BJSLIV

Will there be no BF crossings from Poole to Cherbourg next winter at all? That's the current intention, though meetings are taking place between BF and the French local authorities who are trying to get the service reinstated.  

I agree . It might be sensible for them to suppress all ADSL offers for people a long way from the exchange, but it seems perverse to offer the faster options whilst suppressing the slowest offer. As I said before I did wonder if they had underestimated the demand for the low cost option, and were trying to make it harder to take it up by removing it from their website, but as I said before it's certainly still there in our village. It might be worth trying Ariase.com to see what happens if Martin tries their comparison service.That certainly offers Decouverte as the first option for us. Incidentally for anyone changing suppliers Ariase are quite useful for if you place your new order through their website, they will pay for your registered letter of cancellation to your old supplier out of their commission, which saves you both aggro and euros!

I'm afraid Nadine , be she virtual, virtuous, or otherwise, is displaying that well known trait of French cusctomer service; if you don't know the answer make one up. I say this because I have just tested Danny's link both with our own number and with another number from our village, and both immediately offered Decouverte at 19.9 + an optional 3 Euros for a Livebox. I had been thinking that they had withdrawn the service on line, perhaps in the face of unexpectedly high demand, so as to maximise their opportunities for "Upselling" It does say that you must have cookies enabled for the thing to work properly, perhaps that may be affecting the options displayed.    

Pacha I was actually on your side in the last round. I was pointing out to Jako that  it was silly to exclude Alice  whilst including Free when their T&Cs are virtually identical. Though your most recent point isn't 100% correct as both Darty and Neuf/SFR  provide basic ADSL only service in non-degroupee areas the thrust of your arguement is spot on. Neuf only offer 512k service for 20 Euros  which in my book barely qualifies, and  with Darty charging, from memory, around 27 Euros a month, this further diminishes the implied cost of the call package. As far as the marvellous 20 euro per month deal from Alice it must be one of the most difficult offers to pin down. I believe it is only available in areas where Alice/Free are suffering because of the cheap high speed deals offered by Numericable/Darty/Auchan  ie a handful of the larger cities. I find it very hard to understand why so many resident Brits  still mess around with Skype and other VOIP providers when there is a wide choice of all inclusive packages available around the 30/35 Euro mark. Perhaps they are always on the phone to countries not included in the select 100 destinations usually available.    

Accept you, because Alice does not provide any " internet only " service. The same applies to Free

It worked for me when I signed up from the UK a couple of weeks ago. Later this week I will find out whether    The service itself actually works    My trusty BT router will work with Orange    Neuf/SFR  have released me from their clutches etc etc. So far it has seemed relatively painless. Ten days after the order was placed I received an email to tell me that the service was live. It seems too good to be true. I was previously paying 35 a month simply to get a  6mg service, we used free calls so little that they weren't a significant benefit. So overall it represents a saving of 15 euros a month.  Further report later in the week. or next month if it hasn't actually worked at all..............  

an Orange unlimited forfait ONLY INCLUDES FRENCH FIXED LINE LOCAL CALLS As I said you have to pay an extra 5 Euros per month for international calls.  

The new Orange cheap deal is for ADSL plain and simple, it includes no phone calls at all. You also have to pay for the line rental so the total cost is just short of 36 Euros per month. If you want an all inclusive but cheap package , and you aren't bothered about being 100% reliant on ADSL for your phone calls, then you would have to move to Free, Neuf, or Darty who would offer the lot,  line rental, ADSL ,and calls for less than 35 Euros per month. Edit Just thought there is also a new package from Orange "Net sans ligne fixe" which offers line rental, ADSL and French calls for 34.9 to which you could add international calls for an additional 5 Euros. Again this is 100%  VOIP so no traditional phone and you have to use the Livebox.

A news item in mid February said the price has increased to 0.67 Euros per lite compared to the record high of 1,0143 in 2008. http://droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/news/101322-fioul-domestique-le-prix-du-litre-repart-a-la-hausse I should check they haven't filled you up with Diesel!  

It's a typically French situation. The law reforming VAT on property has been published today http://www.fiscalonline.com/Reforme-de-la-TVA-immobiliere-la,1790.html The instructions implementing transitional arrangements will be published soon, but as it doesn't say anything to the contrary one has to assume that the rules, whatever they will be are already in effect!  

For those willing to try Seafrance  (!)  (Dover-Calais) their £40 return UK-France-UK  is still available (one more week)  for travel during most of the year. http://www.ferrycheap.com/seafrance    

The facility to transfer calls is something you have to pay a subscription for  (1.5 euros per month, plus  0.11 euros every time you switch it on) in addition to the cost of each call transferred to your mobile. You sign up either by ringing 3000, or this link might work http://boutique.orange.fr/services/viewFormService.php?service=288&donnee_appel=ORESH&IDCible=1&sv=5-606427_B&dd=0&modeExpress=1# Until you have signed up the transfer request won't register.    

I think they are just tidying up their range of accounts. I have had a Flexaccount since it started, back in the days when Nationwide were only a simple building society. In those days they didn't have a debit card, just a cash card. I still have that card with the Flex Account, but they have for years been trying to persuade me to upgrade. I never did largely because I didn't need another debit card, but also because in repeated tests against my wife's Nationwide debit card the cash card always gave a slightly better exchange rate. The Cashcard account was introduced a few years ago, when  the banks were leaned on by the Government to introduce simple accounts for the Great Unbanked, It was part of their plan to get rid of cash payment of pension at the Post Office counters. This account was never really intended for use by people grand enough to travel abroad [:D], so I suppose it's a  natural progression to migrate the posh folk to full Flexaccounts,  whilst cutting back on the services available for the basic Cashcard account. We seem to get one of these scares every spring about the end of the Nationwide's foreign benefits.    

Their FAQ defines vehicles qualifying for personal use thus.......... Van: Any van (including roof box, roof rack or cycles) over 1.85m in height, used for private, tourist or leisure travel. This excludes minibuses, campervans, trailers, caravans, motorcycles and any light commercial goods vehicles carrying commercial goods for resale. Please note, the maximum laden weight for a van on our Passenger service is 3.5 tonnes. Elsewhere in the definitions the main emphasis is on being able to prove that the goods are not intended for resale.  

No, it's 50cents of a Euro (50%) . Which is quite expensive enough thank you!  

Probably not accurate enough for his task , but if you go to http://www.geoportail.fr/ Zoom in to your plot, then select the 3d version. There is a tool on there for calculating an area based on the aerial photographs. It ties in pretty well with the amount of land we were purchased !!!!

The free phone calls you mentioned only apply to other customers signed up to Neuf/SFR. Sorry, late night lack of clarity. What I meant to say was that the free French phone calls only apply when you are calling  other Neuf/SFR customers.

I agree with your sentiments about keeping the FT line, but I think you could do better even staying with SFR. Firstly depending on how far you are from the exchange you might be able to get a faster service than the 512 you currently have.Try putting your details into www.degroupetest.com. That will give you an idea of just how fast a service SFR could provide. Secondly the deal you are currently on gives you no free phone calls. You seem to be making quite a few French phone calls which is pushing up your bill from the basic 19.95 a month to around 26. The free phone calls you mentioned only apply to other customers signed up to Neuf/SFR. Their faster deal which costs 34.95 a month  would include all calls including those to the UK and many other places together with much faster broadband (Subject to distance from exchange) It's possible that you could get an even cheaper deal by switching to Free or Alice, but I don't recommend changing suppliers unless you really have to.........  

You should have received an email late last year telling you that they were moving to monthly billing. I assume that you didn't receive/read the message. I guess that the amount billed each month is changing due to differing usage of the phone. Which package are you on with SFR?    

For this kind of situation you are unlikely to better Air France. They can get you back from Toulouse to Aberdeen at less than a days notice, with a choice of 3 or 4 flights changing at CDG. If you are lucky it will be around £450 single, but if demand is high it could be up to £900. But in this kind of situation there really isn't much choice or  opportunity to book ahead with Ryanair.  

Everyone arriving at Portsmouth suffers because of staffing levels at  border controls, though Brittany Ferries usually arrive before LD which gives them a head start. However LD Lines will always  suffer delays whatever the staffing levels due to the design of the Cote D'Albatre. Anyone who has travelled on this vessel knows that unless there is very little freight the cars are loaded, on the upper decks, and must wait until all the freight has off-loaded before the cars will be allowed to disembark. Most modern ferries allow simultaneous unloading of freight and cars using separate ramps this is not available on either of the Newhaven ships.        

Using the Norman Leader in Boulogne and moving the ex-Brave Merchant to Portsmouth is already being discussed elsewhere, so those fingers need to be very firmly crossed. But wouldn't that be the worst of all worlds? A Ship with little living room (rather like the Voyager) but fewer cabins on the long crossing, while the Leader would have acres of cabins unused at Dover. Unless freight really is the only important matter...... If they were going to divert the Leader to another route I would have thought that the new Brittany-Spain route would have made a better home for the new ship, especially as the start date keeps going back.

I suppose all the changes are a Ryanair effect. as LD Lines, unlike the traditional operators has smaller margins they can't afford to ride out the bad patches and must continually adjust their deployment in an attempt to minimise losses. We will all have to keep our fingers crossed that the next big change at Portsmouth, the arrival of the Norman Leader, is A: Beneficial. and if it is B Stays there!

I think the Ferryto website needs a bit of updating. That page is a real mish-mash of old and current news.  It has the Norman Spirit on both the Ostend and Boulogne routes, while the Norman arrow is supposedly covering both Le Havre and Boulogne!!!!!  

Isn't the benefit of the Frequent traveller scheme that you can get (relatively) cheap prices, even if you book at the last minute? An FT ticket for next Friday would still be £59 , whereas the cheapest single would be over £100. The cheap prices you have quoted are for non-flexible tickets booked in advance. If you need to change your plans you have to pay a supplement and possibly an admin charge.