Ryanair

When we are living in France, Susan and I will have to earn an income.

Sometimes I feel like this
Taken at Notre Dame by Susan's father

At the moment we are not sure how, but I know exactly what business model we will be using: "the exact opposite to Ryanair's".

Whatever it is we do, we will show a price. A price that you can look at and say "that is what it will cost me". We will not be showing a stupid low price we have made up, adding on all sorts of fees and "government charges" (most of which are made up), adding a charge for using a credit card (which are the credit card fees they are charged, multiplied by 6 and applied to each person, not each transaction).

Nor will we be making up our own exchange rate, telling your credit card company that you purchased in your home currency, and ripping you off another 8% (over and above the tourist rates from the Post Office) in the process.

That way, we hope not to make our customers boiling mad before they have even started.

I know I should know better. I know I should expect to feel ripped off by Ryanair when I fly with them, because that is what always happens. If they were to be honest, say "this is what the ticket will cost" and charge me that amount, I would be happy. I KNOW airline tickets don't cost 1 penny, I don't expect them to cost 1 penny, and I wouldn't fly with any airline where the tickets DID cost 1 penny.

Why can't they be like Air France and charge 86€ (£79.93 at today's tourist rate) for a 86€ ticket Paris to London, rather than charge me £77 for a ticket from Poitiers to not very near London that "costs" 48€, (or 78€ including tax, fees and charges).

Is there a better way to induce air-rage that treat your customers like this even before you have managed to upset them by the complete lack of customer care once they are with you?

At least soon we won't have to bother with them.

Cross?? Me?? Only justifiably...

Simon

Skype has released version 4. We used Skype quite a lot, both of us having family in Australia, and of course we have to call France increasingly often. Skype does save us a lot of money.

I wouldn't, however, recommend downloading the latest version. It takes a lot longer to load up, and as is the way with these things they have introduced a couple of "improvements" that appear to have no purpose. The most annoying change is the fact that now to place a call you seemingly have to start a "conversation" first. Also, phone numbers are no longer shown with people's names, so as a reference resource it is pretty useless. If you have downloaded the new version and don't like it, you can download an old version here.