u/bielogical

(Repost due to formatting problem, sorry)

I promise I don’t typically make internet rant posts. But this was so comical I felt I had to share

I was looking at flights from Europe to Asia. Etihad offered 2 free hotel nights on their website if I booked with them and agreed to a layover. I selected yes, bought a basic fare ticket and now have a 50 hour layover with hotel.

Here’s what happened after

- Went to the website to pick my hotel. Website says “not eligible for hotel”

- Chat with customer service (Rep #1) and he says I am eligible, and asks what hotel I want and I give him several options

- Wake up next day to email saying I am no longer eligible for hotel because there is a conference on that day and it is blacked out

- Chat with customer service (Rep #2) to tell them obviously the website didn’t mention blackout dates on my day of travel, because it wouldn’t have offered me the free hotel. I also have a screenshot saved of the site and theres no mention of blackout date. It’s obvious they had a programming error and the site doesn’t check blackout dates until after the booking is made.

- Rep #2 says he will escalate and wait a few days for response.

- I wait a few days, no response

- Chat with customer service (Rep #3) and repeat whats happened. He says ok I will escalate to supervisor, wait 24 hours

- I wait 24 hours, no response

- I start a dispute through Chase credit card. The next day a supervisor calls (Supervisor #1). He says “personally I totally get it and you are right. But it’s out of my hands and we can’t change your flight or issue a refund”

- I tell him I will start a Chase dispute and I have saved all chats and screenshots to prove my point. His tone changes at this point and says “let me escalate again and notify them about this”

- Get a call from another Supervisor (Supervisor #2) who just says I understand your problem but due to terms & conditions theres nothing we can do

So now I am stuck with a flight that has a long layover and no hotel. It’s currently with Chase and I will update based on how that goes.

I checked just now and my date (Jan 28) still offers free hotel. I can’t believe how they are behaving.

Hello - just hit 500 hours and want to share a report

Background: Native English speaker. Have >2,000 hours in Spanish and happy with my level (though I’m always learning more). Last year I was doing Portuguese CI with some French CI, but then focused on French when DF launched. In addition to learning French, there were two questions I wanted to answer by doing DF

1. How will the experience be strictly following the roadmap and doing 100% CI:

When I learned Spanish I had some high school courses >15 years ago, and did traditional methods like Language Transfer + grammar study. Once I discovered DS I switched to that method, but gave myself a couple hundred hour credits for the prior learning.

Unlike Spanish, I’ve never studied or had exposure to French before I started watching some CI content last year. I haven’t done any grammar/vocab study either, so this is a good opportunity to see what CI on its own is like.

2. Is there a 2x bonus if I know Spanish?

Last year I did ~50 hours of Portuguese and it was veryyyy obvious my progress will be much faster with my Spanish background. A 2x bonus wouldn’t surprise me there given the similarities between the languages

But French seems quite different from Spanish/Porto/Italian so curious to see how that progress goes.

****

So here’s my progress:

#1 - no surprise here, I’m learning French fine. My first ever video was an Alice Ayel story about a crepe that sounded like gibberish to me. I rewatched it now and it’s really funny to think I didn’t understand it before, now it seemed a bit slow. My DF video level seems to be ~70.

On podcasts I find “French Decoded” is regularly comprehensible, and “Inner French” varies a bit more with some episodes being comprehensible and others being a bit too difficult, especially with 2 people.

On YouTube I watch the usual channels like “FCI, and found some new quality ones like “French with Isis”. Im starting native content like YT travel shows (Echappees Belles) or dubbed series I already know (the Office). This approach worked for me with Spanish.

#2 - The progress is faster but still not sure about the 2x bonus (unlike Portuguese). Looking at my Spanish report my Level 4 experience is similar to where I am now, with the exception that in Spanish I started dubbed content at 1000 hours whereas in French I’m experimenting with it now.

On speaking I haven’t tried it yet and don’t feel ready, whereas in Spanish at 1000 hours I felt like I had enough exposure to the language to start speaking with a tutor.

So to summarize, I’m moving to dubbed content faster than in Spanish, but I don’t feel like the 1000hr description (2x my 500hrs) applies to me yet, especially with speaking. My very unscientific conclusion is to assume there is a 1.25-1.5x bonus and reassess at 750 hours.

***

So yea, so far so good. It’s very weird to learn a language with no grammar tables in my head to reference, but I’m enjoying the process and it seems to be working fine. Maybe the 2x bonus won’t apply to me, but either way I know I’m going to get to a good level of French, it’s just a matter of time.

Hello!

Has anyone successfully transitioned from the NLV visa to the Self Employed visa? This is the visa where you have to present a business plan etc. It is different from the Digital Nomad visa

I have seen many lawyer blog posts saying it’s possible after 1 year on NLV, but don’t know anyone who has actually done it. Just curious to see what resources you used, how it actually went.

https://www.exteriores.gob.es/Consulados/londres/en/ServiciosConsulares/Paginas/Consular/Visado-de-trabajo-por-cuenta-propia.aspx

https://heniam.es/non-lucrative-visa-to-a-self-employed-visa-in-spain/#why-change-from-an-nlv-to-a-self-employed-visa

Noticed it the past few days. Great to see the content amount ramp up