Why do banks always seem to conspire against me? I have such trouble using the card issued by my UK bank when I buy things online. Some sites will only take a UK address as the billing address when you choose to pay with visa, others won’t let me put in a UK address for the goods to be sent to (I seldom have things sent directly here as I’ve had so much go astray in the past) and a Turkish billing address. The latest problem is a new security system that requires you to set up a password for use when buying things online. That’s sounds like a good idea, but when I tried to complete the ‘authentification details’ I again fell down at the box that asked for ‘UK postcode of billing address’. Aghhhh!!! I am not the only one living abroad and using a UK bank card so why do these sites not take us into account?
We have been feeling the aftershocks of Aegean flights going bust. Seems that quite a few of our guests had booked flights through them so, to date, we have had 6 cancellations, four rooms whose arrival/departure has changed by a day or two and one ‘no show’. It is frustrating to have rooms free at the end of August; we get no compensation for rooms cancelled although we could have sold those rooms three times over. There is little chance of filling them now as flight prices have soared to £450 and £500 per person! It’s also quite laughable that the companies see an opportunity and double flight prices (due to sudden demand) but e-mail us and suggest we drop our prices so they can fill the rooms. Really, with all the tricks they get up to, I’m amazed that these companies GO bankrupt.
Since most people now book flights and accommodation separately, the companies we deal with are not necessarily aware that people have lost their flights. Guests are obviously having trouble getting through to the companies and I have had one room that the company informed me had cancelled, then mailed me saying did I have a room booked in that name since they didn’t have a record of it and the guests were trying to change their arrival date. Another guest, very strangely, managed to telephone our next-door neighbour, who came over with a message saying they would be two days late! And another rather strange one…guests who arrived last week, booked in for three weeks, said they were actually going to be staying at their sister’s villa and if we would give them some money back for the room they would give us the key and we could let out the room. As we declined to do this, explaining that we haven’t had the money for the room yet and are unlikely to get it for another few months, they left with the key and we haven’t seen them since. Would you do this with a hotel in the UK, I wonder?
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| Emre |
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| Cem catches a fish |
It’s quiet here today as Cem and the boys have taken some guests diving. It will be Kaan’s first time and he has been so excited he has read most of the diving manual already! A little bit late, but here are some photos of the Poppy boat trip we did two weeks ago.
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| Mrs. Parker looking thoughtful! |
