Can you think of a reasonable explanation for this?

[ChesterDrawer]

Friend phoned in complete panic.

Opened post this morning and it was a parking fine. Not her car her husbands. In a hotel car park. Mid afternoon when he should have been at work

I’m trying to calm her down and think of some kind of reasonable explanation other than “yep he’s having an affair”

Anyone got anything?!! He’s office based, 40 mins from hotel.

Business lunch/ corporate client?

Businesses hire the conference rooms in hotels quite often. Depends what his work is I suppose.

If his job doesnt involve meetings out with the office then an affair sounds most likely

Conference? Business meeting?

She’s checked his diary and phoned his PA. Wasn’t due out of the office that day.

And it’s def his car, photo on the fine

Someone stole/cloned his plates? It's happened to dp

I'd still go with the affair though

Training course, department away day meeting?

Only possible thing I could think is if he has let someone else use his car, would be unusual but not unheard of

Don’t look for alternatives. The bastard’s cheating.

Sorry I think the most likely explanation is probably correct.

Leaving do? Team building?

Cloned plates. My mums car got a ticket in a hotel car park in Bristol last year when it was parked in a garage in Yorkshire

Popped out to pick up a Christmas gift and parked in the hotel car park rather than pay for the shopping centre car park?

Or yeah, affair.

The simplest explanation is usually the right one.

If she has already checked his work diary, then it is what she does not want it to be.

Does she always open his post?

If he has been fined surely he didn't have a room there because they wouldn't have issued a fine to someone staying there. Could he have parked there to nip into a nearby shop, or pulled in to make a urgent phone call?

Does he do the kind of job where he could leave for long enough to get to a hotel 40 mins away and be there enough time to get a ticket?

I know all hotels are different but I know several in my area where you have to pay even if you are a customer

He wouldn't get a fine if he was a guest at the hotel.

I know several in my area where you have to pay even if you are a customer

But if he was staying there, they'd have told him he had to pay, surely and he'd have paid to avoid a fine coming to his address. It sounds more like he parked there illicitly in the sense of not being a customer of the hotel.

He'll have got a fine because he didn't check in and register his number plate. That doesn't mean he didn't meet somebody in the hotel.

Cloned plates do happen though.

OP could easily check what the parking policy is for the hotel - it's sure to say online.

Does she always open his post?

Yes, because that's the most important issue here

But then if she checked with PA, did the PA confirm if he was in the office that day ?

He could have had no meetings arranged in his diary, but he could've phoned in sick to work that day 🤷🏻‍♀️

Maybe he just park his car there then took the train/walked to the office. I worked in a town once where a particular hotel at park was a good secret parking place (limited parking otherwise). Actually two places, now that I think of it.