Jasmine Birtles

I have just spoken to my friend Simon Calder, travel editor on the Independent, and he says this: “Many people are in exactly this position, wondering who is responsible for providing a refund – and when it might arrive.

It’s tough enough when the flight booking is direct with the airline. While the European air passengers’ rights rules require a refund within a week of the non-departure of the flight, almost all airlines are ignoring the law – assuming, probably correctly, that they won’t face sanctions from regulators.

Once an online travel agent is involved, it’s trickier still. Your contract is with Expedia, and it is regrettable, to put it mildly, that it is not offering to do the legwork (or phone work) for you. British Airways has made it tough for passengers to get refunds, removing the button for easy online refunds and insisting you call if you want your money back.

If you can afford to wait a while, that is what I would advise – the alternative is to spend more time and energy on organisations that are already overstretched. Personally, at this stage all  I would do is email Expedia to say that it owes the money and that you are expecting a full refund.

If the company appears to be dragging its feet, your options are limited – claiming through your credit-card firm may not work because there is no direct relationship with the airlines.

In future you might want to reconsider who you buy travel from. I think many of us will do that.”

This is a surprise to me. I haven’t heard of interest being left in an ISA once it is closed.

I’m going to ask around some financial companies to see if any of them have a view on this, but my feeling is that if there is money left in your old ISA, either take it out if you would like to spend the money or have it transferred to your new ISA (speak to your current provider to contact the old ISA provider and move the money ‘behind the ISA lines’!)

Gosh yes, Andre, I can see your problem there. It could go either way.

However you’ve asked me what would I do and my immediate answer is that I would keep it going, rebuild it this year and possibly next year (or part of it) and then sell. That’s what I would do, but I can’t say 100% if it would be the right thing. There are too many variables.

My thinking is:

– given that your pension has taken a hit, it’s best to put off taking any of that anyway, so ideally you will need to keep going with a different income for a bit anyway

– you say that the cafe is a kind of community hub so I think it would be really good for those who live in your area to be able to come back to the cafe once they are allowed to and get some normality back into their lives. Whoever you sell it to might not keep it going in such a caring way.

– I do think that once we are let out of lockdown we will be rushing to our cafes, restaurants and other places we love to go so I think that your business will build up pretty steadily, even though there will still be many people who will be afraid to go out for some time.

– post COVD-19 we will probably run businesses a bit differently so this will give you the chance to change a few aspects of the cafe in order to sell it well. You might change the way the seating is arranged, for example, or put in some very obvious hygiene measures that will reassure people.

I’m a BIG fan of cafes generally – I really miss the ones I go to regularly – so I do hope you continue to provide this service to the community, and employ good people, for a while before moving on to something new 🙂

Hi Aileen. Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.

You would think that your average commission could be taken into consideration, yes, but according to the Government website, it can’t. Here is what it says:

For full time and part time salaried employees, the employee’s actual salary before tax, as of 28 February should be used to calculate the 80%. Fees, commission and bonuses should not be included.

Well the good news here Michelle is that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is telling Payday lenders that they have to give their clients a ‘payment holiday’ for, probably, three months if they need it.

They’re still in the ‘consulting’ period but really, when the FCA ‘recommends’ an activity to financial companies, they end up happening.

So do tell her not to be too worried because it’s highly likely that in just a few days she will be told by her lender that she will be given a lot more time to pay the debt off, and it shouldn’t affect her credit record.

Wow that’s nuts! It seems that some police areas are more stringent than others. Where I live in central London we can’t sit down in one park – have to keep moving. But in another park people seem to be happily sitting on benches without being moved on. Odd