Government advice discussion

[bramling]

It is fair to say that many, when making such bookings, would have been thinking of things such as their leave at work being declined, or perhaps breaking their leg the week before, and weighing up those sorts of prospects - not an international pandemic.

Oh aren't you charming there. We can't all afford flexible rate rooms, I sure can't. I don't 'gamble' the room rate, I suspect most of us don't!

Definitely regretting booking the non-refundable place in Iceland, that's nearly £63 lost. Just in terms of hotel ching, not to mention Advances, I've lost a fair bit of money. Two different easyHotel bookings that I'm pretty sure were on low rates will be lost. Why book a room at say £40 on a flexible rate if you can book it for say £28, when at the time of booking you know you have the time off work and you fully intend to be staying there. That £12 in this example could be used fair more sensibly! Such a thing is going to backfire on me, clearly, on this trip.

Someone did suggest there's going to be a drop in confidence in the tourism industry in the future. I'd agree with that, unless there's an actual effort made to help refund people who've paid out months in advance for their travels who are now being told not to go.

Ooh I'm getting wound up again here...

The simple reason is that if everyone bought a non-refundable rate and then expected it to be treated as a flexible one, such discounted rates wouldn’t exist. I sympathise on one level that people may lose their money, however remember all the times when everything has gone to plan and you’ve been benefited from a discount.

It’s a bit like spares on the railway - at many places it’s normal for spares to be granted a cutaway of an hour or two when there’s nothing to cover. Some people will still moan when once in a blue moon the crew supervisor needs a favour, forgetting all the times they have been given such favours in the form of a cutaway.

No one likes to lose money, but it’s the chance taken when accepting a discount.

As for the industry needing to retain goodwill, no point in retaining goodwill if the business can’t survive in the meantime. Businesses are quite within their rights not to hold non-refundable booking fees to be able to pay them back just in case, it’s that certainty that allows them to offer a discount in the first place. So in some cases they may not be *able* to meet the cost of refunds, especially when faced with a potential drop in revenue. No point maintaining goodwill if it causes the business to fold. Some hotels are apparently offering people the option to change dates, that seems generous enough to me.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

That's one that I'd twigged this evening on the way home. Grabbed the fobs, bunged a load of credit on them. One less thing to worry about for a while...

On the plus side, gas meter credit isn't going to sell out any time soon!

Thanks for reminding me, both of you!

At least one of my local places for topping up my 'leccy is a Petrol station that literally never closes, so unless closure is legally mandated I'll be okay on that front. I always have credit pre-loaded on my key though.

I'm not sure how I'm going to be over the coming weeks: I'm technically in a higher-risk group due to a medical condition but am not in particularly poor health otherwise, and I'm generally not hit hard by colds and the like. However this is uncharted territory so I don't want to be overly blasé about it... at the same time if I dwell on it my mental health will suffer- my brain is probably the most vulnerable part of me.

I'm more concerned about family members: my dad has chronic leukaemia and last week was told he has a month to try and build himself up to be strong enough to receive intensive chemo... if he can't gain enough weight and strength, things will have to move to palliative care rather than treatment, and with the health service under strain that care will also be stretched. I certainly don't want to end up infecting him while he's vulnerable, but that means I may not be able to spend much time with him at all.

All because the Chinese government is more concerned about stopping their citizens sending Winnie the Pooh memes than they are about stopping the "wet markets" where so many of these recent outbreaks have started.

 

[Techniquest]

I don't think any of us are expecting it to be treated as flexible when we book non-flexible rates, but this is a situation no-one booking hotels last year or even much earlier this year was predicting. I sure wasn't sat here thinking "Hmm, I'd best spend money I don't need to on a hotel, just in case a world health crisis kicks in"!

We're also not expecting the hotel to refund people out of their own pocket, but some emergency aid from government would help cover their losses and help retain customers in the future. As things stand, I'm not willing to risk booking any travel, accommodation or anything else for any trips until the day itself for the remainder of the year. I've lost my confidence in booking *anything* and I'd wager plenty of other people have too.

Going to be a fun day tomorrow trying to get stuff sorted out, or I might just be lazy and not bother. Waste the money, sorry no that's wrong, I've "gambled" that money

 

[bramling]

I don't think any of us are expecting it to be treated as flexible when we book non-flexible rates, but this is a situation no-one booking hotels last year or even much earlier this year was predicting. I sure wasn't sat here thinking "Hmm, I'd best spend money I don't need to on a hotel, just in case a world health crisis kicks in"!

We're also not expecting the hotel to refund people out of their own pocket, but some emergency aid from government would help cover their losses and help retain customers in the future. As things stand, I'm not willing to risk booking any travel, accommodation or anything else for any trips until the day itself for the remainder of the year. I've lost my confidence in booking *anything* and I'd wager plenty of other people have too.

Going to be a fun day tomorrow trying to get stuff sorted out, or I might just be lazy and not bother. Waste the money, sorry no that's wrong, I've "gambled" that money

Unfortunately everyone thinks “their” reason is worthy of an exception to the conditions they agreed to upon booking. The government can’t bail *everyone* out - and unfortunately people not getting a refund on what in the grand scheme of things is a tiny amount of money on a hotel booking simply isn’t high up the priority list.

At the end of the day the reality is you haven’t *lost* any money, you just won’t be taking the holiday.

If you want to book a holiday, there are of course plenty of refundable flexible rates available, and in many cases the cost isn’t that much more.

 

[Techniquest]

'Much more' is subjective and depends on how much you can afford to spend. If you can afford to spend extra money on flex-rate rooms, good on you. Not all of us can when we are booking, it's just how it is.

Chucking away £28+ on a hotel stay is not, in my book, a tiny amount of money. Indeed, that is almost my entire weekly food shop budget...

 

[bramling]

'Much more' is subjective and depends on how much you can afford to spend. If you can afford to spend extra money on flex-rate rooms, good on you. Not all of us can when we are booking, it's just how it is.

Chucking away £28+ on a hotel stay is not, in my book, a tiny amount of money. Indeed, that is almost my entire weekly food shop budget...

All I can say is remember the times when everything has gone to plan and it has proved beneficial to choose the cheaper rate, saving money in the process. Like it or not, choosing that option *is* a gamble that something, whatever that may turn out to be, doesn’t throw a spanner in the works.

Others will have looked at the choice and decided they don’t want to take the risk, and yes in some cases that may have meant not doing the trip at all.

I do understand that it’s a kick in the teeth - I’ve lost a lot of money over the years planning trips where everything is outdoor and then getting ruined by bad weather, in some cases having to make a decision based on the weather forecast which as can happen has turned out to be wide of the mark. Unfortunately it’s one of those facts of life.

 

[Domh245]

I've been quite lucky in that when I went to book train tickets for this coming weekend, the advance singles were no cheaper than a super off-peak return. Now that I'm having to cancel my plans, I can get a full refund (without any admin fee either, which is a good show) whereas if I'd gone for advances I'd only be able to rebook them for a later date.

 

[Howardh]

I’m afraid with the best will in the world I find it hard to have sympathy for people who have chosen cheaper non-refundable rates.

They aren't always available for hotels, especially those on Formentera where there's always high demand.

 

[AndrewE]

All I can say is remember the times when everything has gone to plan and it has proved beneficial to choose the cheaper rate, saving money in the process. Like it or not, choosing that option *is* a gamble that something, whatever that may turn out to be, doesn’t throw a spanner in the works.

Others will have looked at the choice and decided they don’t want to take the risk, and yes in some cases that may have meant not doing the trip at all.

I do understand that it’s a kick in the teeth - I’ve lost a lot of money over the years planning trips where everything is outdoor and then getting ruined by bad weather, in some cases having to make a decision based on the weather forecast which as can happen has turned out to be wide of the mark. Unfortunately it’s one of those facts of life.

I booked a flexible room with a hotel chain once (needed to be flex due to a possible visit to a potentially early-arriving grandchild instead) and got a phone call as I was leaving the house for a 3-hour journey telling me they had "had a flood." Told them I was en route and I expected somewhere to sleep. They promised to find me some alternative accommodation in a b&B somewhere, or in their sister place 10 miles away, I said no way, I had specifically booked them so I didn't have to drive back after an evening function nearby.
After a worried journey we got given a perfectly good room when we arrived to check in... but at breakfast we overheard other people telling each other exactly the same story. We concluded that they deliberately overbook people who pay the higher price assuming there will be a proportion of "no shows."
Since then we have never paid the higher price for flexibility, it's not worth the hassle or stress that the extra price brings you!

 

[bramling]

I booked a flexible room with a hotel chain once (needed to be flex due to a possible visit to a potentially early-arriving grandchild instead) and got a phone call as I was leaving the house for a 3-hour journey telling me they had "had a flood." Told them I was en route and I expected somewhere to sleep. They promised to find me some alternative accommodation in a b&B somewhere, or in their sister place 10 miles away, I said no way, I had specifically booked them so I didn't have to drive back after an evening function.
After a worried journey we got given a perfectly good room when we arrived to check in... but at breakfast we overheard other people telling each other exactly the same story. We concluded that they deliberately overbook people who pay the higher price assuming there will be a proportion of "no shows."
Since then we have never paid the higher price for flexibility, it's not worth the hassle or stress.

Overbooking is pretty common practice especially in the chains. Travelodge is notorious for it. I’ve only once been bitten by it though, and that was a Travelodge as it happens. To be fair, fitting everyone in must at times be a juggling act and I don’t envy the staff who have to do it.

But wouldn’t overbooking affect non-flexible rates too, on the basis that people whose plans have changed will have no incentive to bother cancelling, whereas those on flexible rates are more likely to cancel as they have the incentive of getting their money back?

 

[AndrewE]

Overbooking is pretty common practice especially in the chains. Travelodge is notorious for it. I’ve only once been bitten by it though, and that was a Travelodge as it happens. To be fair, fitting everyone in must at times be a juggling act and I don’t envy the staff who have to do it.

That's as maybe. It's ironic though that if you take the cheaper non-flexible option you are secure (as they expect you to turn up) if you take the higher priced one you get hassle and stress! As I said, we take the risk of losing money now rather than risk being p***ed about by the hotel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's as maybe. It's ironic though that if you take the cheaper non-flexible option you are secure (as they expect you to turn up) if you take the higher priced one you get hassle and stress!

That is incorrect. The hotel is overbooked, and it's people who check in last who get bumped, though they may try to ask you to move elsewhere earlier on if they think they'll have a big problem.

It's nothing to do with what room type you have.

 

[bramling]

That is incorrect. The hotel is overbooked, and it's people who check in last who get bumped, though they may try to ask you to move elsewhere earlier on if they think they'll have a big problem.

It's nothing to do with what room type you have.

I’ve heard it said that length of stay will also be a factor. Naturally someone in for a one-night stay is more likely to get walked than someone booked for a week.

It’s only happened to me once which was a short stay at a Travelodge, however I think that was more due to a hen party having trashed some rooms the previous night. In the event having missed the warning phone call by the time of arrival the hotel had rearranged things and freed up space.

 

[Belperpete]

Likewise, we have several trips that will now not take place, with no chance of getting any money back as we foolishly chose the cheapest non-refundable hotel rates to save a few quid, and of course Advance tickets which are our default choice as we couldn't afford so many trips at full ticket price.

Can you rebook to a later date? Many of the major hotel chains are now offering people who booked non-refundable rooms the option to change the booking to a later date, or take a voucher to use against a future booking. Likewise many airlines are now offering the option to amend what were non-amendable flights.

 

[edwin_m]

'Much more' is subjective and depends on how much you can afford to spend. If you can afford to spend extra money on flex-rate rooms, good on you. Not all of us can when we are booking, it's just how it is.

Chucking away £28+ on a hotel stay is not, in my book, a tiny amount of money. Indeed, that is almost my entire weekly food shop budget...

Sorry to be brutal but you clearly decided you could afford these bookings at the time you booked them, and if you'd made the journey you would have spent more money on meals etc that you now aren't spending. So while you are disappointed that you can't make your trip, you're not financially worse off from it.

 

[RichT54]

It was a good job I went to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford last friday to see the Young Rembrandt exhibition, as the Ashmolean and other museums in the city are now closed due to coronavirus.

 

[trainophile]

Sorry to be brutal but you clearly decided you could afford these bookings at the time you booked them, and if you'd made the journey you would have spent more money on meals etc that you now aren't spending. So while you are disappointed that you can't make your trip, you're not financially worse off from it.

That's how I'm trying to look at it, and I am already £1,000+ down if all my future bookings up to the end of May come to nowt. The biggie is a Wetherspoons in Whitby where we had two rooms for three nights, plus 1st Class Advance rail tickets for part of the journey both ways, but I have lots of Travelodge bookings as a result of their marketing campaign in January offering big discounts for future bookings.

You have to be a bit philosophical, in the scheme of things at least we have our home comforts without the worry of public transport.

 

[nicolaboo]

… but who knows when it will be safe to resume leisure travel

As this abnormal situation is likely to remain for around a year (until a vaccine is available), the government can't in all seriousness maintain a climate where pubs, restaurants, sports clubs, theatres and leisure travel etc, are on a permanent avoid/ban climate.
Almost no business would survive that kind of down turn. I know that some people will get ill or die, but if the whole economy crashes, then plenty more would suffer when the food chain collapses or basic energy/water needs aren't available.

The government is surely going to have to come up with a 'yes you can do those things, but please be careful' type plan.
Stop shaking hands, avoid touch points and don't come out of your house IF you're ill, rather than IN CASE you become ill.

The rail companies will soon be feeling the pinch if they lose a large percentage of their custom, and over the long term, they'll all default giving GB a renationalised rail network as the gov steps in to prop up the services of each TOC as they fall.

 

[edwin_m]

I still can't work out how anyone thought for a minute that the previous "herd immunity" strategy would work. Looking at the numbers, let's assume that the government manages to control this outbreak so the number of hospital cases exactly matches the 30,000 beds reported to be available soon for the purpose.

If everyone hospitalized stays there for 2 weeks on average, then the hospitals can admit 15,000 per week.
If 10% of all infections requires hospitalization then the infection rate needs to be managed to 150,000 per week.
If almost everyone recovers and is then immune, then it will take about 400 weeks or 8 years for 100% immunity or about 5 years for 60% immunity.
These durations than have to be increased because some of the immune people will die in the meantime for other reasons, and new non-immune people will be born.

I believe all my assumptions are towards the more optimistic end of their ranges, so the actual period to get to herd immunity would be longer. Restrictions would be needed for the entire period to control infection rates. More likely that won't happen and the casualties will exceed the beds available so the death rate will go up. If I've made any significant errors in the above then I'd be delighted to know about them.

As I say that's a pretty basic calculation and it doesn't need a computer model to show that herd immunity is a non-starter and the only viable way out of this is to keep restrictions until we get a vaccine or an effective antiviral. The scientists can't possibly not have known this, so I suspect the herd immunity was put forward for PR purposes, expecting a reaction which would help people recognize that severe restrictions are necessary.

 

[krus_aragon]

The government is surely going to have to come up with a 'yes you can do those things, but please be careful' type plan.
Stop shaking hands, avoid touch points and don't come out of your house IF you're ill, rather than IN CASE you become ill.

Once we get to that point, if you add on the capacity to test everyone with suspected symptoms, and trace every known contact of the positives (and test them too), that can work.

(The testing-and-tracing in the UK was working reasonably well at first, but then got overwhelmed.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

The rail companies will soon be feeling the pinch if they lose a large percentage of their custom, and over the long term, they'll all default giving GB a renationalised rail network as the gov steps in to prop up the services of each TOC as they fall.

I suspect relatively few people will be upset about this.

 

[Kingspanner]

I still can't work out how anyone thought for a minute that the previous "herd immunity" strategy would work. Looking at the numbers, let's assume that the government manages to control this outbreak so the number of hospital cases exactly matches the 30,000 beds reported to be available soon for the purpose.

If everyone hospitalized stays there for 2 weeks on average, then the hospitals can admit 15,000 per week.
If 10% of all infections requires hospitalization then the infection rate needs to be managed to 150,000 per week.
If almost everyone recovers and is then immune, then it will take about 400 weeks or 8 years for 100% immunity or about 5 years for 60% immunity.
These durations than have to be increased because some of the immune people will die in the meantime for other reasons, and new non-immune people will be born.

I believe all my assumptions are towards the more optimistic end of their ranges, so the actual period to get to herd immunity would be longer. Restrictions would be needed for the entire period to control infection rates. More likely that won't happen and the casualties will exceed the beds available so the death rate will go up. If I've made any significant errors in the above then I'd be delighted to know about them.

As I say that's a pretty basic calculation and it doesn't need a computer model to show that herd immunity is a non-starter and the only viable way out of this is to keep restrictions until we get a vaccine or an effective antiviral. The scientists can't possibly not have known this, so I suspect the herd immunity was put forward for PR purposes, expecting a reaction which would help people recognize that severe restrictions are necessary.

Yes but this calculation assumes that every infected person goes to hospital, the vast majority will not.

 

[Techniquest]

Well I've even cancelled my time off work, since there's no point being off to just stay at home. That is a waste of a week off, I don't know how people can book a week off just to stay at home. Yes if there's lots of renovations or similar to be done (one of my colleagues is off currently for such a reason) then it makes sense to be off but just to laze around at home? Ugh, no thanks, there's plenty of time for that when illness lands!

I've managed to beat boredom on a day off with a couple of decent cycle rides, but yeah it won't take long to get bored again. So I'm better off capitalising on the available hours while they're available and clear all my debts, build up savings and be rolling in the money later this year. In 2021, IF travel becomes a viable option again, I'll then be happily able to clear my Bucket List.

Of course, I'll ensure I book flexible rate rooms, since I've now been told by people here I shouldn't have taken advantage of a sensible price room. Oh the shame on spending money sensibly, silly me for not needing a flexible rate room but now being forced to change plans...

I do suspect that many people will start losing faith in the ability to travel before long. At least the supermarkets are putting a stop to panic buying at last...

 

[krus_aragon]

If I have an extended period at home (and the kids don't mither me too much), I've got a wad of railway history research that needs to be transformed into a book.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Of course, I'll ensure I book flexible rate rooms, since I've now been told by people here I shouldn't have taken advantage of a sensible price room. Oh the shame on spending money sensibly, silly me for not needing a flexible rate room but now being forced to change plans...

Nobody is telling you that you shouldn't use a discounted non-changeable/non-refundable rate. All they are saying that is that that means it's non-changeable/non-refundable, including now (exactly the same as if you'd been unfortunate enough to get the flu across your planned trip). Small businesses may well collapse if you ask for a refund of money you'd have spent anyway, and then you definitely won't get a refund.

 

[trainophile]

@Techniquest - May I ask you a question, as a fellow Herefordian? Are the shops still getting the same level of deliveries as they normally would? I ask because my little Co-op yesterday told me that the last toilet roll delivery they had was "just four" - I assumed they meant four pallets not four packs, but given it was completely cleared out I wasn't sure.

 

[trainophile]

Nobody is telling you that you shouldn't use a discounted non-changeable/non-refundable rate. All they are saying that is that that means it's non-changeable/non-refundable, including now (exactly the same as if you'd been unfortunate enough to get the flu across your planned trip). Small businesses may well collapse if you ask for a refund of money you'd have spent anyway, and then you definitely won't get a refund.

If e.g. Travelodge can afford to offer e.g. 20% off three nights bookings, and still make a profit, then they are hardly going to go to the wall if people need to cancel due to the current exceptional circumstances.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If e.g. Travelodge can afford to offer e.g. 20% off three nights bookings, and still make a profit, then they are hardly going to go to the wall if people need to cancel due to the current exceptional circumstances.

Most hotels are not Travelodge. Indeed, the vast majority of hotels are actually franchises, and thus have a small business sat behind each actual property, same as most fast food outlets other than Maccy's which does have franchises but relatively few.

For instance there are no centrally owned Subway branches, they are all small business franchises.

 

[Techniquest]

@Techniquest - May I ask you a question, as a fellow Herefordian? Are the shops still getting the same level of deliveries as they normally would? I ask because my little Co-op yesterday told me that the last toilet roll delivery they had was "just four" - I assumed they meant four pallets not four packs, but given it was completely cleared out I wasn't sure.

My store is getting deliveries as often as possible. I think yesterday in the daytime we were getting 4 deliveries rather than 2, today there's extra coming in too. Quite, a chilled/produce delivery is meant to be getting off-loaded as I type.

Naturally, as one can imagine, it's not normal size deliveries yet, with the ultra-high demand, but with the limited resources available as much as possible is being delivered.

Now we've got a maximum of 3 per item, per customer, it *should* take the pressure off stock levels. As for your Co-op, if it's the one up on Ledbury Road, Holme Lacy Road or Whitecross Road (Bobblestock's one is a fair bit bigger IIRC - and no I don't expect you to reveal which is your nearest store don't worry) then those stores are generally too small to get pallets of stock. Usually it comes in on roll-cages, so it probably was 4 packs. Which was probably no more than 40 individual packets to sell, and that wouldn't last long in this current state of affairs.

In my store, and no doubt others, it's trying to get people in to keep shelves filled too. Not an easy task at present. It'll be easier soon!

 

[edwin_m]

Yes but this calculation assumes that every infected person goes to hospital, the vast majority will not.

I did say "If 10% of all infections requires hospitalization".