General Chat

[villa4europe]

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

I was about 30 minutes short of a huge compensation claim when we went to the states. I think it would be something like £500 each.

We did. get out monies worth out of the airport lounge we were in for the extra hours so it wasn’t too bad.

Capped at 600€ on the EU thing 

Needs to be landing 4 hours late and over a certain distance or something like that

I did it when I flew from brum to dusseldorf then on to Cuba, the brum flight was late so I missed the connection, had to fly out to munich and then on to Cuba the next day

Same as lapal the compensation paid for the whole trip

I'm guessing after brexit you can't do it anymore 

The worst thing about it was Munich was - 18° and I was flying out to Cuba in **** shorts

[chrisp65]

Many years ago, when the hovercraft was still a thing, we came home from our honeymoon in Paris on the hovercraft and it managed to have a slight accident on arrival at Dover and smashed our luggage.

The Hovercraft team at Dover were incredible, they got all the compo forms out, filled in all the detail on what ‘flight’ it was and what had happened, signed and witnessed the bottom, got all the signatures sorted, stamped it approved. All the schizz.

They just left the middle bit blank where we had to describe what we’d lost. They told us to go home and have a really good long think about what exactly we lost in total as they were sure there would have been lots of expensive cameras and shoes and presents and things that we couldn’t remember straight away but doubtless we’d remember over the next few days.

We sent in the claim, which was basically just me writing out the contents of the Argos catalogue, and they sent us a cheque 3 days later.

Why on earth I’d taken a set of ladders, a Foreman Grill, metal garage shelving and a rotary washing line on holiday I’ll never know.  

 

[Genie]

Just now, villa4europe said:

Capped at 600€ on the EU thing 

Needs to be landing 4 hours late and over a certain distance or something like that

I did it when I flew from brum to dusseldorf then on to Cuba, the brum flight was late so I missed the connection, had to fly out to munich and then on to Cuba the next day

Same as lapal the compensation paid for the whole trip

I'm guessing after brexit you can't do it anymore 

The worst thing about it was Munich was - 18° and I was flying out to Cuba in **** shorts

Sounds about right. When they said 4 hour delay I was checking online and started to see the pound signs.

They rushed like crazy to get the flight out, it landed 30 mins shy of the cutoff which was annoying. Usually when flying to Florida the plane goes West towards NY and then down the US coast. This one went diagonally across the Atlantic to make the time back. 

We’d booked into the Virgin airport lounge so had an extra 4 hours of eating their food and drinking their beer. I was ready to burst by the time I got on the plane  

[Genie]

On 05/07/2021 at 08:19, Genie said:

After all this talk of credit cards and me having one I barely use I’m now using it multiple times a day.

The bank cancelled my debit card on Friday due to some suspicious fraudulent activity they managed to block.

Waiting for replacement to arrive….

New card arrived. Went to update Apple Pay on my phone as I use it a lot… card is already updated. 
Lloyds and Apple got together in the background and did it. It’s good, but also feels a little bit invasive.

[Rugeley Villa]

I had a lot of fraud going on in my account last year run up to Xmas. Me and my partner have apple accounts and a lot of it was saying apple on the account. Then there were a lot of payments few quid here or a few pence there. Anyway turns out over so many months they had taken over 1k. The bank put the money back and we had to change passwords on our online accounts etc and get a new card. 

[fightoffyour]

On 02/07/2021 at 12:27, Genie said:

This reminded me of a story of an old colleague.

He went to the US on business and the policy was business or first class travel for such a distance.

You’d pay for it yourself and then claim it back from work in your return.

On the return flight he goes to check in and they apologise that they’ve over booked business class and he’ll have to sit in economy. He’ll still get all the service but he’ll be just outside of the fancy section, smaller seat etc.

He get backs, does his expenses. In parallel he writes a letter of complaint to the airline for messing up his booking. They apologise and immediately refund the return ticket in full.

So he gets the reimbursement from work, and a refund from the airline. He came out of it about £2k up.  

I flew to Chile for a conference with some guys and our first flight from Manchester to Paris got delayed, putting us back 24 hours. We’d filled in the compensation forms before even taking the 2nd flight and got paid the set EU compensation of €600 or whatever while we were still out there.

In fairness, it was us and not the university who we inconvenienced. We had to stay for a day in Paris on expenses rather than in Santiago. We also got given €50 each for airport food in CDG for the day, which we didn’t need because we went to the city, but still claimed back the total €200 bill for sushi that we ate just before boarding the plane as well as everything else we ate and drank in Paris.

Edited July 6, 2021 by fightoffyour

[Rds1983]

15 hours ago, limpid said:

Travelodge used to overbook. I don't know if they still do.

Practically every hotel does it. They expect that they'll have cancellations on the day and will have a partnership with another hotel nearby just in case they don't. Me or my colleagues have been bumped a few times when turning up late while travelling with work. 

[chrisp65]

15 hours ago, limpid said:

Travelodge used to overbook. I don't know if they still do.

 

15 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

Practically every hotel does it. They expect that they'll have cancellations on the day and will have a partnership with another hotel nearby just in case they don't. Me or my colleagues have been bumped a few times when turning up late while travelling with work. 

 

Tell you something else too, they might not have deliberately over booked.

They might have given some arsehole a rewards membership that guarantees a room at 48 hours notice. Even if they were ‘fully booked’.

Big up the All Accor chain and their brutal loyalty points system!

 

[Davkaus]

If, after a long journey, I arrived to a hotel that I'd booked and they're already given away my room, I would feel justified in burning the place to the ground.

[chrisp65]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

If, after a long journey, I arrived to a hotel that I'd booked and they're already given away my room, I would feel justified in burning the place to the ground.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see how the world might be a cold harsh place for you little people.

But 14,920 reward points.

[blandy]

On 02/07/2021 at 11:27, Genie said:

This reminded me of a story of an old colleague.

He went to the US on business and the policy was business or first class travel for such a distance.

You’d pay for it yourself and then claim it back from work in your return.

On the return flight he goes to check in and they apologise that they’ve over booked business class and he’ll have to sit in economy. He’ll still get all the service but he’ll be just outside of the fancy section, smaller seat etc.

He get backs, does his expenses. In parallel he writes a letter of complaint to the airline for messing up his booking. They apologise and immediately refund the return ticket in full.

So he gets the reimbursement from work, and a refund from the airline. He came out of it about £2k up.  

Similar happened to me. coming back from Italy I got bumped (despite having checked in). Was gonna grumble but they said we can put you on another flight in 4 hours (to London, not Manchester) and give you 245 quid compo, plus free food and drink at Rome and Heathrow.

So got lashed with the other lad who had been hoofed off, got the plane to London, collected the cash, got more lashed then flew to Manchester.

The taxi charged me (well, work) 4 hours waiting time so I asked BA to refund my work that. They said they would. Didn't. So i chased them and they gave me the compo again, plus the taxi fee. I ended up about 500 quid up on the deal. Noice.

 

[Rds1983]

2 hours ago, Davkaus said:

If, after a long journey, I arrived to a hotel that I'd booked and they're already given away my room, I would feel justified in burning the place to the ground.

Yeah, I first heard about the policy of doing this when I worked as a bartender at a Malmaison. I saw some poor bloke who had arrived to check in at about 11.30pm having an argument with the night porter who was booking people in because he had to then get back in a taxi and go a mile down the road to another hotel. 

I've been bumped to another hotel at around 7 it 8ish but middle of the night would just add to the frustration. 

[Rds1983]

Not sure I should be posting this in the open like this but apparently... 

Spoiler

I'm now a Collaborator. 

You have been warned. 

 

[Davkaus]

3 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

Not sure I should be posting this in the open like this but apparently... 

  Hide contents

I'm now a Collaborator. 

You have been warned. 

 

Small time.

[villa4europe]

18 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Small time.

Says the community regular 

I am in interested in who completes it first... And if that's something to be proud or embarrassed of

[Davkaus]

My mum just invited me over to enjoy a "family BBW" 

[bickster]

I once paid for an entire two week holiday in Crete with whatever the politically correct term for a portable stereo cassete player with detachable speakers is

Compo from the airline for breaking it on the way out ((They did break it slightly)

Claimed it was stolen on the travel insurance and

Sold it for more money than I paid for it to a Greek bloke that owned a nightclub

He also paid me hansomely to DJ in his club two Friday nights running (he made a stack too) - this was not planned, it was a result of me bugging him telling him his DJ was shit amd thats why no-one came to his club. He told me to prove it in an hour there and then (I was very pissed), not that pissed obviously. A one hour set of disco cheese and he was convinced. He begged me to stay there for the season, I declined. That there is one of those life moments you wonder if you'll regret. On reflection I should have done it

[villa4europe]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

My mum just invited me over to enjoy a "family BBW" 

She's knows exactly what it means 

[Xela]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

I once paid for an entire two week holiday in Crete with whatever the politically correct term for a portable stereo cassete player with detachable speakers is

Compo from the airline for breaking it on the way out ((They did break it slightly)

Claimed it was stolen on the travel insurance and

Sold it for more money than I paid for it to a Greek bloke that owned a nightclub

He also paid me hansomely to DJ in his club two Friday nights running (he made a stack too) - this was not planned, it was a result of me bugging him telling him his DJ was shit amd thats why no-one came to his club. He told me to prove it in an hour there and then (I was very pissed), not that pissed obviously. A one hour set of disco cheese and he was convinced. He begged me to stay there for the season, I declined. That there is one of those life moments you wonder if you'll regret. On reflection I should have done it

[Xela]

On 05/07/2021 at 21:06, villa4europe said:

I never had any trouble with them 

Did the EU compensation scheme thing on Ryanair once and eurowings twice 

Eurowings were surprisingly easy to get the money out of 

I forgot to do mine... was a 44 hour delay as well!

On the flip side, had an extra two nights free in Sharm-el-Sheikh at an all inclusive resort.