So I have 2 bags. The normal "sane" carriers have an international common weight restriction of 23Kg. Of course Ryan Doesn't. I don't want to pay for extra KG (9 L per KG, are you kidding!). I know Ryan allows bag pooling. So it turns out it will be cheaper to pay for an extra bag and use that excess weight capacity to add to the pool.

All good so far. So can I just not bring a third bag?? If I don't bring that bag, can I still pool between the 3 bags?

So for instance
Bag 1 23Kg
Bag 2 23Kg
Bag 3 (10 Kg Dummy bag) <-- don't bring this bag

Can you just check an empty box?

If you pay for 20kg bags, then each bag cannot be heavier than 20kg without incurring the overweight fee.

Having paid for a 3rd unused bag doesn't get around the limit of 20kg on the other bags (unless you physically remove 3kg from each of the first two bags, and check this third 6kg bag in as the third 10kg bag you already paid for anyway).

If your intention is that having paid for a 3rd 10kg bag, which you then don't use, can be used to "offset" the extra 6kg you have stuffed into the other bags, that's not how it works. Paying for a 3rd 10kg bag only allows you to check in a 10kg bag. It doesn't allow you to evade the excess baggage fee for checking in other bags heavier than their own 20kg limit, even if the excess weight is less than 10kg. That "extra" 10kg you paid for was for a separate, third bag. If you don't bring such a third bag to check in, then you just wasted the 10kg bag fee for nothing.

This isn't correct. You can pool the bag weight. I've done it before and it's pretty common knowledge for Ryanair. You can pool bags given any bag is not greater than 32kg. It's also on their website.

Yes, the IrishGuy is totally wrong.
But does anyone know if the 3rd bag has to be actually checked in?

Did you end up checking a 3rd bag?

I have basically the same question, so I'm bumping this thread to see if we can get an answer.

Is bag pooling allowed?

Yes. Bag pooling is allowed between passengers with check-in bags on the same flight reservation. This means that if you have 2 20kg Check-in Bags (40kg total) on your booking, one of those bags could weigh 15kg while the other weighs 25kg. However, no bag can weigh more than 32kg.

See here: https://help.ryanair.com/hc/en-gb/ar...%20than%2032kg.

That is not the qestion, so the answer is non sequitur. To summarize the actual question, if you pay for three 20kg bags, are you allowed to check in two 30kg bags, or are you forced to check in a third (possibly empty) bag? I found one post on Reddit that indicates Ryanair forces you to check in a third bag, but the OP and I are wondering if that is really true since I don't trust Reddit.

As a data point, flying out of Venice today, Ryanir would not let me pool my 2x20kg and 4x10kg purchased total weight of 80 kg across my three physical bags with an actual total weight of 71kg.

I had to purchase another suitcase and check in a tiny pointless bag.

i asked what is the minimum bag I had to check to pool over these dummy bags and the answe was anything that zips.

This policy is completely insane and not how I read the bag pooling instructions on their website. There is zero reason I had to check in two ghosts bags, the weight was exactly the same. I paid for 80kg with no one bag exceeding 32kg, it shouldn't matter if I did it with 3 or 6 bags.

I sent ryanair an email, I don't expect anything to come of it. I asked them to explicitly clarify the rules because it is ambiguous. Or the checkin person was having a bad morning.

To followup on this, my ticket was automatically closed and I was told to consult the FAQ. I filled out their survey and requested someone contact me to clarify this policy and still nothing.

Ryanair finally emailed me months later. They confirmed I was correct about the policy and apologized for any confusion with the desk agent. They did not offer any restitution.

So I suppose the lesson here is to escalate to a supervisor? Not sure if that would have gotten anywhere in Venice. But the official policy is you do not need N bags to fill up N slots. You should be able to use all the weight you purchased up to individual bag limits as outlined in their response above.

Why not tell them unless they cough up you're starting a Small Claims Court case against them? They don't have a leg to stand on.

Because I bought a new suitcase instead of paying for the "overage" I don't really have any damages. Otherwise I would have asked for the overage charge to be refunded.