The man had paid £95 in advance to park at Stansted Airport – but realised halfway through his holiday that he had parked in the wrong spot – and was then hit with a huge fine
A man has shared his method of dodging parking fines at Stansted Airport after being handed a £450 ticket.
After jetting off for a nine-day holiday, the motorist realised the chosen parking spot wasn’t in the right section. Instead of the £95 reservation they’d made for their motor, it seemed Reddit user Angry_Cornflake had parked in a different spot.
On the Reddit forum r/BritishSuccess, he shared his close shave on how he managed to swerve the £450 fee by simply pressing a button at the exit gate.
The traveller posted: “Bagged my way out of a £450 parking charge at Stansted. Recently returned from a 9 day holiday. I’d booked parking in advance as usual, and thought I’d selected the mid-stay car park, as I have done all my previous trips. Cost of around £95.”
The user went on: “Realised around half way through the holiday I’d actually booked in the long stay for some reason. So now I’m convinced I’ve just shelled out £95 for a space I’m not using, and will be charged ‘on the door’ rates for the mid-stay when I get back. Leaving mid-stay I get to the barrier…£450! ! ! F**k me! But I pressed the ‘call for assistance’ button and just told the guy I had booked ahead and wasn’t sure what the charge was for.”
He later hailed a “divine miracle” as the reason for escaping the charge, as the worker took down their name and vehicle registration. He further commented: “By some divine miracle (or perhaps the guy was feeling sorry for me, or had had a long day) just says ‘sorry about that sir, the barrier should be open now.’ You better believe I floored it out of there before he changed his mind.”
The public has since shared their thoughts on the close shave with the hefty charge. One person said: “It probably happens all the time that people park in the wrong carpark. So rather than arguing with tired travellers and trying to make them pay it’s likely they just search for your details and raised the barrier.”
Another user added: “The fact that this soup is hot on a cold night is its only redeeming feature. Though to be fair I recently endured a bout of food poisoning and maintained a pretty constant hot temperature throughout the night whilst I was pouring out of both ends so maybe I’m being harsh.”
