Spend disproportionate amount of time booking flight (was about to say home, but) to London from Sofia in early April. Mess about with alternatives. Flight no more than three and a half hours, so (paying for) seats together not critical, but some airlines more vicious than others at seeing to it that couples who won’t pay for seat selection end up with middle seats not near each other. Last example Air Canada between Toronto and Winnipeg. Actual preference often aisle seats opposite each other.
As well as price, luggage and general amenities, there is the question of which airport the flight lands at, the convenience of getting to central London. Luton and Stansted both more awkward and more expensive by train than Gatwick. Plus question of departure and arrival times. Eventually decide to check British Airways as an alternative, expecting it to be more expensive, which it isn’t. Also, very happily, it lands at Heathrow, so immediately on the tube. Not like the golden days of drinks and meals, but what is?
So everything arranged. Except, that is, that it takes four tries, three times with my MasterCard and once with J’s, to get the payment accepted. Fourth try, with mine this time, lucky. Have by this time wondered if using a VPN with a non-Canadian location might be the problem. Switch to Montreal and success. Would love to think this was inspiration, however belated, and will be useful for future online transactions. Consider it more likely that this is only random reinforcement, and, like Skinner’s chicken hopping on one foot in the hopes of receiving more food pellets, I will have faith in using a Canadian VPN location until the method, inevitably, fails.
This flight headed to UK post Brexit D-Day. We’re moving, slowly, into unknown territory. Noted in news last Friday that now « freighters setting sail from UK ports with cargo for far-flung destinations such as Australia and New Zealand, a journey of about 50 days, risk arriving after Brexit day with – in the event of a no-deal Brexit – no idea of the trade rules that will be in place ». Would assume some competent arrangement will have been made, if only UK politicians didn’t keep doing their best to disabuse one of any delusions of their competence. Thus Transport Minister Chris Grayling decidedin preparation for a Brexit no-deal, to award a £13.8 million ferry contract to Seaborne Freight, a company which had never run a ferry service and owned no ships. He defended the decision for some weeks at a cost of £800,000 to the public in consultant fees, in order to have it finally collapse last week. So hope rather than trust that planes between EU and UK will not face serious disruption.
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