It was six years ago today that I moved to California. September 5th was Labor Day in 2005 as well. I remember arriving to a very quiet Palo Alto and staying in a motel before moving onto the Stanford campus the next day.

That was also the day that I took a flight for which I was charged a fuel surcharge (of £18) that turns out to have been the result of a price-fixing scheme orchestrated by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

A while back I was invited to apply for compensation under the terms of the settlement of the class action. And today in some coincidental full circle, I opened a mysterious envelope containing my check (around $25). I’d really never imagined being a part of a class action — I’d always thought that they were for characters in John Grisham books — let alone actually get some money from one.

Then again, I must have paid BA and Virgin tens of thousands of dollars over the last six years. So a bit of compensation for some anti-competitive behaviour is really the least that they can do for me.