Firm bookings, fast refunds: easyJet and On The Beach aim to reassure jittery travellers with holiday pledges

Forget the best infinity pool or alluring sea view: travel firms are now competing for the summer holidaymakers’ pound with pledges of the least likely cancellation – or the fastest refund.Airlines and travel companies have been vying to announce fresh commitments to reassure jittery consumers who are booking flights ever later since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.The hostilities have been driving up oil prices, with jet fuel costs rising even more sharply. More worrying for many thinking of a summer trip, as the standoff and blockades around the strait of Hormuz continue, is the prospect of scarcity leading to flights being axed.Some European airlines such as Lufthansa have already cancelled thousands of flights owing to rising fuel costs, while Virgin Atlantic has introduced a fuel surcharge on long-haul flights

Octopus Energy boss: some people would accept blackouts if bills cut

The boss of the UK’s biggest energy supplier has suggested that some households would accept an occasional electricity blackout in exchange for much lower energy bills.A year on from Europe’s largest power outage – which left tens of millions of people in Spain and Portugal without trains, metros, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections and internet access – the chief executive of Octopus Energy argued against costly investments in the UK’s power grid that are adding to household bills.Greg Jackson told an industry conference that many households in Spain, where Octopus Energy has a growing business, would say they were happy to accept “the odd blackout” in return for electricity costs that are 25% lower.“To be really clear, I’m not advocating for blackouts, but if you asked Spanish consumers, ‘would you accept the odd blackout in return for electricity costs that are 25% lower, or don’t have spikes, or a more reliable economy?’ enough of them would say yes,” he said.People would be “far less bothered” about a blackout now than they might have been in the past, Jackson added, because they could continue watching things on their laptop during a power outage

ACCC v Woolworths may have exposed the ‘magic’ of supermarket discounts – but will it change how we shop?

Picture this: you’re at Woolworths, weighing up which laundry powder offers the best value for money.A 2kg box of Fab is on sale with a “Prices Dropped” promotional ticket showing it “Is” $8. The label also says the laundry powder has been reduced, and “Was” $14.What Woolworths didn’t tell you is that the Fab cost $14 for only 19 days, and that it had been just $7 for 425 days before that. Were you enchanted by the “subtle magic” of the “Prices Dropped” ticket – as the consumer regulator’s lawyer suggested in its court action against Woolworths over the promotional scheme – into thinking the laundry powder was nearly 50% off?The central legal question is whether Australia’s largest supermarket chain intended to deceive you

Renault says ‘seismic shift’ in electric car interest after Iran war oil price shock – as it happened

Manufacturers around the world have reined back their electric car production in the last two years after fearing demand could fall. In the US Donald Trump further undermined the sector by tearing up several pro-electric vehicle policies.Yet Trump may have – ironically – ended up boosting global electric car sales, by making petrol prohibitively expensive. The US-Israeli war on Iran has entered its third month, with no sign that the blockade of the strait of Hormuz will end.Renault’s UK boss on Friday said the Iran war oil price surge has started a “seismic shift upwards” in interest in electric vehicles

‘Temu Range Rover’: what the bestselling Jaecoo 7 says about China’s electric car ascendancy

Loaded with extras and produced at a cut price, the crossover SUV has overtaken rival cars from US, Japanese and Korean firmsThe UK is no stranger to foreign cars. The bestseller lists in recent years have been dominated by the US’s Ford Puma, Japan’s Nissan Qashqai, Korea’s Kia Sportage and occasionally even Tesla’s Model Y.But in March the top 10 provided a shock: a Chinese car leapt into the lead.Little more than a year after launching in the UK, China’s Chery sold 10,064 of its Jaecoo 7 crossover SUVs during the month, beating all the usual suspects.It was not the first Chinese-made car to make it to UK number one (it follows Tesla’s Shanghai-made Model 3 and the HS made by MG, a formerly British brand owned by China’s SAIC)

Czech energy group hints at combined bid for British Steel and Speciality Steel UK

The owner of the UK’s largest electric steelworks has said the government should find a single buyer for British Steel and Speciality Steel UK (SSUK), a move that would create the country’s biggest steelmaker.Sev.en Global Investments, owned by the Czech billionaire Pavel Tykač, said it not only plans to invest £100m in the UK – mainly in the electric arc steelworks in Cardiff it bought last year – but also has the ability to invest “hundreds of millions of pounds” more in Britain under its 7 Steel brand.Alan Svoboda, Sev.en’s chief executive, told the Guardian the government should look for a large company with a track record of steel production to take on British Steel’s plant in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and the SSUK electric arc furnace operation in South Yorkshire, in a thinly veiled pitch for the government to consider 7 Steel as a potential buyer