Final comment on postponed trip

My friend Pam summed the whole thing up nicely with the following comment: "Well, your father is not going anywhere". There you go.

Addendum to the road not taken

There was a letter to the editor in today's Globe and Mail in which the writer, a stranded Swiss traveller, expressed his gratitude to the hotel in which he was stranded for giving him a "distress" rate for his extended stay. I see that as not only compassionate, but also as a good business decision.

The road not taken

The road I am referring to is the high road, which is the one I would hope that hotels and like business would take when unforeseen circumstances, such as the current disruption of air travel over Europe, occur. I can feel the eyes rolling already.

It appears that hotels in Europe are gouging stranded travellers by jacking up the prices of hotel rooms daily. This opportunism might seem like a profitable idea at the moment, but it is ultimately a bad business decision.

For instance, the hotel I had booked in London has charged me a ten percent penalty for cancelling (postponing, really) even though they have a week's notice and are not going to be out of pocket. However, since I am going to make this journey eventually, they are going to lose the ninety percent that I will give to some other hotel in this instance, and all the other hotel room dollars that I will not give to them or their affiliates until the end of time (well, my time anyway). I cannot even estimate the actual amount of their future lost revenue, but it will be a boatload more that the ten percent they are gaining from this decision. Ditto for the hotel in Paris, which is penalizing me the amount of one night's stay. I am actually not losing anything, because I am fully covered by insurance.

Furthermore, if I can convince even one more person to steer away from these two establishments, The Hotel Antin Trinite in the 9th district of Paris, and the Days Inn, Westminster on Belgravia Street in London SW1, then the losses increase. And they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on ....

I am aware that this post is arguably an instance of me not taking the high road.

Still on the ground

Well, my flight out of Toronto has been cancelled and I will be staying put tomorrow. It is for the best, because I really do not want to fly into the complete chaos that is Europe at the moment. I shall wait until this all blows over (literally and figuratively) and re-schedule the whole thing.

Peace, out.

Still up in the air

So, all flights in and out of London for today and tomorrow (I am supposed to leave tomorrow) have been cancelled. However, although my flight is supposed to leave tomorrow, it does not get to London until the following day. Thus, I have to wait until tomorrow to find out if I go now or later.

I realize that there are a lot of tomorrows in that paragraph.

The big smoke

So, it appears that this massive cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland is causing havoc with European airspace. So much for timetables.

They say that Heathrow [where I change planes for Lyon (where I catch a fast train to Grenoble)] could be shut down for another 48 hours. That is cutting it awfully close to my time of departure. According to my travel agent, my flight is still on schedule.

If my flight out of Toronto is cancelled the whole trip, as it is currently mapped out, breaks down. It would mean re-sheduling the whole thing again. No worries. We ladies with free time can roll with these little glitches.