Source: currently in that situation.
Plane tickets are non-refundable or changeable (unless you pay a huge premium for them). Hotels act like this is the first time they are interacting with foreigners and do not accept payment outside of their very specific local methods (like bank transfers, literally the simplest shit ever, but they only accept local banks).
I made an honest mistake booking some plane tickets on the wrong date, and I cannot change the dates now. Nope. Not even gonna look at the one button we need to click to update the database. Thanks for the money sucker please fly with us again.
We’re in a global pandemic, have been for 2 years, and the first thing hotels and airlines did was make sure to say that catching covid was not a valid reason for getting refunds.
This should literally be considered extortion. I gave ample time to both the airlines and hotels when cancelling (guess who caught covid 🙄) so they could sell the room or plane ticket to someone else, but it’s even more insidious. If you tell them you won’t show up they get to sell the room again and keep your money.
Why isn’t it extortion? Well, you can probably guess. Airlines lobby very hard to keep their service as shitty as possible. I didn’t live through the 70s but see how much better airlines were in those times: ample space, premium service. Prices were actually not that different from today (today you also pay a lot of airport taxes, the plane ticket itself is actually really cheap if you get a breakdown of the receipt).
So just to spite them, you are better off being no-show. Then they can’t double-dip, the fuckers.
But the worst was probably my own local rail company (somewhat publicly owned, as all train companies are now under neoliberalism) telling me I cannot get my tickets refunded even with covid. They are essentially saying Yes. Yes you should travel on the train with covid and infect everyone else – no more mask mandates or imposed quarantines here btw. So they don’t consider covid to prevent you from getting on that train.
And it’s not like this company is going bankrupt and they need to watch every cent. Far from it; service is getting both worse and more expensive year after year. Just so the private investors can buff up their portfolio and see dividends.
Thankfully I have travel insurance that I didn’t even know about, and they might be able to take care of refunding me the cancellations. They didn’t get back to me yet. But for the plane ticket I booked on the wrong date, I’m on my own apparently.
This is where capitalism gets us. Always chasing money, no matter the cost. If you could get money from squeezing people, literally squeezing them like you’re making the hardest snowball ever, they would do it to you without thinking twice.
Give me back my fucking Soviet Union where we had a giant ass country with all shit in the world possible apart from damn jungles to travel and where you could use the same fucking rubles wherever you go. With people there to help you no problem no matter where you go.
With the way China is helping other countries develop, you (or your offspring) may one day see that again
I personally loathed capitalism more when I had to go see a doctor in a “reputable” private hospital. This is hospital is part of a chain as well, so the corporation that owns it has hospitals all over the country.
Had to see the doctor after my back pain would not go away months after a deadlift gone wrong. Old bastards studied in Leeds, UK. From the first moment it was clear he did not give a fuck. Did not even ask which exercise I was doing when the injury happened which, while I am not a doctor, sounds like important information. Asked me get an x-ray done. Inconclusive. Then asked me get physiotherapy done for a week. Pain still did not go away. Then asked me to get an MRI done. Concluded the pain was because of a spasm in the lower back. Did not go see him after that because I felt if I ever saw him again the urge to beat the crap out of him might be too hard to resist.
My parents are dentists and oral surgeons and half the cases they get are patients who went to greedy and shitty doctors and got some needless or in some cases harmful procedure done to them.
The only way for me to get reliable health care is to go to a doctor that my parents know or are acquainted to.
Thank you free market.
My partner has chronic pain and she has to go through a bunch of various treatments to find out what might work instead of just immediately getting something like an MRI to see what’s wrong because insurance won’t pay for the MRI until she proves she “needs” one. Each treatment is like a month apart, so she has to deal with pain for X amount of time until one of the treatments works.
That’s so unnecessarily cruel. Can’t a doctor say something like an MRI scan is needed?
@Redpandalovely@midwest.social want to chime in?
It’s unfortunately how insurance works. We will pay for a (less expensive) x-ray and physical therapy. If that doesn’t help we will pay for an MRI. The injections are spaced apart, even though they are in different locations. They wait to see if the injection will help, but if it doesn’t I still have to wait. I was told it was about injecting with a corticosteroid too often, but really it’s about insurance because the injection is localized, not systemic. Only some of the steroid leaves the joint area. In the meantime I have Tylenol and a muscle relaxer. They don’t help much at all.
Good luck
Thank you, to you as well.
Some very similar shit happened to me a few years ago. Also a supposedly “reputable” hospital. After the “diagnosis” I was told to sit in a waiting room to get an MRI. Sat there on some cheap uncomfortable chair for probably an hour or more (the waiting room was completely empty the whole time btw.) and eventually I just had enough of the BS and went home. This same hospital botched a surgery on a family member of mine.
Or that other time a therapist kept making as many pointless appointments as possible. And when I eventually questioned them they basically admitted that they cared more about the money (“you want something from me, I want something from you”)
At this point I don’t think I can ever trust any doctor in a capitalist society ever again.
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There is still some pain. This is after a year. But I’ve been able to start working out again. I’ll see a doctor again in August when I visit my parents.
Thanks for asking.
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Thank you. Glad to hear you are doing better too.
The worst thing about 1970s airlines? They were actually cheaper than they are today for similar service. Prices were fixed so you just had to call the company and make a reservation, you didn’t have to shop around online for hours just to save a few bucks. All tickets were fully refundable. You got two 70 pound bags, now you might have to pay to get one 50 pound bag. And so if you add up everything today to get the same service, you will pay more money than people did back in the 70s. It’s an obfuscated lie from the airline companies that fares were more expensive back in the day.
Buying tickets to see a concert is another one. Half the price is just bullshit fees. I remember when I went to see Radiohead in like 2009 there was like a $15 “convenience fee”. For what? Hell if I know.
It’s convenient for them
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Yep, I remember this was widespread enough that plenty of people were talking about it if you googled it at the time. One of the reasons I have never used Paypal unless absolutely necessary. They are not a bank and as such are not subject to banking regulations.
Some American streamer keeps all his money in his paypal account and someone hacked into his account and bought Steam gift cards with it. I saw on Badempanada’s second youtube channel.
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It still happens now, they haven’t gotten any better about it.
its mostly tourism for me. you try to visit a nice place and learn something about it, and all you stumble upon is scams, rip-offs and money making machines on every corner, in every shape and form.
everything is reduced to a shallow product. history, culture and life of the people who live in tourist locations. and because i have such a mindset, i find it very difficult to actually relax and have fun as a tourist. so i just take road trips to desolate places instead and fulfill myself in that way.
I’m planning a move rn on a shoestring budget.
I have to drive about 1200 miles, but I don’t have a car. So I have to rent one, the cheapest I could find in my area will run me about $1100 for the whole trip, the total would be lower, but I have to return the rented van to the store I’ve rented from. Then after calculating gas for the whole trip, I’ve got another $600 dollars. Then there’s food and lodging costs, the possibility of toll roads, etc. All together I’m looking at about $2000 to do the move. Fuck capitalism.
The greatest invention of capitalism has to be personal responsibility. It’s amazing how disconnected we are from each other, each in our own affairs – and if something sucks for you, it’s your own problem. You are responsible for bringing the van back. You are responsible for moving away; whether that is because of a new job, health reasons, safety reasons, it’s not the rental company’s problem, right?
Fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t. I don’t get why people still go on trips when it’s such a fucking cash grab and nobody likes tourists anyway. Nobody. (Except hotels that can extort money from you I guess)
I wish I could go on a trip. Seeing all my rich friends be able to take off to whatever corner of the world they has morphed me into such a bitter person, and I know it’s not their fault.
I don’t know if anything is beyond this world, so the prospect of having to scrub grease off a dingy fucking truck for years on end just doesn’t seem appealing at all. It’s like my choices are either burn through my savings for a business or entrench myself even deeper into the market.
TLDR capitalism is really awful
I’ll tell you one thing, trips to me seem more hassle than they are worth. It might seem weird that I’m going on one but I have very specific reasons this time that I’d rather not share too far lol. But really, it’s such a mess getting the tickets, getting to the airport, you’re jet lagged, you’re always rushed for time… I get why people like them, but it’s something I could do without. This is my first vacation (like actually travelling) in almost 10 years.
I think the ultimate petty bourgeois dream is to be an expat, but an actual expat and not an immigrant that doesn’t like the word because they’re white lol. Find a spot at your company in an international office and work for them from another country. Then you get to spend several months up to a year and still get paid the same (and due to cost of living differences, make some nice savings).
But I totally agree, travel remains a very privileged act only few can actually do.
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Funny you mention that because I was trying to fix the misbooked flights earlier (buying new ones since they won’t change them, the fucking leeches) and I spent so long on the page, they were 20$ extra by the time I got around to buying them.
Thankfully everyone has a smartphone so what you do is go on mobile data to get a fresh IP address, go on the website and buy them there. And I was able to get them at the original price I had seen just 30 minutes earlier. It’s still completely ludicrous that the price of an item can change so much on the whim of the seller.
And there’s something to be said about computers making us even more exploited. We work more, we work longer hours, we even work on weekends now because you’re always reachable through text or email. Yet we are 2.5x more productive than in the 70s. Where did it all go wrong.
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