Been in Batumi 3 days. I'm a foreigner (German), I speak English, and I say hello and thank you every single time I walk into a shop.

Most of the time I get nothing back. No hello, no thank you, no bye. The cashier takes the money, drops the change on the counter and looks past me at the next person. Same thing in two supermarkets, a bakery, a pharmacy and a couple of cafes.

I'm not expecting small talk. A basic hello would do. After three days it's honestly starting to get on my nerves, which is probably more my problem than theirs.

Is this just how it is here?

My sister (23F) is getting married in a few months and asked me for €2,000. She says she miscalculated the budget and an insurance payment came in way higher than she expected.

Two years ago I lent her €1,000. She said a few months, no problem. I've never seen a cent of it.

The money isn't the problem. I have it, giving her €2,000 wouldn't hurt me at all. What bothers me is that I'm basically her overdraft account and she's never had to deal with the consequences of running out of money. If I hand it over again, nothing changes. I know that she has also debts with other family members.

So I'm (38M) thinking of saying no, or saying yes. Part of me thinks that's a fair boundary. Part of me thinks I'm about to be the guy who made a fuss over money right before his sister's wedding.

WIBTA if I say no?

87 countries, and a bunch of them I've entered both ways at different times. Same country, same passport, and the land crossing is almost always the rougher one.

What keeps happening at land borders:

- getting treated like a problem to process instead of someone arriving

- fees that only exist at that one window, cash only, no receipt

- no real queue, no signage, whatever the guy at the desk decides is the rule

- barely any English, at the booth and at everything around it (insurance desk, money changer, bus counter), so half the time you're paying for something and only find out later what it was

- long silent staring at the passport for no reason

Airport in the same country: someone speaks enough English to actually answer a question, and it's a stamp and 30 seconds.

My guess is it comes down to who gets posted out there, nobody supervising them, and land borders dealing with a lot more than tourists. But that's a guess.

Anyone had it the other way round, where airport immigration was the worse one?

We are 2 people looking for a reliable private driver for a one way trip from Batumi to Trabzon on 23 August 2026.

Route: along the Black Sea coast, crossing the Sarpi/Sarp border into Turkey. We want to stop at Sümela Monastery on the way and take our time there.

Requirements:

- Comfortable car for 2 people plus luggage

- English speaking driver preferred

- Experience with the border crossing

- Door to door pickup in Batumi and drop off in Trabzon

Please send me your price, your vehicle type, and your contact number by comment or PM. Payment in cash, currency to agree.

We are 2 people looking for a reliable private driver for a one way trip from Batumi to Trabzon on 23 August 2026.

Route: along the Black Sea coast, crossing the Sarpi/Sarp border into Turkey. We want to stop at Sümela Monastery on the way and take our time there.

Requirements:

- Comfortable car for 2 people plus luggage

- English speaking driver preferred

- Experience with the border crossing

- Door to door pickup in Batumi and drop off in Trabzon

Please send me your price, your vehicle type, and your contact number by comment or PM. Payment in cash, currency to agree.

I sell on Fiverr myself (Pro, Top Rated), so I know how the platform works, which is why this one bugs me.

My girlfriend paid $280 for a book cover from a Top Rated seller. The gig was listed as sold with full commercial rights. Communication and delivery were fine, no complaints there.

Before she published the book I asked if she had the license for the font and the stock image used on the cover. She didn’t know, so she asked the seller directly. His answer: no license for the font, no license for the stock. So he sold the cover with “all rights” while never holding the rights to the assets he built it from.

We opened a case. First support level already closed it and said it can’t be appealed.

For anyone who’s dealt with this: how do you handle a seller who resold font and stock they never actually licensed?

Grass pollen allergy, tried 3 fixes, all failed long term. What actually works?

Been dealing with a heavy grass and pollen allergy for years. Looking for something that holds up, not just a daily band-aid.

What I’ve run through so far:

**Immunotherapy (desensitization).** Did the full course, effect faded after a while.

**MSM powder.** Maybe a slight edge on the inflammation side, nothing I’d bet on.

**Standard antihistamines**. They work, but I don’t want to be on them every season for the rest of my life.

**Moved abroad** to the tropics a while ago, and that alone cut my symptoms way down. The catch: every time I go back to a temperate grass zone for a visit, it slams me just as hard as before. (Or even harder)

So I’m after the longer game. Diet changes, gut stuff, nasal training, supplements, peptides, whatever you’ve actually tested and tracked yourself.

For the supplement crowd: did quercetin do anything real for you, or is it just an expensive placebo?

Grass pollen allergy, tried 3 fixes, all failed long term. What actually works?

Been dealing with a heavy grass and pollen allergy for years. Looking for something that holds up, not just a daily band-aid.

What I’ve run through so far:

Immunotherapy (desensitization). Did the full course, effect faded after a while.

MSM powder. Maybe a slight edge on the inflammation side, nothing I’d bet on.

Standard antihistamines. They work, but I don’t want to be on them every season for the rest of my life.

Moved abroad to the tropics a while ago, and that alone cut my symptoms way down. The catch: every time I go back to a temperate grass zone for a visit, it slams me just as hard as before. (Or even harder)

So I’m after the longer game. Diet changes, gut stuff, nasal training, supplements, peptides, whatever you’ve actually tested and tracked yourself.

For the supplement crowd: did quercetin do anything real for you, or is it just an expensive placebo?

Been cleaning up Performance Max placement reports for a few clients. Got tired of doing it by hand so I built a prompt that runs the whole placement list through Gemini and sorts every domain into spam/MFA, gaming junk, and off topic.

What got me is how accurate it is. Around 95 to 98 percent on the obvious garbage. MFA arbitrage sites, fake reward apps, low quality content farms. Gemini flags them instantly.

So a Google model tells me with high confidence which sites are made for advertising. And those same sites are still eligible to run my ads in PMax. The detection clearly exists. It just doesn't get applied on the ad serving side, where blocking it would cost Google money.

You basically run their AI against their own ad network to catch what their other AI already knows is junk.

Anyone else doing AI based placement cleanup, or still building exclusion lists by hand?

Coming to Armenia for the first time this August. I've got an apartment in Yerevan booked for two weeks and I'd rather plan it properly than wing it.

Quick context: I make travel videos for a German-speaking audience, and photography is the main reason I'm here. So I care less about ticking boxes and more about places that actually hold up, on camera and in person.

What I've got down so far is the obvious stuff. Cascade, Republic Square, Garni and Geghard, Khor Virap, probably a day at Lake Sevan, Tatev if it's doable. That covers the postcards. What I'm missing is the local layer. The street, the bar, the market, the hill at sunset that never makes a top 10 list.

One more thing: if anyone here shoots photos and fancies tagging along somewhere, I'm up for it. Always better with someone who knows where to point the camera.

So, given two weeks, where would you send me?

Heads up, I'll be in and around Almaty for two weeks from late June, first time in Kazakhstan. I run a German-language travel vlog and I'm really into photography, so I want to film and shoot the stuff that's genuinely worth it, not just the standard checklist.

On my list so far: Charyn Canyon, Big Almaty Lake, Shymbulak, Medeu, Kok Tobe, maybe a Kolsai Lakes trip. Two weeks is enough to get past the obvious, so I'd rather do what you'd actually send a friend to. A viewpoint, a market, a place to eat, a day trip that tourists usually skip.

I'm also keen to meet other travelers or locals who are into photography for a photo tour or two. More fun to shoot with someone who knows the good spots.

What would a local add to that list, and is anything on it not really worth the time?

I spend usually 3-4 months a year in Thailand, first proper stretch in Pattaya. Two Grab rides so far, two problems.

Ride 1: Booked with card payment, no cash on me. Driver messages me demanding cash. I say no, the booking was set to card. He tells me to just walk. (very unfriendly)

Ride 2: Grab Plus from Central to my hotel. Driver adds 30 baht on top. No toll, no parking, no barrier. I question it, he comes back and offers the 30 baht back. Told him it is not about the money, it is about being honest about the fare.

Grab has always been solid for me everywhere else in Thailand. Is Pattaya just worse for this, or did I draw two bad drivers back to back? Anyone here switched to Bolt instead?

Posting this because I want a sanity check from people who actually know the ALL program well.

Background: I just crossed the 60 status night threshold for Platinum. My previous stay ended with checkout, and that stay pushed me over 60 nights. The very next day I checked into another Accor property for a week.

Problem one: my account still shows the old, lower night count. Status Points are supposed to be credited from the checkout date, but a few days later nothing has moved. I already filed a missing points claim before arriving. Still nothing.

Problem two: the new hotel will not recognize the status I have earned. I showed the front desk the paid invoice from the previous stay. They said they cannot do anything manually and that I have to wait for the system. The reception was not exactly motivated to help, which is a separate frustration.

Problem three, and this is the part I want input on: I escalated to customer service. The written reply said, and I am paraphrasing closely, that the benefits you receive during a stay are determined by the status linked to your reservation at the time of booking.

So I went and read the actual ALL Accor Terms and Conditions of Membership. Article 9.1 says the member is entitled to benefits in accordance with their status on the check-in date. Article 8 says a higher status is reached at any time once you hit the threshold. The definition of a Status Night is an overnight stay completed by the member, and Article 7.2.4 says Status Points are credited as from the checkout date.

By my reading, every relevant clause points to the check-in date, not the booking date. I had the qualifying nights completed before I checked in. The 7 day processing window is an internal admin step, it is not the date the status is actually earned.

So either I am misreading the T&C, or a customer service agent gave me an explanation that contradicts the program's own rules to justify denying benefits for a full week.

Questions for the hive mind:

1. Has anyone successfully gotten a hotel or customer care to honor Platinum benefits during a stay while the points were still pending, using the check-in date argument?
2. Is there a known internal Accor policy that actually does tie benefits to booking date, or is that just an agent improvising?
3. What is the realistic escalation path that gets results here, customer care, the regional office, or the travel mediator route in the T&C?

I am not looking to rage, I just want the benefits I paid for and earned. Curious whether this is a one off bad reply or a pattern people keep running into. Screenshots of the T&C wording available if anyone wants to see them.