LACK IN ASSISTANCE - HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE

Good day to whom this may concern.

We booked our flights from Dublin to Brussels through Budgetair.com. Made the payments and all paperwork was in order. We were never informed firstly; that we need to check in online or pay a penalty of 55€ per person at the airport. Secondly; that we are NOT ALLOWED hand luggage that go with us on the plane and that if we want to carry luggage, that we need to pay an additional 25€ (+- R400) per bag. Thirdly, that we cannot take music instruments on the plane as hand luggage (ALL OTHER AIRLINES HAVE ALLOWED THIS).

When we tried to checkin online the night before our flight (as caution) we were denied and it said "check in later". So, we got to the airport, more than 2 hours before the flight. Upon asking for assistance from one of the Ryanair female attendants, to help us check in, she assisted us by using my phone to check in online and CHECKED IN THE WRONG FLIGHT!!!! She checked in our return flight. This tool up time and we missed thr 2 hour before flight checkin deadline due to HER not assisting us the right way. Not knowing this, she told us to go to the ticket scan section and this is when we saw she checked in our return flight and NOT our depart flight that we were getting on. We were then shown to the checkin counter where we were told "sorry, we cannot assist you", the ladies literally shrugged their shoulders and told us to an additional 55€ (+- R900) per person. We had NO budget for this and were NEVER informed upon booking our flights through your deceiving airline, that this will occur! So, we pay the money and ask the female assistant behind the counter if our hand luggage is fine, she looked at both our small hand luggage bags, as well as the guitar on my back and said yes, those are all small enough and fine to be taken in to the plane as hand luggage for the cabin. (We have ALWAYS travelled with at least one small hand luggage bag each through that goes in the overhead compartment and never had to pay additional, why the hel do they have overhead compartments when we cannot take baggage without paying a ridiculous amount of money??? We already paid a lot for the pathetic flight that did not even offer a cup of water).

We get to our gate, the attendant asks us if we paid and checked in our hand luggage and guitar???? What? We said no, because we were NOT told to do this, the cashier who gave us our tickets said our bags are fine and she did not ask us to pay! Budgetair.com also NEVER informed us of this or even mentioned this in any part of the flight payment procedure!!!!! We were lured in to purchase tickets through their websites on false pretences only to find out about hidden costs of over R3000 ZAR!!!! Do you have any idea how much money that is coming from South Africa????

With no success of anyone helping us and people telling us they don't believe we were told our bags can be taken in the flight, we ended up paying the 100€ (+- R1600) and were told the "hand luggage bags" will still go in the cargo, unlocked, unprepared, they are not allowed on the flight with us????? We have important items in there that we packed for the flight! We have booked through Budgetair.com more than 7 times and have NEVER had to go through this horrible experience.

Now, once we return from Brussels to Dublin on the 3rd January, after our getaway, we need to pay for our luggage AGAIN as the *********** attendant already checked us in for our return flight.

Seeing as we were not allowed ANY hand luggage on the plane, I was unable to carry my medication. This meant should I have a anxiety attack, I had no medication to calm me down or regulate my heart beat and I could have gone into cardiac arrest. Does Budgetair.com or Ryanair care? Ofcourse not! Budgetair.com got their money from us, why would the go the extra mile to tell us what the right procedures around luggage are?

We are absolutely disgusted to say the least and emotionally drained. We will NOT be booking any flights through Budgetair.com in future if this is what client service means and will also be moving our corporate flights for staff that regularly fly for training away from booking with Budgetair.com. We will also rather cancel a whole holiday rather than fly Ryanair.

We require a response as we will NOT pay more penalties for our bags / luggage or checkins when we need to fly back and we will not fly with Ryanair in future after being so discriminated against and treated the way we were over and above the STAFF OF RYANAIR CHECKING US IN THE WRONG WAY CAUSING US TO PAY FOR CHECK-IN! This was NOT our doing. The employee of Ryanair checked us in, on MY phone, and selected the wrong flight and wasted valuable time!

We are in your home country after using our life savings to come visit friends here and are not able to view the beauty as we have now lost a lot of finances due to the above.

May we please have some assistance as we are in no position to go through the above again. We are devastated and emotionally drained.

Details of flight booking: Travelers: BJ Ruthven & CM du Plessis Booking no: BZA-*** Flight number: FR1456

Thank you,