Europe A La Carte Blog

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I’ve never flown with them before I’m already hacked off by Jet2.com. We fly with Jet2.com from Edinburgh to Pisa, Italy for 7 nights tomorrow from Edinburgh. I tried to check in online and it would appear that you can’t check in online unless you pre-book your seat at a charge of £3.99 per person, plus payment card fees, per person per flight, so that would be another £16+ for 2 passengers making a return trip. I don’t think there should be a charge to check in online and it doesn’t cost anything to allocate you a seat during online check in. Surely there is a cost saving for the airline not having to pay staff to staff the check in desks?

by jennyfoo

I’d read the on my confirmation email that you are allowed to take hand luggage weighing up to 10 kgs per passenger and I thought if we both take a small suitcase as hand luggage we’d only need one bag in the hold. It costs £6.99 for a hold bag per flight. This charge was £5 in November 2007. However I read the small print which states that the maximum size of cabin package is 46×30x23 cms and both our small suitcases are a few centimetres wider than this.

In order to avoid a possible additional charge for 2 hold bags, as they charge per individual bag, if Jet2 are meticulous about cabin baggage size, I thought I’d better pre-book another hold bag as if you are charged £12 for each piece of hold baggage at the airport. On my confirmation email it states that hold baggage can weigh up to 20kgs. However today on the Jet2 site baggage rules its states that the maximum weight for hold luggage is 17kgs so it looks like Jet2 charges per hold bag have increased by £2 while the weight limit has decreased from 20 to 17 kgs in the last few months.

I flew with Easyjet from Glasgow to Berlin a couple of months ago, with only cabin luggage, and there was no weight limit on cabin luggage and the maximum size was 55×40x20 cms

I’m getting fed up with all this, it’s really confusing and so easy to get caught out and you feel that it’s all designed to trip you up and make more money out of passengers who don’t pore over the small print. Legally UK cabin baggage can measure up to 56×45x25 cm with a maximum weight of 18kgs but airlines can set their own limits.

I think that there is a real need for standardisation of cabin luggage which would set a sensible size and weight as a minimum, so that at least you could buy a suitcase that you knew you could always take on board on any airline.. Of course individual airlines could choose to increase the size and weight of hand luggage.

My advice to you is to read all the terms and conditions carefully, then you can choose either to adhere to the limits or risk the additional charges at the airport if all bags and carefully weighed and measured.

Have you been forced to pay additional charges at check in, either through ignorance of the rules or by hoping you could flout them?

by shriff14

Representatives of the Tirolean Tourism Board in Austria are whipping up the rumour that London tap water has passed through an average of eight people before you drink it to launch the promotion of pure Tirolean bottled water in London. A spokesperson from the Tirol is quoted as “Iwondering what London’s fish swim in?” The Austrians will be handing out 25,000 bottles of water between the 27 - 30 May at Canary Wharf and Liverpool St stations and there will also be a prize draw to win a short break in the Oetz Valley in the Tirol.

I don’t like negative advertising, Of course there are a lot of negative points about bottled water anyway such as pollution caused by the manufacture and transportation of the bottles. How will you react if you’re offered the free bottled water? Ask them how they transported the 250,00 bottles from the Tirol to London, tell them you’re quite happy with your tap water or happily grab the freebie?

Tap water has beaten the majority of bottled waters in recent blind tests. There is a campaign running to encourage restaurants to offer their customers free tap water as a matter of course. I think that’s a great initiative. I noticed that in restaurants in France there’s always a jug of tap water on the table.

What’s your opinion? Next we’ll be sold pure bottled air because the air we breathe has passed through other humans. That could be a profitable new chargeable item for Ryanair?

Travel Rants has been award Best UK Travel Blog in the Travolution Awards 2008. It’s a well deserved accolade for Travel Rants editor, Darren Cronian. Travel Rants is the UK’s only independent travel consumer blog. There are a multitude of concerns for UK travel consumers with recent posts about airlines thinking of charging extra for window and aisle seats, the hazards of travelling without adequate insurance and road testing of travel booking websites. Darren has intervened to assist some consumers by contacting the holiday companies concerned on behalf of the consumer.

Congratulations Darren and keep up the good work.

Are you loyal to any travel brands?  I began to wonder about this issue as I wrote my post about the citizenM concept hotel for Wandalust today.  I suppose I can only answer for myself.  My greatest travel brand loyalty probably lies with the Travelodge budget hotel chain.  This is mostly based on price as I can book a room for £19 on their advance booking non refundable Saver rate.  The majority of Travelodge rooms in which I’ve stayed have been good to acceptable with the odd exception which is why I rate Travelodge as the best UK budget hotel chain.

Ryanair has a pretty negative brand image but loads of people (including me) book with them because of the choice of direct flights and low prices. So do brands matter at all?  Well obviously not everyone is influenced by low price they are looking for aspects such as high standards of customer service or an exclusive, luxurious environment.

Do you think brand can become a type of community and as there is less local community spirit, some of us are yearning to be part of a community, real or virtual, where can mingle and communicate with other  like minded people?  Or are brands like citizenM wasting their time and money by attempting to lure us into a community?

I am building the Europe a la Carte brand through my website and blog by aiming to provide interesting, useful and entertaining content. If site visitors and blog readers like what I write, they will come back.  It’s a on going process, If I stop producing quality and relevant content,  visitors numbers will drop away.

What’s your take on all of this?  Are you inclined to restrict your travel search to a few favoured brands?

Booking travel online can be confusing and complicated.

When I booked my flight from Glasgow to Berlin on the Easyjet site, I just wanted to book a flight but I had to go down a long list of options e.g. travel insurance, speedy boarding etc. It was really annoying and time consuming to untick all the options which I didn’t want. I’d prefer it if you had to tick any options you wanted but I know that airlines wnat to sell you these extras and often the revenue they generate from the extras subsidises the low fares.

My worst online booking experience was when I tried to book accommodation in Fuerteventura on the On the Beach site. I entered my credit card details and nothing happened, no confirmation or message saying my card details had been entered incorrectly. I entered my details again and still nothing. At this stage I began to panic slightly, thinking what if I’ve booked the accommodation twice. I phoned On the Beach and they said they couldn’t help me over the phone I’d need to wait for an reply by email. I emailed On the Beach and 24 hours later they got back to me to say that they had no record of my booking, They was no apology, no explanation or no offer to take my booking over the telephone.

What’s your worst online booking experience?