Booked a flight from Birmingham to Dublin with Aer Lingus rather than Ryanair (paid considerably more) because this is my first flight since major heart surgery and we were testing out how well I travelled and trusted Aer Lingus more. Booking of flight O.K until we were asked to choose our seats and discovered that these are now to be paid for. Complaint is that this payment was requested after I had pressed the button and paid on credit card for flight. Had never paid for seats with A.L before, always included in flight price (although due to illness it is a while since we travelled)/no indication of additional payment on website although on examining the small print, this was mentioned. When tried to book seats free, message came up to say that all seats except to U.S.A. must be paid for. We were aggrieved and considered this bad practice and hence, wanted to cancel and go with Ryanair, tried E Mailing - could not - eventually phoned at 10p per minute (in queue so not sure how much it cost us) and told there was no way of getting our money back, also told we did not have to book seats, would be allocated at airport (despite web site saying we had to). We are not averse to paying for seats but feel this should be included in overall costs like luggage etc., and not as an addition after we have already paid for the flight, which we consider to be very bad practice. All is forgiven Ryanair; however if we had the choice we would never fly to Ireland again - but we have Grandchildren living there.