Author Topic: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.  (Read 1576177 times)

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8150 on: 21 September, 2016, 09:50:56 am »
I passed my radio/alarm clock on to the Inlaw Paw because it has a big easy-to-read display.  Three days ago the missus came back from shopping and presented me with a new one. Two days ago it stopped working - totally doornailsville - and when I asked madame for the receipt she said "oh, it was in the blue bin".  Was, because 2.5 days ago aforesaid bin was emptied.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8151 on: 21 September, 2016, 12:58:25 pm »
How the hell is Mrs B married to you as well as me?
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8152 on: 21 September, 2016, 04:10:24 pm »
If it was bought on a card the statement should suffice.

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8153 on: 21 September, 2016, 07:51:35 pm »
Sister: You are a skinflint. The bill came to almost exactly a nice round number per person, including my kids who didn't drink alcohol and your lot did, but I wasn't bothered. I put in £20 over the top to cover a tip of £10 for the five of us. You were very cagey about being able to split a £20 note to give me back a tenner. Someone else duly obliged. Then, because you'd offered to pay on your card, you made a big show of putting in a £10 tip. In other words, the seven of you offered nothing as a tip. This was not an oversight, you have previous...
Haggerty F, Haggerty R, Tomkins, Noble, Carrick, Robson, Crapper, Dewhurst, Macintyre, Treadmore, Davitt.

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8154 on: 22 September, 2016, 11:59:48 am »
BA online check-in. Why does it only permit check-in 24 hours ahead of a flight? And then, because the flight is to the US, say you can't print your boarding pass as it has to be issued at the airport after your passport & visa are checked? Ho hum.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8155 on: 22 September, 2016, 12:20:30 pm »
I guess the further ahead you have check in, the more people check in and then don't turn up. Actually, I'm not quite sure what the point of online check in is, in practice.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8156 on: 22 September, 2016, 02:42:29 pm »
I guess the further ahead you have check in, the more people check in and then don't turn up. Actually, I'm not quite sure what the point of online check in is, in practice.

so If I'm flying hand luggage only, my first obstruction is security, not a desk to get my boarding pass.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

ian

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8157 on: 22 September, 2016, 02:56:14 pm »
That, to be honest, seems to be the only benefit – if you have checked bags, you're effectively checking in.

Some airlines let you check in three or seven days before, it's not always 24 hours.

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8158 on: 22 September, 2016, 06:12:45 pm »
Yebbut, why?

If I buy a ticket for a train, I have a ticket and I turn up and get on.
If I buy a ticket for a plane, it's not a ticket at all, I have to wait a while then get another ticket. Why?
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Andrij

  • Андрій
  • Ερασιτεχνικός μισάνθρωπος
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8159 on: 22 September, 2016, 06:26:25 pm »
Yebbut, why?

If I buy a ticket for a train, I have a ticket and I turn up and get on.
If I buy a ticket for a plane, it's not a ticket at all, I have to wait a while then get another ticket. Why?

Because airlines routinely sell more tickets than there are seats, while TOCs don't (AFAIK).
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

ian

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8160 on: 22 September, 2016, 06:29:56 pm »
And not everyone is flying scheduled.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8161 on: 22 September, 2016, 07:27:07 pm »
and you don't always get a seat on a train.

Even Ryanair hasn't gone that far.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8162 on: 22 September, 2016, 07:29:01 pm »
I thought the turbo session was a bit easy today.  Check calibration at the end - error message

Tyre very squishy, pump, pump, pump.

Walk away into my office, next to the gym.

"hissssssssssssssss"

Return to gym, very squishy tyre.

Another job for the weekend FFS  :demon:
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8163 on: 22 September, 2016, 07:30:54 pm »
Yebbut, they are allowed to 'ram-pack' a train with people standing, or sitting in the aisles reading Private Eye for the cameras or wherever.

They can't do that on airyplanes.
They can only let you on if you have an actual seat.

That's why they need a second level of ticketing over and above the 'Buy a ticket and just get on' model.

Pingu

  • Put away those fiery biscuits!
  • Mrs Pingu's domestique
    • the Igloo
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8164 on: 22 September, 2016, 10:37:06 pm »
Somebody was parked in my space this evening  >:( Some single-speed* hipster. :demon:





*I checked by moving their cranks   :thumbsup:

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8165 on: 23 September, 2016, 08:01:58 am »
Yebbut, why?

If I buy a ticket for a train, I have a ticket and I turn up and get on.
If I buy a ticket for a plane, it's not a ticket at all, I have to wait a while then get another ticket. Why?

Because airlines routinely sell more tickets than there are seats, while TOCs don't (AFAIK).

TOCs most certainly do! In fact, I'm not sure there is a limit to how many tickets they can sell for any given train or journey; they just rely on passengers' ingenuity at squeezing the maximum number in the space available.

Flights to the USA are managed according to US Customs and Border regulations. BA's 'passport check' is an attempt to make sure all passengers have a valid ESTA or visa, and that their passports match the details they entered in the booking. Anomalies can result in the passenger being refused entry, and the airline being fined. The fines aren't trivial.  The 24-hour limit on pre-flight online check-in is to attempt to avoid people checking in for flights they have no intention of flying on (many business customers will book several flights for a single passenger to give maximum flexibility - hence airlines overbook), and also allow for a late-ish change of aircraft type if the programme is disrupted.

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8166 on: 23 September, 2016, 08:03:51 am »
Yebbut, they are allowed to 'ram-pack' a train with people standing, or sitting in the aisles reading Private Eye for the cameras or wherever.

They can't do that on airyplanes.
They can only let you on if you have an actual seat.

That's why they need a second level of ticketing over and above the 'Buy a ticket and just get on' model.

Well I guess my experience is only with the budget airlines, but when I buy a ticket I get allocated a seat (and offered a more expensive one). I was comparing that to an advance train ticket for a specific train. I can't see how the airline can oversell the flight if they've allocated seats? Or is there a chance that when I come to print the boarding pass at the specified time they say "sorry, no longer available"?
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8167 on: 23 September, 2016, 08:54:38 am »
Budget airlines operate on a different model - all allocated seating, and no (or extremely limited) ticket flexibility: they're comparable to Advance rail tickets with mandatory reservations.

Full fare tickets on traditional airlines are a bit closer to walk-up rail tickets (valid on any, or maybe any off-peak, train) in that you can change your booking at very short notice (in some cases after the original flight has departed) - you might incur a fee, but the ticket will still be valid.

ian

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8168 on: 23 September, 2016, 09:09:51 am »
Yebbut, they are allowed to 'ram-pack' a train with people standing, or sitting in the aisles reading Private Eye for the cameras or wherever.

They can't do that on airyplanes.
They can only let you on if you have an actual seat.

That's why they need a second level of ticketing over and above the 'Buy a ticket and just get on' model.

Well I guess my experience is only with the budget airlines, but when I buy a ticket I get allocated a seat (and offered a more expensive one). I was comparing that to an advance train ticket for a specific train. I can't see how the airline can oversell the flight if they've allocated seats? Or is there a chance that when I come to print the boarding pass at the specified time they say "sorry, no longer available"?

Seats aren't allocated until you check-in (and if they are, airlines make it clear that reserve the right to change that due to 'operational reasons'). So, yes, their sales model for busy flights is to assume a proportion of people booked on that flight won't be on it, they'll be on another flight, and potentially they'll want to get on one that's already full. Then there will be people who miss their flight or connection who have to shunted onto another plane. It's common to hear airlines at the gate asking for passengers willing to take a later flight.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8169 on: 23 September, 2016, 09:12:05 am »
that was my experience a fortnight ago at Aberdeen

late return from offshore, got to check-in, found it closed, expecting to have to transfer to the next flight but as a frequent flyer and with an offshore ID they relented and let me through. Next week's flight I've changed already, but I with that class of ticket I can change on the day for fees, and change the return after I've done the outbound.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

TimC

  • Old blerk sometimes onabike.
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8170 on: 23 September, 2016, 09:14:48 am »
Yebbut, they are allowed to 'ram-pack' a train with people standing, or sitting in the aisles reading Private Eye for the cameras or wherever.

They can't do that on airyplanes.
They can only let you on if you have an actual seat.

That's why they need a second level of ticketing over and above the 'Buy a ticket and just get on' model.

Well I guess my experience is only with the budget airlines, but when I buy a ticket I get allocated a seat (and offered a more expensive one). I was comparing that to an advance train ticket for a specific train. I can't see how the airline can oversell the flight if they've allocated seats? Or is there a chance that when I come to print the boarding pass at the specified time they say "sorry, no longer available"?

BA, like most major airlines, has a large number of corporate contract customers who block-book a number of seats on certain flights. They very often don't use all those seats, and experience tells the airline that quite a few seats would otherwise go empty. So the airline will re-sell a number of them. Usually that works ok; sometimes it doesn't and a passenger or two will be downgraded (or upgraded) to fix the issue. Those corporate contracts will allow for this, and will have agreed mitigation measures if their seat availability is affected. Scheduled airline operations are not similar to rail operations, and drawing parallels is misleading.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8171 on: 23 September, 2016, 09:15:05 am »
Yebbut, they are allowed to 'ram-pack' a train with people standing, or sitting in the aisles reading Private Eye for the cameras or wherever.

They can't do that on airyplanes.
They can only let you on if you have an actual seat.

That's why they need a second level of ticketing over and above the 'Buy a ticket and just get on' model.

Well I guess my experience is only with the budget airlines, but when I buy a ticket I get allocated a seat (and offered a more expensive one). I was comparing that to an advance train ticket for a specific train. I can't see how the airline can oversell the flight if they've allocated seats? Or is there a chance that when I come to print the boarding pass at the specified time they say "sorry, no longer available"?

Seats aren't allocated until you check-in (and if they are, airlines make it clear that reserve the right to change that due to 'operational reasons'). So, yes, their sales model for busy flights is to assume a proportion of people booked on that flight won't be on it, they'll be on another flight, and potentially they'll want to get on one that's already full. Then there will be people who miss their flight or connection who have to shunted onto another plane. It's common to hear airlines at the gate asking for passengers willing to take a later flight.

And if they offered me real cash instead of vouchers I'd take it more often than not
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

ian

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8172 on: 23 September, 2016, 09:30:09 am »
When I used to roam the US on a flexible schedule, I used to live splendidly through airline overbooking (they were more generous back then: dinner with wine, decent hotels, upgraded seats, air-miles and real cash – not to mention more negotiable if they really, really needed that seat). I got BA to bump me up from business to first on an overbooked São Paulo flight the other year, though that was like pulling teeth. There wasn't another flight till the following day and there's not a lot of point turning up for a meeting after it's finished.

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8173 on: 23 September, 2016, 12:48:54 pm »
I've been upgraded at check-in, volunteered for a night in a hotel in Lisbon & a flight next day (phoned my boss first), upgraded at the gate having checked in online . . .

Mrs B & I were picked for the last because there were two of us surrounded by Japanese schoolgirls, & upgrading us let 'em put the schoolgirls & their teachers together.  :thumbsup:

We've been shuffled onto flights by different airlines. The schoolgirl-avoiding upgrade wasn't the flight we'd originally booked with the change en route, nor the one which they'd tried to shuffle us onto with not only a change but a damned tight transfer between airports which we'd refused to accept, but a direct flight on yet another airline.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Re: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.
« Reply #8174 on: 23 September, 2016, 01:56:51 pm »
Is it national hurry up and wait week or something? If you send me a list of urgent queries and I reply by email within the hour answering some and asking for clarification on others, do you think you could get round to answering them within a couple of days? That's two projects that have now gone silent on me...