Are you experiencing problems with RyanAir booking system?

Keri, did you ask your bank to authorize the purchase before trying to buy your ticket? I've had to each time I've made an international purchase or hotel deposit. I told the bank approximately how much, who the purchase was from and that it would be within 24 hours. The purchases--or deposits--then went through without any problems.

Yes, I checked with both banks -- Chase and BofA. Neither had seen any attempt by RA (or anyone) to run any charges yesterday. But thanks for the suggestion -- I know in the past that this has been a source of problems with overseas charges.

Thanks. I tried these tips -- no, go.

I could take this as a sign that we shouldn't be pushing so hard to book this leg with the dreaded RA. Problem is ... we spent the weekend searching alternatives (including train, car) and this flight came up as 'best' so it's hard to break out of the loop and go back to basics.

We need to get from Nice (or, Marseille) to San Sebastian (or, Hendaye (or, Biarritz). The train ride from Nice (or Marseille) to Biarritz is lengthy, so we'd have to overnight in Biarritz before starting south to Hendaye/SS. We thought we could go South to Hendaye at Toulouse (rather than N. to Biarritz) but the connections don't connect nicely (time-wise) so again it's a two-day trip.

We even thought about flying to (say) Geneva, or Madrid. But that was just getting complicated and way too crazy for a 'simple' leg.

Are we missing any more reasonable options? (A car is looking better and better.)

I got the same error when booking a flight on Friday, I too was using a Visa card, but it also said to check my email for a confirmation before retrying. I did and the confirmation was there, checked my bank and the charge went thru. Weird, but glad I checked. I would have hated to have two or three charges go thru.

That's a bit different message -- mine reads "unknown error" and there is no mention of an email confirmation check. I am instructed to either try later or try a different payment type.

Just curious ... what browser were you using? (I am trying it on Safari & Firefox, on 3 different computers, with caches cleared and no pop-up blocking enabled.)

I'm using Internet Explorer

It must have been something wrong/odd with that particular flight (or offer -- it was one of their "no tax" specials, with "only 2 seats left" at that offer price).

I just booked Marseille to Madrid with them, without a burb. (Had been trying the Biarritz route several times a day, even from my iPhone, and always got the same "unknown error" response.) Looks like we were meant to go via Madrid. ;-}