Easyjet, Ryanair, getting money back

1. I'm sure everyone else is smarter than me about this, but I never realised until recently that even if you miss your flight, you can still claim back the airport tax from your flight.

Since these days at least 2/3rd of the cost of a flight is airport taxes, Easyjet and Ryanair must be making a fortune out of people who didn't make their flight but then didn't bother to claim the airport tax back. Since the tax should only be paid if we actually use the airport, it makes sense that we should be able to claim back the airport tax if we ask nicely.

2. That said, you have to call Easyjet's customer service line at 10p a minute and the first minute consists of listening to how you should call the premium rate 09 numbers if you
a) need phone support to talk you through how to make a booking through the website
b) have lost your baggage on the way to Alicante
c) just feel like spending money.
But on balance, I got to talk to a real person (and it sounded like the call centre was based in the UK) within about 5 minutes and got a refund of airport tax back within 2 mins. I have to say, I was pretty happy with that! I note that even searching the Easyjet website with the words "airport tax" results in zero returns on how to claim airport tax back off Easyjet.

3. Ryanair was a different matter. I spent 10mins on hold on a 10p per minute line and gave up as it didn't sound like I'd get an answer for at least an hour. So on balance, given my flight only cost £10 return, even if I did get an airport tax refund, I would probably have spent the equivalent amount in phone bills just waiting on hold. I suspect the best way of trying to get hold of someone to speak to is to call as soon as the line opens, so that you're more likely to be closer to the front of the queue... Bizarrely enough, at least 50% of the hold music seemed to be Christian contemporary worship music including such classics as "I could sing of your love forever", "I'm coming back to the heart of worship" and a rather upbeat gospel choir classic. First time I've ever heard Christian music being used as hold music - though I suspect if I had reason to be put on hold by Christian organisations, I'd probably hear that more often...

Post-Christmas Shopping

Although I'm not back at work until Monday, Christmas 2007 already seems to be receding into the distance. The tree and decorations have been packed away and the 22lb turkey cooked for Christmas (not by me I hasten to add) has mostly been eaten with a little bit stored in the freezer. It makes a change to the 22lb of sausages, prawns and beef steak which was consumed last year in Melbourne.

Christmas time involved catching the Christmas cold, watching the nativity, singing carols, eating my own bodyweight in turkey and chocolates, watching lots of tv and playing some of the games we got over Christmas. We also learnt about the true meaning of Christmas. Which isn't, as the shops might have you believe, about running up a credit card bill equivlent to the GDP of a small Eastern European nation.

1. I enjoyed (?) my first sales shopping trip with my fiancé over Christmas.

Why does everyone look so miserable when they're shopping? Out of every 50 people, I'm sure only 1 person has a genuine smile on their face. Faced with that level of gloom and grumpiness, it's no wonder most of the shop assistants and cashiers look so depressed. We tried smiling at them which sometimes got a smile back, but probably just gave them the impression that we'd spent too long sniffing the scented candles in the homewares section.

It was kinda fun watching the behaviours exhibited in the shoppers while waiting for the fiancé to browse through evening dresses for the 2008 weddings. The shop was filled with sounds of hangers click-clacking as dozens upon dozens of women sorted through the rails of clothes searching for their size. There were handfuls of men spread out across the shop. Some were trying to stand in a spot out of the way of the main thoroughfares, others were forlornley shuffling behind their partners carrying several bags in each hand. There was the middle aged man standing next to his wife, who was also flicking through the clothes rails and would occasionally extract a dress or pair of trousers, examining it for a second or two, before placing it back on the rail. Whether he was thinking about outfits that his wife could wear or whether they were for him, I wouldn't wish to enquire. Having originally adopted the 'find a spot somewhere in the store' approach, I decided to wait outside, along with a number of the 'dads with small children' and the 'I've spent 30 minutes in HMV, but she's still inside monsoon' brigade. If I were designing a shopping mall, I would have a minimum of one table football and one pool table outside every womens' clothing shop. Either that or every clothes shop must be pared with a bookstore, electrical appliances and gadgets shop or music store, before a plot is leased out. Failing that, maybe every store should have a minimum of 2 large televisions showing Top Gear or episodes of Blackadder. :-)

2. Out of all the shops where men and women can peacefully co-exist, places like Zaavi and HMV probably rank as one of the highest. So, we decided that Zaavi would be a convenient meeting place in the shopping mall. My future brother-in-law remarked that they seemed to have actually increased the price of all console games and accessories - presumably on the basis that everyone got a WII or Xbox 360 for Christmas and are now out to buy extra controllers or games with the money they got from their granny after telling the little old dears that they didn't need more deodorant for Christmas and money would do just fine. We very nearly bought an extra 'nunchuk' controller for the WII so that we could do the 2 player boxing game, but given how sore our arms were from 'playing tennis' and doing the shooting games, we decided we should probably wait until we'd extracted all possible enjoyment out of the other games that had been receive for Christmas. Besides I'd already managed to blow two lights and almost demolish the living room light fitting after getting a little too enthusiastic with my topspin backhands on the WII tennis game the previous evening. It's a wonder that the cricket game played at New Year didn't result in more damage to Nud's living room! Though actually, I think they were hoping for a bat through the TV screen, so that they could replace it with a brand new widescreen LCD telly. You can just see their insurance claim now "The TV was damaged as a result of playing cricket in front of it". "Ah, well, of course, why didn't you say so. That kind of thing happens all the time. It's not like you were doing anything crazy like playing tennis in front of it..." It's no surprise that the WII remotes come with wrist straps, just in case you lose your grip...

But I still enjoy the non-electronic games too. The Fiancé got a Dread Pirate boardgame, which was fun to play with the 2 of us, but should be great if we can get 4 people together. And yes she is into pirates and boardgames, he says, like it is an obvious combination; "I wish to parlay with Blackbeard the pirate." "Can you wait 20 minutes?" "Why?" "Well, he's just finishing off a game of Monopoly with Norman the cabin boy, Bob the deckswabber and Captain Hook. Once he buys the Gas Works, I'm sure he'll be up for taking a break to do some raiding and pillaging of the local ports."

In return, I got Uno Stakko, a game which comes perilously close to infringing copyright on another well known game. I think the shout of 'uno' comes in when you use 2 hands to remove a brick from the tower. As if Jenga wasn't hard enough eh?