To think that 30 pounds for less than an hour's parking is unacceptable?

[Psammead]

My parents met us at Standstead airport this evening. When my father paid his parking ticket it was thirty pounds! They had been waiting for about 50 minutes. We were travelling with a six month old so it took us a bit longer than normal to come through, plus the flight was delayed.

AIBU to think that this is outrageous?

We will of course be reimbursing them.

WHAT??

My goodness, surely no-one has ever been less unreasonable in the whole history of MN.

My initial reaction was to say that surely the airport has made some mistake, though heaven knows how.

Bloody extortionate!

According to the Stanstead airport website the short stay parking is £4 up to 1 hour and £8 for 1-2 hours.

However,there is a '15-minute pick-up zone' which charges a vast amount if you stay for more than 25 minutes. Is that where you were parked?

Sorry but it's your parents fault as they parked in the wrong car park. Sounds like they have parked in the 10 minute pick up car park rather than the short stay.

extortionate.
complain

there is nothing to complain about if they had gone to the right car park they would have only paid £4

Sorry, something's wrong here. It doesn't cost this much.

stansted short stay car park fees

Ah, that's it then, they stayed in the short stay parking area. Oh well.

The only thing that would give you cause to complain would be if the area was not clearly marked short stay and the charges were not clearly displayed.

Very important about the displaying of charges because someone could easily assume short stay was free, or have no clue just how expensive it was.

So if they had no sign displaying the charges that could be seen (ie not tiny sign by metre, or on postcard displayed on the roof!) then I think you would be right to complain. About the lack of clarity and warning about charges.

I go to Stansted a lot. There is that 10 minute short stay one - its a smallish reasonable amount for 10 minutes, or something, then rapidly goes up thereafter.

Its very clearly marked as you enter, with arrows directing you to the cheaper carparks, which are a little further away but not too bad either.

So YABU though if you didn't realise where they had chosen to park then I can understand your surprise. Its very clearly marked. I use it myself and risk it - and if your person has already landed and come through the gate etc then its a godsend to be able to park up so close and go and help them with their bags.

In fact, when I saw your thread title, I immediately thought "I bet this is Stansted short stay"

We use Stansted a lot, and it is not the clearest, and they have moved the Zones several times as well over the years.... so you get used to pulling into the Short Term place and then all of a sudden it has become Drop Off and costs quite a lot quite quickly... but the signs are there, just they've changed it about a bit....

That's rotten luck, they pulled into Drop off, not short stay. Easy mistake to make!

Thanks everyone. I will be sure to let them know. My dad tends to panic when looking for parking so I expect that is the mistake he made. Bloody shock though!