u/olendra

I recently bought a Air France short haul ticket with a Economy return that is changeable for free (but not refundable), and I just have to pay "a possible fare difference". The first leg is not completed yet, but based on the conditions, I am allowed to change even after the first flight.

Today, I wanted to change my ticket to a later date that happens to be cheaper when I check both the prices for a return and a one-way flight. However, I am asked to pay 80 euros more. I don't mind not getting any money back, but it absolutely doesn't make sense that I should pay more.

I checked the price breakdown and they just say this is the fare difference, and the changing fees is 0 euros.

I can't find a clear breakdown of my original ticket price and what each leg cost, but I had written down the prices of each leg, so I know it was about 40 euros more expensive than this new flight, so it doesn't make sense I should pay this.

Questions:

• Is it a glitch or do they have typically different prices for rebooking (which seems a bit crazy)?
• Where can I find the breakdown of what I paid for each leg of the return flight? Because it seems a bit odd they could claim the price is that much higher but there is nowhere I can verify that (even when I select the new flight, they just say +80 euros but don't mention the original and final price).

Hi!

I currently work in the private sector and saw a job opening in one of the European institutions for a contract/temp position that could strongly match my profile and be exactly in my field of expertise.

However, as an "expert", I also think the job description is pretty vague for someone in the field and could cover a few different specialties and specialised skills, some of which don't match my profile.

I remember reading in one of the EU job notices that you could be disqualified if you tried to reach out to someone from the recruiting team? Or did I dream this?

In my field in the private sector, it's not a good look if you apply blindly to a position without trying to reach out to someone from the recruiting team to get to know more about the job, especially when the description is a bit vague. I saw the position was posted by some people from said institution on LinkedIn.

Is reaching out to someone from the team/organisation something you can do for European jobs or can it exclude you from the competition?

Curious if anyone has applied to buy a new build there. I have seen adverts for this development for over a year now, and I kind of remember them being for sale in 2025, but I can’t find if they actually sold any. It seems they will be sold “soon” so I’m wondering if it’s the next phase?

Also, was there a lot of competition or did/do they struggle to sale? I am quite surprised they advertise that much for something in a well-sought after neighbourhood.

My broker is very conservative in his advice regarding how strict I should be with home insurance before buying a property, as he is adamant that an improperly insurable house will cause problems at drawdown, so it‘s a high risk to see a sale fail at the worst time. He advised me a few times against applying for a mortgage for properties that had insurance issues, but I keep hearing of stories with people having no mortgage problems for the same issues and of properties being sold with these issues.

This included exclusions in block insurance policy for apartments that would be a blocker with almost all banks according to him (flood, subsidence...). I had friends who bought with exclusions to their insurance policies, in particular with AIB, but my broker says AIB and other banks are becoming stricter recently and it's too much of a risk to go all the way to drawdown with these exclusions, in particularly if I want to resell in a few years.

I am actually a very prudent person when it comes to insurance but it looks like so many very high demand properties and areas are not fully insurable, and people still buy them, likely many of them with mortgages. Everyone else around me seems to not even consider these insurance problems as an issue, and auctioneers don't even bother investigating this beforehand when it would be in their interest to make sure the sale doesn't fail at the last minute, so I am wondering if my broker is overstating this possible issue or if he is right to be cautious.

Does anyone have very recent experiences with that kind of issues as a seller or buyer?

My broker is very conservative in his advice regarding home insurance as he is adamant that an improperly insurable house will cause problems at drawdown, but likely at approval stage, so it‘s a high risk to see a sale fail at the worst time. He advised me a few times against applying for a mortgage for properties that had insurance issues. Most recently, it was for an apartment with certain exclusions in the insurance block policy, as he said the banks would withdraw their offers when they would see this.

My solicitor seems to think he is right and in the most recent case, I only knew about the exclusions because the auctioneer wanted me to check with my mortgage provider it wouldn’t be an issue.

But I am still wondering if my broker is not overly conservative because most of the times, the auctioneer didn’t warn me of features that could cause insurance issues (very large flat roof, subsidence or flood exclusion, petrol stations nearby…), but then I found out it would be a problem for the bank or securing a full coverage exclusion. Now I know people keep repeating auctioneers don’t work for the buyers in this sub, but this is not a buyer issue: if I can’t get my mortgage in the end, I can’t buy the house, the seller wasted a couple of months and paid his solicitor for nothing, so it’s absolutely something the buyer should be warned of before if it may be that much of an issue?

This year, one of my friends discovered at drawdown that their house had a subsidence risk so they couldn’t get insurance for subsidence. Their broker told them it wasn’t a big deal, they should just ask for a subside exclusion, and he will find a bank that will accept it. In the end, that worked.

But my broker told me that banks are becoming stricter with insurance and rejects routinely mortgage if there is no full coverage, including banks that used to be more flexible, so there is too much of a risk comes drawdown and also if I want to resell in a few years.

Does anyone have recent experiences with that kind of issues as a seller or buyer?

Hello wonderful people,
Tonight I attended the public consultation held in Midleton regarding the proposed Phase 2 of the CACR. In case you have not read about, it greatly expands on the existing cork commuter rail:
-construction of a maintenance depot for the new fleet (in speaking with the consultants, they will be the first of their kind in Ireland and much of what Dublin will do will be predicated on this new rail system).
-10-minute service frequency (!!!)
-two new P+Rs at Blarney and Dunkettle
-6 new stations
-and more

Unfortunately while I was there, all other people there were to register their opposition. They are a well-organized group, as they looked to have loads of time on their hands. In speaking with the beleaguered consultants, I asked if they needed to hear more from people like me, who are passionate about seeing this project come to fruition - he said yes, that people just assume this gets done, but it doesn’t. People need to voice their support.

So I’m sharing the link and asking you kind Redditors to have your say:

https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/about-us/iarnrod-eireann-projects-and-investments/cork-area-commuter-rail

Please take a few minutes and (hopefully) make a submission of support. Share and cross-post. There is one more public consultation in Mallow, along with an online one in June. The NIMBYs are out in full force against this and they do not strike me as types to give two ticks about our future and the inescapable climate crisis.

GMA

ETA: since several asked, the thrust of their complaints were related to the crossing frequency and how it adds an additional 3 minutes journey to their ability to get to downtown Midleton. Absolutely lost on them that with all this new housing going up, you will have to shunt those people either onto the roads or onto the trains, as traffic is about to seriously get worse once these new housing estates are fully habituated. Some of the people were landowners near the depot and how construction noise will kill their bucolic life. It felt like a motley crew of people easily pissed off by something so they banded together against this. Sorry to say, but it was all people of a certain age demographic.

Second edit: in speaking with the consultant, this new phase is not ideated within a vacuum; it takes into consideration all sorts of modalities that people may want to use. The CACR goes hand in hand with the greenways and cycle routes to give more people the option for a completely car-free journey, or just a partial car-free journey. I came away pleased (as both a cyclist and a train-user) that this was not just a half-baked potpourri of ideas, but a well-devised scheme to get less cars off the road/reduce traffic/give people reliable and affordable options/tackle carbon emissions.

EDIT: Thank you for the response! It does seem that this specific ticketing was a bit confusing/unusual so I’ll contact customer service to understand how it works.

I was travelling long haul on Club World, all bought through BA with a connecting flight to Ireland. BA doesn’t fly to my city so the flight was operated by Aer Lingus but clearly marked as sold as BA on my ticket. Since Aer Lingus doesn’t have a business class in short haul, it was also marked as an economy ticket. The agency who purchased the ticket for me confirmed I should have lounge access at Heathrow since what matters is the long haul. I had a very long stopover leaving from T2, so security let me go to T3 for the lounges.

I first tried to get into the Qantas lounge but they told me they were “very confused” by my tickets, and couldn’t accept Aer Lingus customers. When I pointed the “sold as BA” mention they repeated it was all very confusing and I should go to the BA lounge to sort it out.

In the BA lounge, the steward told me he could not let me enter because I was on Economy for the outbound, and the long haul Club World I was coming from didn’t matter because I wasn’t business anymore. He told me that if I wanted to use a lounge, I should go to the arrival lounge in T5, which is quite far away and means entering the country, which was not my plan at all.

He told me I was going to miss my flight (over 4 hours later) if I stayed here. Finally, when I told him I was going to check the rules online, he let me go inside.

Is this normal that I was refused access by several staff members and had to insist? Did I misunderstand anything? I understand the rules below (from one world website) as a long haul Club World followed by a short haul Economy on a non OneWorld company sold as BA shouldn’t have been an issue. I don’t want to argue anytime I fly BA with a connection so want to make sure I didn’t misunderstand.

Connecting between oneworld marketed and operated flights: First and Business Class customers connecting on the same day of travel, or before 06:00am the following day, can access the lounge when travelling between an international long haul (a oneworld international long haul flight is defined as an international flight marketed and operated by any oneworld carrier with a scheduled flight time longer than 5 hours) and an international short haul or domestic flight (and vice-versa).

Lounge access will be determined on the international long haul ticketed flight (either First of Business Class) regardless of the ticketed class of travel on the international short haul or domestic flight. You must be prepared to show your boarding pass for travel in First or Business class on the international long haul flight, in order to access the lounge before your international short haul or domestic flight.