Ryanair have recently announced a new frequent flyer annual subscription called Ryanair Prime. But many of us are wondering what exactly is Ryanair Prime? How much does it cost, will it get you cheaper Ryanair flights, and ultimately, does it really save you money? So, I’ve researched the whole scheme to bring you up to speed with their newest offering.
What is Ryanair Prime
Ryanair Prime is a new subscription scheme that can supposedly save money for frequent flyers. Introduced in March 2025, there are still lots of questions around the membership. But, the main offerings are free seats, insurance and exclusive sales for cheaper Ryanair flights.
The first thing to note is that there are only 250,000 memberships available at the moment, on a first come, first serve basis. The scheme is also only available to customers from the following countries.
- Austria
- Belgium
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Ireland
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Poland
- Portugal
- Spain
- UK
What are the benefits and details of Ryanair Prime?
As mentioned above, there are three main benefits being advertised. These are free seat selection, exclusive sales for cheaper flights and travel insurance. This all sounds great on the surface. But there are also things you should know before making your decision to sign up.
Free seat selection
Unfortunately, it’s not as hunky dory as it sounds. Firstly, you only get free seat selection on 12 flights. This means either 12 one way flights, or 6 returns. Also, the seats are specific rows (from row 18 onward). So, you can’t get extra leg room seats for free and you will always be at the back of the plane.
There are also some other drawbacks in the terms and conditions. For example, they state that there are limited numbers of reserved seating available on each flight. So there isn’t actually any guarantee that the free seats will be available. On top of this, you can only book seats within your prime membership period. This restricts advanced booking to an extent. Let’s say your membership runs until June but you want to book a flight in July. You won’t be able to use your seat selection benefit for your July booking. Instead, you would have to wait until the new subscription period starts to get the benefit. Seems a bit stingy, right?
One positive thing they have said is that you can use your prime membership to book other seats and pay the difference. The included seats cost £8, so you can essentially book extra legroom seats with an £8 discount. This makes it feel more like their giving you an £8 voucher towards seats, rather than free seat selection.
Travel insurance
Ryanair Prime gives you travel insurance for all Ryanair flights you take within your subscription period. This covers flight cancellation and delays, medical emergencies and damaged or stolen luggage. This also sounds great on the surface, but with some more digging, it is actually quite basic insurance. I would assume that most frequent flyers already have comprehensive travel insurance which would be much stronger than what they are offering.
Some restrictions on the insurance include delays only being covered if they are over 12 HOURS! As well as theft of cash having a limit of £100 and not covering theft from your accommodation. There are also a lot of exclusions which make the insurance quite unreliable. For example, you can’t claim with them if you can claim elsewhere, such as with your home insurance or credit card. You are also not covered for claims if Ryanair cancel your flight within 14 days of departure, which seems very poor. You can find the full details here.
In my opinion, frequent flyers will get much more value from other insurance providers or travel credit cards.
Exclusive sales – cheap flights
It’s difficult to know how valuable this will be at the moment. Ryanair claim that you can access cheaper flights. They say you can save up to £420 over 12 flights or £105 over 3 flights. This claim is suggesting up to £35 per flight. However, they have not released any of these exclusive sales yet. You will receive monthly emails with exclusive offers but I would assume that you will need to be quite flexible if you want to make the most of these sales. Usually, sales are for specific cheap Ryanair flights or time periods which puts restrictions on many travellers trying to use them. One positive to this is that there are no restrictions on how many flights you can book through this system.
They have also said that the sale fares may be discontinued between the time of the email and you booking the flight. Also, like the seat selection, the booking must be within the subscription period.
Other ‘benefits’
Ryanair Prime has also listed some other ‘benefits’. As a member, you have the option to add a ‘Prime Companion’ who will get access to the benefits. But, this appears to be an extremely strange proposal. Why? Because you have to pay the full £79 per year for them too. So they may as well just buy their own. Especially as you have to choose one Prime Companion when you sign up and there is not guarantee that you will get seated together even if they are registered as your companion.
If you are travelling with children, you can add one child under the age of two to your booking with Ryanair Prime. However, they will be classed as a normal passenger and won’t have access to the Prime benefits. Then, any children aged 2-15 years cannot be added to your booking. This means you have to book them separately and then link them to your booking. This also seems extremely silly. You can find out more here.
Image by Niklas Jeromin
Is Ryanair Prime actually worth it?
This really depends on your individual travel routine and preference. If you book 12 Ryanair flights per year and always pay for seats, it is definitely worth it as your seats will be cheaper over the year. You can then also save on the exclusive sales on top of this. If you are very flexible and can make the most of the Ryanair Prime exclusive sales, it would probably be worth it for you too. Especially as they claim you can get your money’s worth from just three bookings.
However, if you only fly a few times a year with Ryanair, or you have to plan your trips with good notice, I would so no. Personally, I won’t be subscribing because I never pay for seat selection, and although I can be very flexible with my flights, I don’t only fly with Ryanair and don’t trust that the exclusive sales are always going to be worth it, especially if they aren’t flying to places I want to go. I think we also need to remember that they are a business. So, it wouldn’t make sense for it to implement a scheme like Ryanair Prime that is going to cost any of its profits.
Conclusion
Ryanair Prime is an annual subscription service that will cost £79 per year. Although it sounds great, there are a lot of terms and conditions which make it valuable to a small number of frequent and flexible travellers. At the end of the day, you need to decide whether this fits your own travel habits but for me, it isn’t valuable enough. There are definitely more reliable ways to save money on flights.
If you have signed up to Ryanair Prime leave a comment with what you think about it. Thanks for spending the time to read the article.
