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It's pretty refreshing now that I live in the UK that I see full prices for anything I purchase. Even airline flights and other EU hotels bookings show full pri

It's pretty refreshing now that I live in the UK that I see full prices for anything I purchase. Even airline flights and other EU hotels bookings show full price throughout the transaction.

stevesimmons 7y ago
On the whole, yes, the UK is way better. My current battle, though, is with Travelodge. I discovered the hard way their 'Flexible rate + Breakfast + Wifi' packagee refunds only the room and breakfast parts if you cancel. Despite the wording 'Cancel up until noon on arrival date', they withold the wifi charge if you cancel. This isn't mentioned on the confirmation email, nor at the T&Cs link. The agents who answer the booking phone number can't do anything. There is no email contact. And their customer service phone number costs 13p per minute. So anyone in the UK thinking of staying at Travelodge, don't! They are predatory scum...
- ghaff 7y ago
  How awful. Unfortunately, hotels are also generally tightening up cancelation policies to require 48 to 72 hours notice--which of course does you zero good if the cancelation is due to travel disruption of some sort. (You also see a lot more pre-pay/no cancel rates which I admittedly have less trouble getting upset with although it's very annoying that there's often no refund window at all if you fat finger something when you make the reservation even if you notice immediately.) My most recent bitch with Travelodge--which I basically never stay at but it was the only last minute room I could get--was that they really didn't want me to check in without a government-issue photo ID which I lost at the airport. This was even though I had a wallet full of other cards and I had an online reservation.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Dispute it with your card issuer. It not being mentioned anywhere seems like it's clear fraud on their part and you should win the dispute. If enough people do this it will put their merchant account at risk and make them reconsider this nasty behaviour in the future.
sys_64738 7y ago
Most of these regulations are due to the EU so come 10/31 then you will be freed of those burdensome EU rules and regulations once and for all.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Unlike the import/export and so on rules, this won't just magically go away at the stroke of midnight. Most EU rules are not "regulations" but "directives" - done by the EU saying what the rough idea is, and then each government has to pass their own laws to implement that idea in an appropriate way. This is especially useful if two EU members already had roughly the rule everybody now agrees is a good idea, but slightly different - nobody has to lose "their" favourite law, so long as any members that had no law about this get one pronto. For example EU members all need rules so that if a bank fails normal people get (up to a defined sum of) their money back. The EU says this rule needs to protect all account holders of banks in the EU, so a Brit can use a Spanish bank, or a German can use a French bank or whatever. But local laws might be slightly better and that's fine, e.g. the UK law gives you slightly more money back and is indexed to the Pound rather than the Euro. So, these British laws don't vanish in a puff of smoke, but without the EU to insist upon them they could be "reformed" in unhelpful ways, or just abolished altogether, should a government choose to do so.

It's pretty refreshing now that I live in the UK that I see full prices for anything I purchase. Even airline flights and other EU hotels bookings show full price throughout the transaction.

stevesimmons 7y ago

On the whole, yes, the UK is way better. My current battle, though, is with Travelodge. I discovered the hard way their 'Flexible rate + Breakfast + Wifi' packagee refunds only the room and breakfast parts if you cancel. Despite the wording 'Cancel up until noon on arrival date', they withold the wifi charge if you cancel. This isn't mentioned on the confirmation email, nor at the T&Cs link. The agents who answer the booking phone number can't do anything. There is no email contact. And their customer service phone number costs 13p per minute. So anyone in the UK thinking of staying at Travelodge, don't! They are predatory scum...

ghaff 7y ago
How awful. Unfortunately, hotels are also generally tightening up cancelation policies to require 48 to 72 hours notice--which of course does you zero good if the cancelation is due to travel disruption of some sort. (You also see a lot more pre-pay/no cancel rates which I admittedly have less trouble getting upset with although it's very annoying that there's often no refund window at all if you fat finger something when you make the reservation even if you notice immediately.) My most recent bitch with Travelodge--which I basically never stay at but it was the only last minute room I could get--was that they really didn't want me to check in without a government-issue photo ID which I lost at the airport. This was even though I had a wallet full of other cards and I had an online reservation.
Nextgrid 7y ago
Dispute it with your card issuer. It not being mentioned anywhere seems like it's clear fraud on their part and you should win the dispute. If enough people do this it will put their merchant account at risk and make them reconsider this nasty behaviour in the future.

sys_64738 7y ago

Most of these regulations are due to the EU so come 10/31 then you will be freed of those burdensome EU rules and regulations once and for all.

tialaramex 7y ago
Unlike the import/export and so on rules, this won't just magically go away at the stroke of midnight. Most EU rules are not "regulations" but "directives" - done by the EU saying what the rough idea is, and then each government has to pass their own laws to implement that idea in an appropriate way. This is especially useful if two EU members already had roughly the rule everybody now agrees is a good idea, but slightly different - nobody has to lose "their" favourite law, so long as any members that had no law about this get one pronto. For example EU members all need rules so that if a bank fails normal people get (up to a defined sum of) their money back. The EU says this rule needs to protect all account holders of banks in the EU, so a Brit can use a Spanish bank, or a German can use a French bank or whatever. But local laws might be slightly better and that's fine, e.g. the UK law gives you slightly more money back and is indexed to the Pound rather than the Euro. So, these British laws don't vanish in a puff of smoke, but without the EU to insist upon them they could be "reformed" in unhelpful ways, or just abolished altogether, should a government choose to do so.