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Post by brandane on Oct 26, 2012 21:59:13 GMT
I was planning a day trip to the NEC for the bike show on Tuesday 27th November, leaving Glasgow at 1045 and arriving Birmingham at 1200; spending the afternoon at the show, then flying out of Birmingham at 2035. Then I got an e-mail from FlyBe; telling me this: Clicking on the link, I find that my new itinerary gets me into Birmingham at 1615, with the return flight leaving at 1840  . WTF makes them think that this would be suitable for anyone? So now I have to slog it out trying to talk to someone in their call centre to get my £43 refunded. I should have known it was too good to be true at that price. Barstewards  . Meanwhile, I will be writing a very strongly worded letter of complaint to their customer services department, with a copy being fired off to the BBC Watchdog too. Maybe this is routine practice for them; selling off cheap seats and then bumping you when they find they can sell your seat at a higher price to someone else? |
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Post by m40man on Oct 26, 2012 22:09:17 GMT
Hmmm. I was on two Flybe flights this week (Southampton to Edinburgh & back). At least the outbound took off, unlike a colleague's BA flight from Heathrow which was delayed a couple of hours due to fog. Both sites were very foggy. Maybe Heathrow is less safe, busy such a busy airport  . Return was 20 mins or so delayed, otherwise fine. Did they say why your flight was changed  ? Do they know the show will only be worthy of a fleeting visit  ? |
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Post by brandane on Oct 26, 2012 22:16:34 GMT
Did they say why your flight was changed ? Do they know the show will only be worthy of a fleeting visit ? No mention of why it was changed, just what is in the quote above. I can only assume that they have done what I wrote when I modified the post, re selling seats at a higher price once demand increases, and bump the plebs who had booked the cheap seats. I checked their website and it would seem that there are no longer any seats available on either of the flights I was originally booked on, so my assumption would make sense. |
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Post by teejayexc on Oct 26, 2012 22:28:23 GMT
Does Wullie work for Flybe ?
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Post by brandane on Oct 26, 2012 22:34:23 GMT
Does Wullie work for Flybe ? There was some mention in the small print that those with "under developed emotional" tendencies might find their itineraries subject to unreasonable change at short notice, to enable those of superior intellect and debating capabilities to have their seat. Maybe Wullie is heading to the bike show on 27th November? ;D ;D  |
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Post by n4naked on Oct 26, 2012 23:36:25 GMT
Does Wullie work for Flybe ? There was some mention in the small print that those with "under developed emotional" tendencies might find their itineraries subject to unreasonable change at short notice, to enable those of superior intellect and debating capabilities to have their seat. Maybe Wullie is heading to the bike show on 27th November? ;D ;D at least you are showing more self-awareness....and thanks for the compliment. now, go bury your head back in the sand - "judicial enquiries don't affect me, i just dismiss them out of hand.i must be right even when i'm wrong" ;D ;D ;D incidentally, flybe are useless...only someone with under-developed emotional tendencies would depend on them, never mind expect them to have two flights on schedule on the same day.....did you seriously do that? ;D ;D ;D bloomin hell!....next you'll be posting that you have a guaranteed flight on ryanair! ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by n4naked on Oct 26, 2012 23:38:29 GMT
Does Wullie work for Flybe ? i told you to get back in your box, albert....still smarting fom your last spanking? ;D ;D |
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Post by verde on Oct 27, 2012 8:12:36 GMT
Well I've just calibrated their crimp tool for the control wires. So I'm not getting on one of their kites.....
Bob
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Post by Deeps on Oct 27, 2012 8:22:54 GMT
Because they are cheap the MOD uses FlyBe regularly, during my time at FOST Faslane we frequently had to fly between Glasgow and Bristol/Exeter, i would need to come from Lincolnshire and have four hands to count the number of times the flights were canceled, or delayed or we were switched flights.
FlyBe
More like Fly Maybe
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Post by suzukikidontheloose53 on Oct 27, 2012 9:19:52 GMT
There was some mention in the small print that those with "under developed emotional" tendencies might find their itineraries subject to unreasonable change at short notice, to enable those of superior intellect and debating capabilities to have their seat. Maybe Wullie is heading to the bike show on 27th November? ;D ;D at least you are showing more self-awareness....and thanks for the compliment. now, go bury your head back in the sand - "judicial enquiries don't affect me, i just dismiss them out of hand.i must be right even when i'm wrong" ;D ;D ;D incidentally, flybe are useless...only someone with under-developed emotional tendencies would depend on them, never mind expect them to have two flights on schedule on the same day.....did you seriously do that? ;D ;D ;D bloomin hell!....next you'll be posting that you have a guaranteed flight on ryanair! ;D ;D ;D ,the only time I was let down was when the Icelandic volcano erupted, and that was only because the nanny state government wouldn't let them take off ,however not entirely sure what you mean by ''guaranteed flight'' wullie.....guaranteed to take off?,guaranteed to land?,guaranteed to sell overpriced coffee?,guaranteed to be punctual? perhaps you could clarify  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2012 10:25:28 GMT
Al, things could be worse!
You could be stuck offshore without a chopper ;D
Commiserations though and good luck with the complaint, mine, to Jet2.com/Thomas Cook is falling on stony ground.
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Post by m40man on Oct 27, 2012 10:56:36 GMT
.....guaranteed to take off?,guaranteed to land?,guaranteed to sell overpriced coffee?,guaranteed to be punctual? perhaps you could clarify Well, now i think about it, my flight from Edinburgh last week was "guaranteed to leave me hungry". They sold the last veggie sandwich to some meat-freak in front of me . The coffee was cheaper than in the airport. |
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Post by n4naked on Oct 27, 2012 12:22:14 GMT
"guaranteed price" would be nice for a start. "yes, sir, that's £40 return to barcelona but, of course, that assumes you are travelling completely naked.....there's an £80 supplement if you insist on being dressed....plus another £20 if you intend to take your watch with you.....etc, etc" ;D ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by DahDit on Oct 27, 2012 15:27:01 GMT
I've heard they charge for emotional baggage too ;D
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Post by m40man on Oct 27, 2012 16:22:24 GMT
We all know about Brandane, & appreciate Flybe's late decision that he wasn't the kind of passenger they wanted gracing their fine luxury craft after all. But am I missing something about it being a convenient way to travel distances in the UK? Recently I drove from Oxfordshire to near Glasgow & back, for work. The return journey took me 6 hours & 20 minutes. I stopped once for a major refuel, & twice again for comfort breaks including making some phone calls. Last week I used Flybe. Left the offices I was working at at 4:30pm, & got back to my house at 9:10pm. 4 hours & 40 minutes. (Short flight, 35 minutes of driving to airport & faffing around dumping hire car, only got to departure lounge with 20 minutes to spare, then into car to drive home, so little 'wasted' time hanging around). I found the flying experience more stressful. I found the security staff rude & the queuing to get past them tiring. Flying cost (quite a lot) more too. I saved 1 hour 40 minutes compared to driving. Seemed a very poor saving for all the hassle  . |
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Post by ribbit on Oct 27, 2012 16:36:18 GMT
.....guaranteed to take off?,guaranteed to land?,guaranteed to sell overpriced coffee?,guaranteed to be punctual? perhaps you could clarify Well, now i think about it, my flight from Edinburgh last week was "guaranteed to leave me hungry". They sold the last veggie sandwich to some meat-freak in front of me . The coffee was cheaper than in the airport. What, no puddings? |
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Post by brandane on Oct 27, 2012 17:06:22 GMT
Recently I drove from Oxfordshire to near Glasgow & back, for work. The return journey took me 6 hours & 20 minutes. I stopped once for a major refuel, & twice again for comfort breaks including making some phone calls. Last week I used Flybe. Left the offices I was working at at 4:30pm, & got back to my house at 9:10pm. 4 hours & 40 minutes. (Short flight, 35 minutes of driving to airport & faffing around dumping hire car, only got to departure lounge with 20 minutes to spare, then into car to drive home, so little 'wasted' time hanging around). I found the flying experience more stressful. I found the security staff rude & the queuing to get past them tiring. Flying cost (quite a lot) more too. I saved 1 hour 40 minutes compared to driving. Seemed a very poor saving for all the hassle . Thought about this before. According to AA route planner I can drive to the NEC in 5hrs 30 mins. I have always found the AA times to err on the side of caution; I reckon the 335 miles to the NEC is do-able in under 5 hours. So to arrive at the NEC at 1200, I would leave home at 7am, about an hour earlier than if I was flying as planned. On the return journey I would probably have had enough of the show by 6pm, and leave then to be home about 11pm. About 30 mins earlier than the planned itinerary. Money-wise, it would cost me about £100 in petrol, which is about twice the price of the non existent flight. The only thing putting me off is the fact that I drive all day at work, and can't really be bothered at other times. Why don't they hold bike shows in the summer, when the rain is warmer? Then I would be tempted without a doubt to jump on the bike and gooooooo....... |
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Post by n4naked on Oct 27, 2012 20:44:33 GMT
I've heard they charge for emotional baggage too ;D nice one.... ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by n4naked on Oct 27, 2012 20:48:51 GMT
We all know about Brandane, & appreciate Flybe's late decision that he wasn't the kind of passenger they wanted gracing their fine luxury craft after all. But am I missing something about it being a convenient way to travel distances in the UK? Recently I drove from Oxfordshire to near Glasgow & back, for work. The return journey took me 6 hours & 20 minutes. I stopped once for a major refuel, & twice again for comfort breaks including making some phone calls. Last week I used Flybe. Left the offices I was working at at 4:30pm, & got back to my house at 9:10pm. 4 hours & 40 minutes. (Short flight, 35 minutes of driving to airport & faffing around dumping hire car, only got to departure lounge with 20 minutes to spare, then into car to drive home, so little 'wasted' time hanging around). I found the flying experience more stressful. I found the security staff rude & the queuing to get past them tiring. Flying cost (quite a lot) more too. I saved 1 hour 40 minutes compared to driving. Seemed a very poor saving for all the hassle . i think many people (including me) would prefer to travel by train...hence the reason that branson is fighting tooth and nail for the west coast rail line...that line is going to be a goldmine in the future....you can almost do centre of glasgow to centre of london by train faster than by plane now. |
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Post by suzukikidontheloose53 on Oct 27, 2012 20:55:56 GMT
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Post by max900 on Oct 28, 2012 9:53:41 GMT
Just had a look at Mr Branstons pickle tubes official name of virgin trains ;D holy cow there slow and not that cheap Birmingham international to glasgow central is £104 return and the journey takes 4 and a half hours south and 4 hours 50 mins north (well it is going uphill  ) and you have to change once in each direction, so it will cost about the same as car but onlysave you about an hour in total however any crap you have bought will need to be lugged from one train to another balls i would take the car |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2012 10:03:05 GMT
Once upon a time a big percentage of the population would get a train for long journeys without a 2nd thought.
Now that the privatisation system has really got into its stride this no longer applies.
Now that our Muslim neighbours have affected air travel negatively, I for one would be happy never to see an airport again.
What a wonderful world.
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Post by m40man on Oct 28, 2012 11:37:11 GMT
Now that our Muslim neighbours have affected air travel negatively, I for one would be happy never to see an airport again. This is something that I don't understand. Why do we add all the hassle of security checks on planes, but we don't on trains & buses . All have been subject to terrorist attack in the past. If a train was targeted, aside from immediate casualties, which could well exceed a plane's, the infrastructure damage would be significant & long-lasting. So in some ways a much better target. Yet we don't have to take our shoes & belts off before being allowed on a train. It's all nonsense. They either all deserve heavy security, or none of them do. Ruling the population by instilling irrational fear & confusion - something we've learnt well from the Americans. |
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Post by bobh on Oct 28, 2012 11:54:40 GMT
When I first moved to Oxfordshire, some 30+ years ago, I commuted every weekend back to Sheffield - mostly on a RD400, but sometimes by train, with a pushbike. Turn up at station, buy reasonably-priced period return usable on any train, put bike in guard's van, change at Brum New Street, job done.
More recently most of the rail journeys I've made have just been the quick and dirty one from Didcot to London - a bit like playing sardines, but fortunately it doesn't last long. But given the choice I'd take the bus - takes a bit longer but it's significantly cheaper and the car park on the outskirts of Oxford is, for the time being anyway, free (parking at Didcot is over £6 a day, now!) Also the buses take you right into Victoria, and they are much more frequent.
The last time I took a train for a long cross-country journey was a few years ago to collect my D9 from Teesside. The one-way ticket was cheap enough, bought online, but it involved 2 changes, one at New Street (between 2 Virgin trains) and the other at Darlington (to a different company's train). Needless to say, we sat outside Darlington station for ages and missed the second connection, and being a different company, tough luck. So the seller, who was waiting for me at Middlesboro' had to drive over to Darlington to collect me - fortunately not too far, but still.....
But the big problem with public transport is that in large swathes of the country there isn't any. Metro-centric friends find this unbelievable, with their Oyster cards (and for over-60's in Greater London, free bus AND local rail travel). There was a leaflet with my recent car tax renewal notice directing me to the energy saving trust to do a free travel energy check (www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/TEC), where I learned to my amazement that I could save hundreds of pounds on my fuel bill by taking the bus for local journeys and the train for longer ones. Unfortuntelay it didn't tell me where I could catch these mythical buses or trains.
I do have a bus pass, but it rarely gets used - maybe the odd park-and-ride in Oxford. If I want to get a service bus from home to anywhere at all I have to either bum a lift from a neighbour or hike a fair distance across muddy fields or along unlit roads with a national speed limit and no footpath.
You do hear of keen pensioners travelling all over the country on their free bus passes, but all I can say is they must have plenty of time to kill - and very strong bladders. I did use mine once to go to collect a bike from OnYerBike, which is on the A41 west of Aylesbury. I set out from home at about 9 a.m. and did the aforementioned hike (in thick fog, not much fun). Being in a bike jacket and lugging the rest of the kit, I did get rather warm despite near-freezing temperatures, but there was plenty of time to get a chill waiting for the bus to Oxford. Then another wait in Oxford for the bus to Aylesbury - fortunately the nice chap at Oxford Castle directed me to the loos in their cafeteria, the public ones up the road being now permanently closed. The Aylesbury bus goes all round the houses and finally got there about midday, just in time to miss the connection to OYB, though it did give me time to get something to eat. At least Aylesbury has a proper, if fairly dingy, bus station, unlike Oxford where the bus stops are scattered willy-nilly around the city centre. I eventually made it to OYB after 2 p.m. and left on my new bike as the light was fading. So 5+ hours for a journey that takes well under 1 on the bike.
And don't get me started on Ryanair - a few years ago they left me stranded at Perpignan airport when they cancelled the flight at the last minute. Their representative told us that it was due to strike action by the local air traffic controllers, even as we could see an Air France plane landing outside. Although I was lucky to get a lift to Girona, and a ticket for a flight from there the following morning, it still cost me about €150 for a hotel, and I never managed to get any compensation. There were other people in the hotel who had been told the earliest available flight was in 3 days time.
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Post by teejayexc on Oct 28, 2012 12:09:51 GMT
Amen to that, feck you we're allright Jack |
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Post by brandane on Oct 28, 2012 13:46:14 GMT
Just had a look at Mr Branstons pickle tubes official name of virgin trains ;D holy cow there slow and not that cheap Birmingham international to glasgow central is £104 return and the journey takes 4 and a half hours south and 4 hours 50 mins north (well it is going uphill ) and you have to change once in each direction, so it will cost about the same as car but onlysave you about an hour in total however any carp you have bought will need to be lugged from one train to another balls i would take the car In my particular case, you also have to add on 1 hour each way (plus connection times as they don't necessarily knit together nicely), and the £10.10 return fare just to get to Glasgow central to catch the B'ham train! BobH; please feel free to sign up to cyclechat.com! I used to try and argue my case for owning a car as it was necessary to get to work at odd times. I got pelters from the mainly London based 2@s who couldn't understand why I couldn't either cycle (25 miles each way on trunk roads, working 12 hour shifts :  or use the public transport system which around here is as you have stated, expensive and unreliable. Eventually I gave up trying to argue with them; they make Wullie look like an amateur when it comes to seeing other peoples' (correct) point of view. ;D |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2012 14:26:33 GMT
BobH, great story. IIRC John Prescott was yer man given the job of sorting out our non integrated transport system. Didn't he do well? Friends back from France tell me the only way they could get from the airport to their rented cottage was by taxi, €30 each way, no public transport at all. I'm told French rural trains are worse than ours. My brother in law up in darkest Sutherland has no bus service. In 3 years our travel card for free buses which got us 10 miles for 20p on suburban trains has gone up to 80p & not a whimper from local politicians of either hue. This is for all concession groups. BTW, are my taxes paying for London oap's to get free local rail travel? 40 years ago in Stockholm you could get one ticket at a machine at any transport stop that covered you for local trains, buses, trams and metro. And they tell us we're in the top group of developed countries in the world, pah! |
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Post by teejayexc on Oct 28, 2012 14:32:15 GMT
BTW, are my taxes paying for London oap's to get free local rail travel? Probably, like my taxes are paying for free university places for Scottish students. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2012 14:44:30 GMT
BTW, are my taxes paying for London oap's to get free local rail travel? Probably, like my taxes are paying for free university places for Scottish students. So we're equal then ;D |
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Post by teejayexc on Oct 28, 2012 15:03:01 GMT
Probably, like my taxes are paying for free university places for Scottish students. So we're equal then ;D Hardly....60p subsidised bus fare as opposed to £30K+ uni place. Where did you study |
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. WTF makes them think that this would be suitable for anyone? So now I have to slog it out trying to talk to someone in their call centre to get my £43 refunded. I should have known it was too good to be true at that price. Barstewards 
. 
.
? Do they know the show will only be worthy of a fleeting visit 
?
,the only time I was let down was when the Icelandic volcano erupted, and that was only because the nanny state government wouldn't let them take off 
.
) and you have to change once in each direction,
or use the public transport system which around here is as you have stated, expensive and unreliable.