Flight delay rights

For independent travellers: your "right to care" if the flight is delayed or cancelled and you are travelling from or to the EU. This on the EU rules as set out by Easyjet...

3. Right to care

Has your flight been delayed for more than 2 hours or cancelled without notice? If so you are entitled to:

a) meals and refreshments in proportion to the waiting time;
b) hotel accommodation and transport between the airport and the hotel, where a stay of one or more nights becomes necessary;
c) two telephone calls, or telex or fax messages, or emails.

Has your flight been delayed or cancelled before you arrive at the airport without notice to you?  You are entitled to a) and c) above.

Have you had to postpone your flight to at least the day after the original flight departure time because of delay or re-routing? If so, you are entitled to b).

In the unlikely event it is not possible for easyJet to arrange care set out in this paragraph, easyJet will reimburse you for reasonable expenses upon application via the website.  You will need to provide us with fully itemised receipts detailing the expense incurred. Please note that re-imbursement for alcohol will not be made.

Raising minimum Wage?

There's a campaign to raise the Minimum Wage to a higher Living Wage, but also speculation that the government might freeze or cut it.

How generous is our minimum wage, currently £6.19 an hour for those aged 21 and over, compared to other countries? In fact we're in the top third of the league in the EU.

The European Commission comparison is here, everything converted into euros.

It says Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland (8.65 euro) and France are above us. But Spain, Portugal, Greece and the East European countries are below - along with the United States.

There's no statutory minimum wage in Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden or Norway.


Source: European Commission

Here's the Low Pay Commission's guide to the UK minimum wage.

We're buying more cars

If you want to measure the state of family finances, don't lose sight of what people are buying.

The biggest expense for most people, after buying a home, is buying a car. In fact, getting wheels ranks right up there as a major decision along with getting married, getting a mortgage and having children.

Unsurprisingly, car sales took a serious knock during the financial crisis. But now they are going up.

In fact they have risen every month since March.

UK buyers bought 15,000 more cars in November than a year ago and, so far this year, they've bought nearly 100,000 more cars.

Car traders expect they'll post their biggest sales total since 2008 this year at over 2 million cars, with private buyers showing the most significant increase.

Ironically, the acceleration in car-buying has skewed our trade figures, which look pretty bad today. Part of the reason is that we are buying more cars from the continent, while hard-pressed citizens of other EU countries are buying fewer cars from us.

Save us from rip-off card charges and internet nasties

Protection is on the way against credit card rip-off charges and nasty surprises over your internet purchases.

New European Union consumer law will restrict the surcharges, slapped on by traders if you dare to use a card, to the cost of processing the payment.

Goods bought over the internet will be returnable within 14 calendar days, up from 7 working days.

And surprise additional payments when you come to pay for something over the net, those expensive pre-ticked boxes which you never saw - you'll be entitled to a refund if you are stung.

The new protections are on the way, but they are still far off.

Euro MPs have just voted them in. But the Council of Ministers has to approve and implementation at the national level could take two years.

And will the measures be watered down over that period? Not clear yet.