Prepaid Affinity MasterCard Earns Waiver Of Transaction Fee

Ryanair, the Irish low-cost carrier which is quickly becoming legendary for its outrageous a la carte fee ideas, may have sunk to a new low. The airline will now generously allow you to bypass the £6 fee for booking with a debit or credit card by using the new "Ryanair Cash Passport," its specially branded MasterCard.

There's just one catch. That's not a regular credit card, its a prepaid, so-called, credit card. Which means Ryanair gets to earn interest on however much money you pre-pay until you use it. And starting soon, it will be the only prepaid card you can use to book your flight.

This latest idea comes after recent Ryanair proposals for such cost-saving enhancements to the travel experience as pay toilets and saddle-shaped seats which allow standing passengers upright on airliners to cram more people onboard.

Regarding the Ryanair Cash Passport, airline spokesman Stephen McNamara commented last week, "At Ryanair we don’t want your fees, we want to change passenger behaviour so that all passengers book their tickets and travel with us in the lowest cost manner which enables Ryanair to sell the lowest priced airfares..."

FMI: www.ryanair.com/en