I forgot now, either my car was on diesel or not on diesel, our French was not good enough to read the French sign, we asked several people, their English was just as bad as our French, we were worried we put in the wrong gas. As it turned out, the nozzle is only available for certain gas for that car, the right gas only, so you can’t put in the wrong gas anyway, but we were stressed out for a while, we almost ran out of gas, we had to ask a policeman for the nearest BP, I think they had the word diesel on their pump.
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In Germany the nozzles for diesel and the nozzles for regular will fit the tank opening no matter what your car requires. And, green nozzles are NOT diesel. We accidentally put regular gas in a diesel vehicle - but caught it after a few gallons.
Our ‘autopilot’ assumed green was diesel and that a regular gas nozzle wouldn’t fit our diesel tank opening. Wrong on both.
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Oh no, this is what we were afraid off.
@taverngirl I also forgot to say there’s no problem with automatic except it’s usually a gas guzzler and it’s more expensive to rent.
I expect to pay about £200 for car rental, plus and minus a few, but in France for much shorter length, it was 4 times more.
Is anyone else watching the covid maps of Europe? Cases came down a couple months ago, but are now climbing again. That was a short break. The U.S. pattern seems to follow Europe. Hopefully hospitalizations won’t spike.
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When my daughter was in London, her hotel reservation through Chase points were not available, they refunded her the points, but she had to book a more costly reservation somewhere else last minute. So today I called my fall foliage trip reservation in New England to confirm that I do have one, and they did send me an email with their own reservation number, I don’t want the same thing to happen to me.
I’d rent the smallest possible car that fits your group in Europe! Those tour buses passing bye often set off my rental’s proximity sensors.
Manual transmissions are usually more cost effective as they seem to know it’s almost all 'Mericans who need automatic.
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If the airlines can’t prevent stranding the Transportation Secretary, what hope do we have? Wouldn’t you think his name would alert in the system?
The day after he met with airline leaders, his own flight was canceled. Buttigieg was forced to drive from Washington D.C. to New York.
Surprised he didn’t take his bike.
Our friends in Belgium just emailed us that their case rate has gone up 46% recently. I’m glad we postponed our trip once again, until 2023.
It’s becoming clear that some travel related businesses are playing COVID Kabuki theater……
We are in a boutique hotel, central coast CA. Very temperate climate. The place has a beautiful outdoor courtyard. But, no breakfast due to COVID concerns. Um, we can eat outside.
No housekeeping services – other than you may pick up clean towels. But the room has those stupid decorative pillows, soft (and older) upholstered chairs and the extra blanket in the closet is clearly NOT sanitized between customers.
No valet parking…to protect (the non mask wearing ) staff. Really, roll down the windows, wear a mask…NO risk.
I’m learning to check into the fine print very carefully.
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At this point I think most of that is staffing related and hotels are just blaming it on covid.
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Maybe I’m an outlier, but if I am in a hotel for a couple of nights I don’t want housekeeping to come in. There is no reason I can’t make up my bed or use towels more than once like I do at home.
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We stayed at a central coast inn in Sept 2020, they had breakfast to go.
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Dumb travel question… If the airline website says no fees for flight changes, and you buy trip insurance, is there a point to buying fully refundable tickets? That will add $800 to the total cost, but I’d prefer to pay it if it covers something that the insurance doesn’t…
I would read the fine prints, it does sound like you don’t need to. I never buy trip insurance, only lost money once when there was a strike in France. One night at a hotel in Florence. Now I buy airplane tickets that are cancellable using points.
My daughter was about to buy trip insurance before she left for Europe but she paid most things by points so she didn’t feel the need.
I agree. I traveled more than ever since Covid started, and sometimes me and others in my company were the only people in an entire large hotel, which was kind of creepy. You wouldn’t ever see housekeeping, and had to go to the front desk to get a clean towel. I think many of the Covid related things (lack of amenities and housekeeping) are still being blamed on Covid when really they’re just trying to save money. These things have been normalized. I don’t mind so much because I’m not demanding, usually don’t need housekeeping anyways, but sometimes it’s just terrible service. Covid is not a reason to stop fixing phones, exercise equipment, televisions, or have your hotel cafe still closed.
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Well, we don’t have points and the airfare is about 18 months of savings for us, so it is a pretty big deal to lose them if something goes wrong.
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I didn’t want house keeping, I just grabbed more towels, in fact I turned down upgrade at a Hyatt hotel where Lin-Manuel Miranda was staying for the opening of Hamilton(the hotel manager told us). It’s not like in Hawaii where you stay in a nice room with a view. In London you want to get out and doing things.
I wouldn’t pay then if you have trip insurance, that does sound like a lot of money.
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In my experience this past year there was no fee for changing a ticket, but I was responsible for the price difference .
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