‘Scripts, Skeletons & Scriptures: Writing About Writing in Yorkshire.

[Human]

A quick post on Parisian street art...



These people gave me permission to photograph them plying their trade...



If you've spent any time in Paris you've seen these. They're called "Space Invaders" and they're illegal, but beloved, pieces of street art from a mysterious artist known only as "Invader". You can download the official "Flash Invader" app and many Parisians love going out, with their phones in hand, "collecting" Space Invaders on their app. You can buy books about them!

 

[RooFlyer]

Funny, I had the day in Copenhagen and also spent it doing nothing or not much - just a few walks.Completely guilt free - no admissions paid, not many photos taken.

 

[Human]

Funny, I had the day in Copenhagen and also spent it doing nothing or not much - just a few walks.Completely guilt free - no admissions paid, not many photos taken.

Sometimes you just need days like that. I obviously did -- after lunch I crashed in bed and slept deeply for almost two hours. I obviously needed a rest!

 

[Human]

Chapter 3: The Nature of MAN.

Time for me to leave Paris. I caught a taxi to Terminal 2E. CDG isn’t my favourite airport (I don’t think it’s anyone’s favourite airport!) and as expected things weren’t totally clear about where I should go once I arrived, but I was pointed in the right direction by some Air France staff and I dropped off my baggage soon enough. Then it was about a 15-minute wait to get through Passport Control, and a short train ride to the L gates.



There is currently one Priority Pass lounge at CDG – the Yotel Lounge which just happens to be at the Terminal 2E L gates. I’d read one or two reviews beforehand and the consensus was that this is – how do I put this tactfully – not one of the great Priority Pass Lounges. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.






This lounge is to airport lounges what the Chico roll is to fine dining. The only thing it has going for it is that it’s not particularly crowded. It’s a big room with some cheap waiting room furniture and some even cheaper self-serve food and beverage options.

However, it’s home for the next couple of hours…

 

[Human]

AF1268 CDG-MAN Economy
Cost: 24,000 Flying Blue points plus US$48.60

Of all my flights, booking this flight was the most difficult. Having booked my flights into Paris, I quite reasonably thought that getting to Manchester from there would be a breeze. It was not! I first looked for reward flights on Air France using Virgin Atlantic points. Nothing. Then Qantas points. Nothing.

No problem, I thought; I’d just pay for a cheap EasyJet flight. Once the “cheap” EasyJet flight included checked baggage and carry-on, the 1-hour-ish flight cost well over $300.

I looked to see if Air France had anything cheaper. The Air France flight cost over $500. For a CDG-MAN flight! What’s going on here?

Air France, I discovered, uses dynamic award pricing. They had availability on AF1268 for 24,000 Flying Blue points – a lot of points for such a short flight, but given the cash cost of this flight, the value for point was a not-too-bad 2c per point.

That’s where some good luck came in. Last year I took out a Commonwealth Bank Smart Awards Mastercard and Commbank Awards are transferrable to Air France Flying Blue at an OK transfer rate of 2.5:1.

So I opened a Flying Blue account, transferred 60,000 Commbank points, and booked my flight. A day later, it was revealed that Commbank would be ditching Flying Blue as a transfer partner.

So far, so good. The flight was scheduled to depart at 9:50pm….


Why, oh why, can’t I be stuck in the Qatar Airways Lounge for two hours instead?

It's going to be a long night.

 

[Human]

So I've been spending part of this delay checking my rights under EC261.

If the flight arrives three hours late or more, I'm entitled to EUR250. Currently it's due to arrive 1 hour and 40 minutes late. Air France has emailed to say that the reason for the delay is "operational reasons", so that seems to mean that they're still on the hook if the delay is longer than 3 hours (as opposed to if the delay were due to "extraordinary circumstances").

While EUR250 would be nice (especially at the current exchange rate!) I'd rather arrive and get to sleep sooner, and not be in a situation where I'm entitled to it. Here's hoping!

The only other time I've been in this sort of situation was in very early 2022, when our KEF-CPH flight from Iceland was cancelled becuase the airline couldn't staff the flight due to the crew having COVID. We didn't receive compensation because that was deemed "extraordinary circumstances", but the airline did pay for our extra night's accommodation.

There was most definitely a silver lining to that story, though: you can read about it below!

Post in thread 'What's your favourite travel story?'

Feb 6, 2023

Our go-to story is quite recent (Dec 2021-Jan 2022). My wife and I were in Iceland, visiting at that time of year because we wanted to see the Northern Lights. The first night after we arrived, we excitedly boarded a minibus for our small-group Northern Lights tour… after waiting for three hours in minus 7 degree weather, they didn’t come out. We got back to our hotel room in Reykjavik at 1am.

The next night we tried again (the tour companies let you rebook for free if the Lights don’t come out). Same story. No lights. Hours standing in below-freezing cold. Back in our hotel room at 1am...

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[Human]

The departure has been pushed back to 12:30am (originally scheduled for 9:50pm), and the flight is now scheduled to arrive 2 hours and 31 mins late. I suppose a worst-case scenario would be arriving 2 hours and 59 minutes late! Given where the delay is now at, at this point an extra 29 minutes would be nice... I do know, though, that actually getting the money out of the airline is not a done deal.

I have just received an SMS from Air France offering a EUR 11 dining credit from various outlets in the terminal.

 

[Human]

I left the lounge and walked into the terminal to use my EUR11 credit. Of course, all the eateries were closed (as was everything else).


Big CDG Airport Cat.


My flight has now been delayed further to 1:00am, with a current arrival estimate of 2hours 58 minutes behind schedule. Hey Air France, may I have an extra 2 minutes (and EUR250) please?