to central station and a nicer friendlier hotel, not to mention a way nicer breakfast! Nice and quite compared to the last one.

There is loads of Museums to keep ya occupied, but be warned about the Van Gogh Museum, he decided to become a painter at the age of 27 and then only did 10 years work before killing himself. Didn't think he deserved a whole Museum dedicated to himself! Also the Museum of Bags and Purses completely fail to mention Scottish sporrans at all!

My final gripe with the city is a meal we went out for, seeing this sign:

Yet after ordering my meal (of spare ribs with fries and salad) I got charged €17 for the ribs! I questioned it and was told basically since I didn't order it off the special menu, I had to pay the full amount! JERKS! So be warned, avoid Argentinos Restaurant just off Dam Square!

So I should put putting up more photos on Flickr, but I have stuff to do now. Off to National Council this weekend I think to decide what kind of Programme we will be offering to our youth members!

travel thoughts

Here are some thought and observations from my recent trip to Sweden:
Ryanair:

• It is impossible to hear announcements on board. They always seem to have 4 stewards working, usually 2 native English speakers and 2 non-native. The non-native English speakers will do all the talking into the PA system making it nearly impossible to understand their thick eastern European or Russian (I'm certain it was Russian, he looked like he was with the KGB!)
• If you dress up like a pilot you get free food. Wear a white shirt with epaulets and a ID badge. Sit either in the 1st row or the emergency exits in the middle. Introduce yourself as you board the plane. Always say your new. Then when it comes time for the food trolley to come around, order something to drink and eat and offer to pay with not enough money. They guy I was sitting next to ordered a cappuccino (€2.95) and a slice of pizza (€4) and offered to pay with a fiver. He got his meal for free! Altho he did spill the cappuccino all over his shirt and had to go change! :-)
• They love flight change emails. These are emails they send to inform you that they will be leaving 30 minutes earlier than when you booked the flight. I've received seven so far (I got another one this morning), I even got one an hour before boarding my flight! I wonder when it will stop.
  

Dublin Airport:

• The Secret Door. When flying out to Dublin on a domestic flight to somewhere in the Republic of Ireland, there is another door to security you can go through. This will cut at least 5 minutes or 10 at busy times queuing up to go through security. It is just to the left of the main queue, manned by one person who will check your boarding card. Handy to know!

MAXroam:

• Texts aren't cheap. It was my first outing with my MAXroam sim. I put a message on my Irish mobile number, if people needed me, try me on my MAXroam number. The thing was everyone knew I was going away, no one needed to ring me! I do communicate a lot through texts on the other hand. On my Vodafone sim it was €0.29 to send a text, and it was €0.08 more expensive to send it on my MAXroam sim.
  
• Saying all this I could have saved about €0.04/min to receive or anything from €0.09-0.20/min to make a call.
• It didn't work out too well for me in Sweden. The Vodafone Group are over there making sure they keep costs down for their users. I'm sure in another country the pros would outweigh the cons. I really need to find a dual sim phone for trips!

asshole

Another Year, another trip to Clon, another year where nobody knows the right/correct/any rules of asshole. So I have decided I'd do some research.

Asshole is a card game first introduced by Seb. It is usually played once a year, at New Years and has been played for the last 6 years! Over those years the game has transformed into a hybrid of the original and a game of switch. I want to find the original rules we used so in 12 months time, we can have another argument about them. At least I'll have something that represents the original ones!

First stop, wikipedia. It has a page on the game. Its not so bad, the layout is a bit hard to read, it is an article about the game, not how to play it. So the search continued.

Google provided me with a load of pages with different variations of the game, all hard to read and understand. I tried to read through a few of them, they all mostly had the idea, but each was boring and didn't sound like I was getting the complete game. I then remembered one of the words from the original game and threw that into the search query: Waterfall!

I found the complete, concise and easiest to read rules of Asshole. These guys seem to have mastered the game after perfecting it after many attempts. It covers everything from the general rules & special cards to players rank & terms used! It is the closest thing I've found online to match the original game and it looks like it is fun to play too!

• Rules for playing Asshole - 87C Style

I'll be printing out a copy of this for next year.

free tripit tshirt

I got an email today from Tripit!

Since words cannot express our full gratitude for all your support and feedback, we're offering the early beta testers of TripIt a free TripIt T-Shirt...sure to be a collector's item.

Yay me!

jamboreeing

This week I'm off to Jiingijamborii, the Swedish national Jamboree and their dry run for the next World Jamboree in 2011! I'll be helping out on the Information Stands and giving tours! I'm their native English speaker! So not sure about connections and blog posts while I'm there. If there is any wireless Access to be found I will be updating Twitter! I had added the New Twitter Badge to my side bar for those of you who just visit the website and have no idea what a Twitter is!



I'm then flying from there to London on the 24th of July for the World Scout Jamboree. I'm a KISC Bitch there. Again if I do have access, I will Twitter some Updates! Oh! I may also have a UK Sim :-) so I could cheaply update Twitter via txt!

But I'm sure there will be posts on both these topics in future!

Take it easy and Enjoy the Summer or whatever this time of year is supposed to be called. Talk to ya in August!

sweden

I've been here in Sweden almost 3 weeks now. I'm having a great time!

My first impression of Sweden looking from the plane is that it is very green and full of forests! It puts Ireland to shame considering were billed as the emerald isle. Still tho there is a vast amount of open space and unpopulated areas. You can see when I put Ireland on a map next to Sweden. It is quite a big place!

The Swedish people like one thing as far as I can see and that is the Eurovision! They sing songs from previous years and are surprised when I am unfamiliar with what they are singing. Yet they couldn't recall last years Irish Entry, but i doubt many Irish people could. (It was Brian Kennedy - Every Song Is A Cry For Love for those of you about to fire off a Google Search) I even experienced a SwedishSingStar night!

Their licence plates on their cars are a load of TLA's. (All you business students will know what i mean!) So that keeps me amused also seeing POO on a car is quite amusing... I wonder if they paid extra for that?

In Sweden (the land of the mid-night sun) they celebrate Mid-Summers. You know, the longest day of the year. I headed up north to Rättvik where We celebrated the longest day by Decorating the May-Pole and then Dancing around it singing songs like some kinda cult. I was assured that it wasn't a cult afterwards, as it was traditional Swedish custom. They are a funny nation. Photos on Flickr!

I also went on a visit to Stockholm. Stayed at the Backpackers Inn (twitter review) and met up with Lovisa for a mini reunion! We saw the changing of the guards (12noon Saturdays and Wednesdays and 13:00 on Sundays!) as well seeing Old town which was really old. The Treasury and the City Hall. Again, Photos on Flickr!

One of the most interesting places was the Vasa Museum:

The Vasa is the world’s only surviving 17th-century ship and one of the foremost tourist sights in the world.

I didn't get to Skansen due to the weather. It was really shite, really Irish. There was a break in the weather for a few hours the first evening, and the city looked quite nice and amazing in the sun! So more of an excuse to go back and visit.

I also succeeded in my mission to visit and IKEA! Not to bad for my first visit IKEA (Yes, you have to type it as tho you were shouting it each time.... IKEA!!!!) being a Swedish IKEA!



So far the only down side to the trip is the weather. Global warming is really kicking me in the ass since it dealt me a lovely and snowy winter! There has been only a small few days I can say were Summer days; wake up and it is warm and sunny and stays that way till night. Instead it has been like the successful Scottish pop band of the 80's, 90's and noughties, Wet Wet Wet.

Overall it has been great! :-D

update

What I've been up to lately:

• A bit of house keeping, replacing Gurr with Grrr! It turns out I was expressing the wrong emotion! Sorry Vanessa, hope I make more sense now!

• I'm trying to sort out my flights to return to Canada Ireland, but my USIT login isn't working. They updated the system to the 2007 programme! So I'm waiting for a reply from USIT. That could be some time... BASTARDS!

• I'm also waiting for Scouting Ireland to get back to me re: My application for Jiingijamborii, which I sent them 3 weeks ago, and still no results! international@scouts.ie seem to just gobble up emails.

• I have also added a small AdSense banner at the bottom of all pages on my blog. I'm noticing a difference with a few people clicking! It is only small, it blends in and most people won't notice it as it's at the bottom of the page!

• Besides that, I'm a terrible team member on Geared Up Blog, but constantly looking for a new story. Any ideas? Drop me a mail! Thanks!

• I'm also quite busy at work:

P.S. Sorry for clogging everyones RSS readers up when I updated a few of the posts. Blame Blogger!

UPDATE: I'm returning to Ireland not Canada! Thanks Elisabeth :-)

canada

I have arrived in Canada! My first time leaving Europe (if you don't include the trip across Istanbul to Asia... which I am counting, so its my second!) and my first long haul flight! It was myself and Conor who went from Cork with Aer Lingus to London Heathrow and onto Vancouver with British Airways.

I had my rucksack, Ski and Boot bags and carry on bag. Conor had his carry on bag, suitcase and snowboard bag. Our limit was 2 pieces of luggage and we were allowed carry an extra bag for ski's or snowboard (and boot bag). So we could of had 2 pieces of luggage each AND ski & boot bag or snowboard bag! But no... that wasn't the case... The Aer Lingus lady charged us €30 each for the carriage of our ski's and snowbaord! Even tho Conor was only carrying 2 pieces of luggage and within his limit, and all i had was 1 boot bag extra.

Aer Lingus were totally unhelpful or understanding where we were coming from. It was a code share flight, basically a British Airways flight operated by Aer Lingus. We had no problems in London because we were always within our luggage limits! Its just Aer Lingus being stupid. I will avoid flying with them again.

Besides that, everything went great, we arrived in Vancouver Wednesday. Eventually found the right bus to our Hostel, Hostel International Central on Granville Street. It was a really nice place. Good atmosphere! The free breakfast in the morning was worth while getting up for! They also have free Internet access (if you bring your laptop!), bring an Ethernet cable in case all the table are taken!

From there we went to our SWAP orientation meeting where we learnt all about living in Canada and what to do and not do while we were there. We sorted out all the paper work like applying for our Social Insurance Number and sim card. We then went off to the Bank to open our Canadian Bank account in TD Canada Trust! It was actually weird opening it. We were brought into an office and this financial advisor started having a conversation with us! Interested in us and how we were before we even started talking about opening an account! Home in Ireland if we went into a bank looking to open an account we would be asked to fill out this form. Totally different!

So after lunch and the collection of our sim cards for our phones we made our way to Whistler. It took a bit longer as it started to snow that day and the bus driver had to take his time! We were met by a not as hairy, but still quite hairy Irish, Scottish, Canadian! There was a nice dusting of snow from the first day of snow that day, making the place have that wintry feel.

The next day we explored the village and did some shopping. It has been raining ever since and now all the snow has washed away. Everything is just wet now!! But at least i will get to see the place without snow before the heavy stuff arrives! The job search starts on Monday and i already have a few places in mind, like the Irish Pub! Who know, but keep your fingers crossed for me! I'll keep ya posted!

week around ireland

I had a friend come visit for a week and a bit around Ireland. All the tourist areas like:

Bus to Newgrange!

Newgrange, one of the passage tombs of the Brú na Bóinne complex in County Meath

Ringing the Bells of Shandon, 3 blind mice!

View of Cork City from the top!

Blarney Castle, Stone Kissed!

Torc Waterfall, Kilarney!

Top of Torc Mountain!

Charles Fort Kinsale!

Nice Sign on the Cliffs of Moher!

The View over the Edge on the Cliffs!

Bunratty Castle, County Clare!

Kilmainham Jail/Goal

Fun week, really good, not its just time for Canada preparation!

isic

I'm off to Canada in 3 weeks. I got my International Student Identity Card in the post last week from USIT. I paid for it back in April when i had to fork out for the visa and flights. I only got it last week because when i went looking for it, they told me i never sent up any photo for it, so i sent one up! 6 months later i receive it and notice that it is valid from 01/09/2005 until 31/12/2006.

Now I'm off in 3 weeks on my Student Visa with my Student flights expecting to be basically being a student! I couldn't be more wrong. According to USIT they only needed me to be a student to book the flights and couldn't care less what my status is after that. In fact they couldn't care less if i physically had the card.

The ISIC Card (i know the last C of ISIC means Card) will get me many discounts on bus and rail as well as in shops etc while I'm over on Canada on my Student Visa, except after 2 months of use i won't be able to use the card anymore!

They have the system sewn up and don't care what people think. They are nothing more than a big bully and with their monopoly they are sitting pretty. Funny the Government doesn't step in, considering they are all against monopoly's in the travel industry and all!

rules of shotgun

The term "Shotgun" refers to the front passenger seat of an automobile. "Calling Shotgun" is the act of claiming the position of Shotgun for one's self. As this position is the most coveted of all positions when riding in a car. -ShotgunRules.com

These are the rules that i use for any car I drive:

• The driver makes the rules i.e. me!
• You must say "shotgun"
• You must be able to see the car and driver at the same time but the driver doesn't need to be able to see the car
• It must be called as you are heading towards the car to get into it
• If you sit down in shotgun before anyone calls it, you retain shotgun
• Shotgun has to do missions involving someone leaving the car i.e. to call into and collect someone, bringing rubbish to the bin etc...
• Once shotgun is called, it remains the callers until either:
  
  1. the caller leaves the car for the rest of the journey
     
  2. everyone leaves the car for a mission that involves some sitting down or an extended time away
     
• Once shotgun is called, everyone else can call seats they don't want to sit in i.e. "calls not in the middle" or "calls not sitting behind Darran"
• The drivers significant other as well as the cars owner automatically get shotgun
• Any problems or discrepancies can be resolved by the driver who may call for a game of rock, paper, scissors.
• The driver also has the ability to remove shotgun from anyone for whatever reason they like!
  

They are my rules and subject to change without notice!

taking the piss

Ian taking a piss in a HUGE tree on the road trip!

And the fire at camp on the last night. The light sticks, as we call them, made it!

road trip

Just home from our Road Trip. Last week we decided we had nothing to do for the weekend and beyond, so the most logical thing to do is go on a Road Trip!

You can download see the Route with Google Earth with this file: File [right click, save as]

We started here in Cork, went to towards Sligo, The Giant's Causeway next and then back to Kerry and then home! Over the 4 days, according to the GPS which i had on when traveling, we covered 1444km, just under 24hours moving and nearly 8 hours stopped. Max speed was 140km/h and average moving speed of 61.7km/h!!

Here are some of the Photos!

Bunratty Castle!Gayest Pose EVER!!!!

Welcome to Lovely Leitrim!I don't like Conor!!

The Giant's Causeway!

Welcome to Muff!!!!

Bow Chicka Bow Wow!

taxes and charges

I was looking for flights to Dublin and the two airlines that fly from Cork to Dublin are AerArann and RyanAir. As the good consumer that i am, or maybe it was the poor student inside me, i checked out both websites. The AerArann flights are €10 base price with taxes and charges added on later. The RyanAir flight was €0.01 base price with taxes and charges added on later.

Score one RyanAir.

Then when it came to adding on the taxes and fees, you'd think that because both airlines are flying out of the same airport going to the same airport at about the same time, the taxes and charges would be the same. Altho maybe the RyanAir one would be more to make up for the fact that the actual price is 1cent.

It turns out that they are not the same, AerArann charges €19.99 where as RyanAir is only €9.98 which is €10.01 in the difference! That's the price of another AerArann and another RyanAir flight to Dublin!!

Score one RyanAir.

Going further into the booking process you realise RyanAir charge you to check on a bag, €3.50 which AerArann does not charge for.

Score one AerArann. [null]

Finally there is a handling Fee for booking with a Credit Card and with my MasterCard, AerArann would of charged me €6 and RyanAir Charges €2.50.

Score one RyanAir. [null]

So looking back at the process the only advantage AerArann has over RyanAir is that it doesn't charge you to check in luggage. But the little fee of €3.50 would balance out the handling fee making both companies charge €6. So if you Null those two to even out the playing field, RyanAir still has 2 up on AerArann.

Total cost for a flight from Cork to Dublin booked with MasterCard with 1 Bag checked on:
AerArann: €35.99
RyanAir: €15.99
Difference: €20.00
(which would pay for my flight back with RyanAir!)

All that aside the real question is why are Taxes, Fees and Charges completely different for the two airlines!?

AerArann Taxes and Fees

RyanAir Taxes, Fees & Charges

oh how i hate ye

USIT. For those of you luckily enough not to of heard about these Bastards before, they are one of the Student, Youth and Independent Travel companies here in Ireland. They have the monopoly for issuing the Canadian Visa's this year, and the only way of getting a visa is going through them. This includes a nice fat fee of €€379 just for the visa. And then you must fork out between €€600 and €€775 for a flight to Canada, which I must pay for in full by tomorrow, even though I'm going till November.

So I decided to ring the call centre today to book the flights. Today being Good Friday, and NOT A PUBLIC HOLIDAY so they have no right closing up shop. I've been ringing and ringing all morning and pressing 1 to book a new flight, as well as all the other options, but my call just keeps on getting dropped. I then decided to try the rest of the offices around the country. Each one no answer. I tried the North Office and got through straight away. They are open, and she said the South is closed because of Good Friday. BASTARDS. Grrrr!!

But they will be open tomorrow, so I can book my flight tomorrow, and bitch to them some more.

Man, I am so angry at this joke company. They treat you like shit and you can't do anything, not one thing about it.

everybody go surfing

What a weekend!! We has a class time, and I mean class time in Castlegregory!! What a place! The beach goes on for miles in either direction, the water is as clear as crystal, just walking up and down it, I could of sworn I was back in Gran Scon'be'ya!

We had loads of fun in the sand dunes, in the caravan, in the water and in the cars!! I tried my hand at surfing, and I can't get the hang of it, as expected, but I make a very good photographer of those guys surfing!!

Hopefully next weekend we can go back again. And what really made it was this weather, it was lovely!!And so far, its staying good this week too. Today is the hottest day of the year so far!