Foreign Perspectives

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We’ve just received the bill for the health insurance for the coming year…. EUR 10,047!!

Yes, ten thousand euros.

As with all French administrative organisations, the health insurance people take an incredibly optimistic view of the income that a business is receiving when they make their estimates. Start-up business are assumed to make tens of thousands of euros even after all their start-up expenses have been taken into account.

By year three we are apparently supposed to be making around EUR 155,000 before expenses are deducted, hence the somewhat ridiculous figure of EUR 10,000 that they want us to pay at this point.

Why the estimate though? Well, our accountant still hasn’t gotten around to doing the books for 2005 and recently announced that they need more information for 2006 despite assuring us nearly six months ago that they definitely had everything that was required.

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Loads of people go on last minute holidays and do it very successfully but some of those people just aren’t organised enough to take a last minute break which becomes particularly obvious when they reach us.

Last minute holidays require you to be even more on the ball than normal as there’s usually not enough time to allow for any problems that you’ve not considered. Now, this usually doesn’t matter on a city break as you can get away with taking just your passport, credit card and plane ticket but if you’re aiming for somewhere outside a city or going for more than a few days you need to put a bit more thought into it.

The first thing you need to be clear on is how you are going to get from the airport to your accommodation. Many of the airports used by discount airlines are tiny and not fully operational when late night flights arrive. If you’ve hired a car, check that the car hire office will actually be open when you arrive and indeed up to about an hour after your flight is due as it can take that long to retrieve your baggage and get through customs & immigration. You might think that this will be OK as they wouldn’t take the booking if they weren’t open. Not so: car hire companies in Perpignan all accept bookings for times up to 11pm yet they are all closed by 6pm!

Check that the accommodation you’ve booked is open when you’re planning on arriving too. The majority of hotels don’t have 24 hour reception and if your arrival time is going to be after they close then you usually won’t get in (very small hotels often operate a grace period after official closing time but don’t bank on that). Tell the hotel what flight you are arriving on as some will check for actual flight arrival times and may allow for delays. Phone the hotel as soon as you know you are going to be delayed: don’t wait until you get off the plane to say that you’re four hours late, particularly if that means you’ll not be arriving ’til after 10pm.

If you’re going to arrive on Saturday or Sunday and plan on using public transport to get around, check that it operates at the weekend. In France, it’s commonplace for there to be no public transport operating on Sundays. If you’re going to use a taxi, try asking the hotel what the price is likely to be to avoid nasty surprises.

If you get off the plane really late and can’t face travelling to the accommodation that you’ve booked, don’t forget that you will almost certainly be charged for it anyway. Any cancellations usually need to be made at least 24 hours in advance to avoid “no show” charges. Even with that, any booking fee you’ve paid is never refunded.

If your flight arrives in France after 8pm, make sure that you have eaten something before you get off the plane because, outside the large cities, you won’t be able to get anything to eat in France.

Don’t forget to pack the really essential things that you will need during your stay. It’s not always easy to buy the likes of contact lens solutions and whatnot if you’re in a strange country. The electricity supply around Europe is the same but the plugs are different so buy an adaptor if you haven’t already got one (they’re usually much cheaper in your departure airport than they are at your destination).

Even if you’re not intending to drive, take your driving license.

Take Mastercard and Visa as not everywhere accepts both. It’s useful to have an American Express card as they can be replaced abroad if lost/stolen whereas Mastercard and Visa usually can’t be, despite what the respective companies will tell you.

Finally, don’t depend on the ATM at the airport working when you arrive, particularly if you’re arriving in a small airport at the weekend. Bring some cash in the local currency (around EUR 100 is enough).

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We’re listed on a number of instant-booking websites which are quite different from the usual “drop us a line and we’ll get back to you” type of site that the majority of B&B type places (and many hotels) are listed on in that once the guest has clicked the “book it” button, they are guaranteed to have the room available.

Now obviously when there’s an automated process like this, the system needs to hold information about various aspects of the room and, in particular, the number of people that the room will hold. So, for example, if you book a double room through a system like this, then it’ll sleep up to two people.

So what do people start doing around this time of year? Well, they book a double and in one case turned up with five people for the room. Why? Well, on another site (not the one that they booked through), we say we don’t charge extra for children so they figured that they could book the cheapest double room and turn up with an unlimited number of children.

This, despite the site saying, “the maximum number of people (including children) is 2″ for that particular room.

We’ve just received the first of these bookings for the Summer season… there’ll be many more. Actually, the current family are quite lucky in that we have a room available: I think that the 2 adults plus 3 children ended up sleeping in the car as they arrived on the busiest day of the year last Summer.

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