I’ve been away for a few days. Our destination was Norfolk in the east of England but as we live in the north of England we spent a night in the Scotch Corner Travelodge on the way south to Norfolk and a night at the Harrogate Travelodge on the way north again. The Travelodges cost a non refundable £15 per night for room only Supersaver rate, if you book at least 3 weeks in advance. The rooms were a good size, clean and simply furnished. The Travelodge in Harrogate is in the town centre, a great location the only drawback being lack of a free car park at the Travelodge.

I recently did some research about UK travel companies' online serivce for a guest blog on Travel Rants. I found the Transversal customer service study of top websites in the travel, banking, insurance, consumer goods and telecoms sectors, which can be downloaded if you register at Transversal.

I was amazed to read that 60% of emails to travel company websites did not receive a reply. Of the remaining 40% companies who did manage to respond, the average response time was 42 hours. The travel websites were asked ten pretty basic question e.g. can I fly from this airport to that airport, do I need a visa for that country, what is the duty free allowance? 80% of travel websites could only manage to answer 2 out of the 10 queries.

I read an article about the growth of no frills hotels in Asia. Tune Hotels will open a no frills hotel in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on March 1 2007. The rooms have no cupboards or expensive floor coverings. It is claimed that guests want a clean room, comfortable bed, good shower and a secure environment. Guests only want to pay for what they use. Prices of between 3 - 20 US dollars are quoted. However I read that towels and other basic amenities can be purchased and are then yours to keep. Would you want to carry a wet towel away with you in the your luggage next morning? I began to wonder if you would also have to buy sheets to use on the bed. I know that the price is low but what do you consider to be a frill? It also depends on what they charge you for the so called frills.