Posted by If you answered ‘Bangalore’, you’re wrong. If you answered ‘home’, well done. In fact, if you answered anything other than Bangalore, you’d also be right.
Now that we think about it, we’re predicting a list of places where we aren’t in the comments. Knock yourselves out.
Bangalore is fine, but we’ve spent days waiting around here already. First for someone to join us, then for an IPL match, then to go home.
We’re on our own again and even we might be approaching a point where we’re getting insufficient human interaction. To combat this, we imagine we’re having a conversation about cars or mobile phones with someone. After that, we feel fine about sitting in silence.
Who knew that ruptures in the earth’s crust that allow the vastly destructive forces inside our planet to surface could be so bothersome?
‘Pretty much everyone’ is the answer to that question.
Thank your stars.
You could have been stuck in Delhi.
Like me.
As long as you don’t think that the unstoppable and unpredictable forces of nature are sufficient excuse for not updating this site regularly. They’re not. We expect service.
Dear King Cricket,
We are most worried to hear of your plight.
I would ask what the latest is but there is no latest is there.
Please advise you are safe.
Mr and Mrs Brian
xx
A new series?
“Forces of nature being conspicuously indifferent to cricket writers.”
Did you know KC had followers in the Outsourcing City? If you are stuck here longer and would like to get together over a pint, email me (on the not published but required ID above) and we can discuss the finer points of Kevin Pietersen’s newfound camaraderie with his IPL team owner.
Simon, the jrod could write a piece for that new series. We’re now in Brussels after a whiteknuckle minibus drive through Europe from north-east Poland. Happily, we have a eurostar booking for first thing on wednesday morning.
It just demonstrates how amazingly useful all this modern technology is. In the days before the internet came along, there is no way Miriam could have added her comments to a website while stuck in Brussels.
KC, is your travel insurance at least covering it? Ours is saying it is not, because it’s a natural disaster not an adverse weather condition,
even though natural disaster isn’t actually a policy exclusion. It would of course be invidious of me to say that it is lloydstsb who is treating its customers in this way, but I’m sure that if they have a problem they would raise it in response to my intended Financial Ombudsman claim. It’s just not cricket.
Now I am all fired up and angry, not just for myself but for everyone in the same position. We can absorb the costs of getting home but many can’t, and eu passenger rights are of little use when there is no actual place to stay even if you did decide to stay put (and they are of course of no use to those of you outside the eu). I don’t normally say this kind of thing,
but: the government should do something to help financially the
stranded travellers, not just to help the airline industry. I’m sure
someone will say I and others like me should have read their policy documents more carefully, but it seems to be completely a
matter of chance whether an insurer chooses to regard this as weather or
not.
Sorry for the rant KC readers. I am so cross I can’t sleep. I think I need to
go away and look at cat pictures for a while.
You probably know this much already, and I’m no expert, but according to the BBC if you are on an EU airline then they are obliged to:
a. Fulfil their contract to get you from A to B (so as long as there is a reasonable way of getting back, they should pay).
b. Supply meals, refreshments, and overnight accomodation if the delay requires it (again, at reasonable rates).
c. Do these things without time limit.
The advice is to keep all recepits if you have spent any money, so that you can claim costs back later.
Insurance is entirely dependent on what it says in the contract. Some will pay; most will not.
Various news media have been reporting that airlines have been, er, confused as to the legal situation (i.e. they have been lying to their passengers so as to get away with not paying). The relevant EU regulation is EU 261. If your airline is being less than helpful, quote that number at them in a specific and legalistic way – “Can you confirm in writing that the information you have just given me is fully in line with your responsibilities under EU regulation 261?”
Best of luck.
http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2008/kwong_hoi/images/Adorable-Cats-Screensaver.jpg
Thanks for that.
Miriam, no response from our insurer yet after we emailed on Saturday.
We could specify whether that lack of response was from Virgin Insurance or some other insurer, but we won’t. We’d never accuse Virgin Insurance of ignoring us, forcing us to make even more expensive international phone calls.
The receipts are stacking up.
Bert, thank you – that’s really helpful and I will get onto the airline to make a claim when we get home because they have given us absolutely no information about what stranded passengers are to do apart from info about rebooking and refunds (and their website also says that it contains all the information and that if we ring the call centre we will get the same info).
A small piece of good news is that lloydstsb, who I criticised so comprehensively in my earlier post, have as of 10am this morning changed their policy to cover the expenses of those stranded abroad (although not the holiday cancellation costs of those stuck at home). I’m yet to see if they’ll cover my already-incurred costs, but given that we incurred them with a view to getting home quickly at a time when it wasn’t clear we would be covered, we’ve definitely been mitigating our loss all the way.
KC, my friend katy (who was at the wedding) is stuck in delhi.