Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

Whilst the principle of going on holiday over Christmas sounds nice, the reality is often different.

You’ve to content with the traffic jams on the roads in and out of towns for a start which can easily add hours to your travel time before you even get onto the open road.

Then there’s the business of booking travel components.  Whilst there are a lot of people going on holiday around this time, there aren’t nearly the numbers that you get in the summer peaks. However, the winding down of everyone towards their Christmas break means that if there are problems then they aren’t always fixable. For example, you’ll frequently find a discrepancy between the availability as displayed online, in ticket booths and in automated ticket sales machines. Just today the message was “no seats available” in two out of three outlets.

And, of course, there’s the business of closures over the Christmas period. If you’re going to somewhere that you’ve not been to before over this period it’s often far from clear what’ll be open and what’ll be closed.

Don’t let all these complications put you off a Christmas break though. Just make sure that you do your research in advance so you aren’t surprised when something essential for you isn’t operating over Christmas.

MBNA Europe seem to be in the process of an across the board increase in their interest rates to 34.9% in an effort to force their credit card customer base into taking secured loans with their affiliate company loans.co.uk at equally extortionate rates from 10.3% to 17.5% (vs more like 7% for a normal mortgage).

If they’ve hit you with this increase you don’t need to simply accept it as a fact of life though. Approach them in the right way and you can get the rate decreased.

First off don’t get angry, get even. To do this you need to remain calm and polite with them on the phone.

The number to call is 0800 783 1116 which is the direct number for their “Rates and Fees” department.

Ask why your rate has been increased and point out (if applicable) that you’ve managed your account with them well and not missed any payment. Their usual stock answer is that it was due to an “account review”.

At this point tell them that you do not feel that this represents a fair treatment, that the rate is punitive and that you’d like to make a formal complaint. It’s important to use wording along those lines as that will highlight to them that you’ll proceed further which, of course, they’d prefer you not to as they’d almost certainly lose a case that got as far as the Ombudsman.

Usually, they’ll have to consult their manager at this point and, all being well, will come back and confirm that your rate has been revised substantially downwards. Ask them to confirm this in writing.

If that doesn’t work, inform them that you propose to make a formal complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and ask them how you should first take up the complaint formally with MBNA (as required by the Ombudsman). Also, ask them how you should make a Subject Access Request with them (to get all the information that they hold about you) as you’ll need that for the Ombudsman.

Hopefully, that will be enough to shake some sense into them re your interest rate. If not, just carry on as you said you would and take it up first through the MBNA complaints proceedures and then through the Financial Ombudsman Service.

If you’re upgrading the look and feel of your home it’s important to do it in a consistent way to avoid the impression that it’s just been splattered with various bits & pieces that you’ve come across by chance over the years.

The longer you’ve been living in a house, the more likely that effect is going to gradually creep into various rooms and therefore now and again you need to stand back and review what’s happened in terms of the look of your home overall and of each room individually. That’s not to say that every room needs to be done in the same style as every other room but rather that the look should flow through your home.

So, for example, it’s fine to have an olde worlde look to your bedroom with antique furniture throughout but a much more high-tech look to your living room might well be more appropriate if you’ve collected a lot of gadjets there as many of us have. Antique furtniture with flat screen TVs and computers is a look that needs a lot of care if you want it to work and it’s probably simpler to run with a modern look if you want something consistent.

You can even carry the feel of your garden part-way into your house by way of a conservatory perhaps with hanging wrought-iron baskets of plants or marble pedestals for them depending on the style you’ve used around the garden.

You’re probably concentrating on Christmas at the moment but whilst you’re out and about doing your Christmas shopping, you should keep an eye on what’s available in the shops that would improve the look of your home as the sales will be starting shortly after Christmas is out of the way.

If you’ve picked out a few key shops you can easily find that you can get a lot more bits & bobs for your home than you’d manage by aimlessly wandering around the sales. Much better to target just a few shops as that way you’ll be there before the real bargains have been bought.

So, keep an eye out while you’re out!

Whilst I was doing the Spanish course, the big dictionary was the way to go. On degree level courses small dictionaries just don’t cut it and neither do electronic ones, most of which have a considerably fewer number of words than even the smallest of the paper dictionaries.

However, when you’re settling down to read a novel in a foreign language the only way to go is with one of the pen scanners. Large dictionaries aren’t really a runner unless you always read in the one spot as you’re never going to carry around any kind of sizeable dictionary, are you?

Normal electronic dictionaries are a bit of a pain when you’re reading too in that they’re pretty slow, particularly if you’ve to look up a couple of words in a sentence.

With the pen dictionaries all those problems disappear at a stroke. They look up a whole line of words for you in one go for a start and they’re a similar size to the smaller paper dictionaries. The only downside is that they’re a good deal more expensive than normal electronic dictionaries and indeed more expensive than even the largest paper ones.