I was at my AAA office today to pick up a couple of adapters for an upcoming trip to England and Wales. They had two kinds: one with 3 flat pins and one with 3 round pins! I had never seen the round pin kind before, are they in common usage? Thanks for any help.

Just get the 3 rectangular pins (I assume that is what you mean by "flat" )

The round pins are for continental Europe, rectangular pins are for the UK.

I meant to add 3 flat pins are the plugs for Australia.

You mean a "Type D" or "Type M" like the illustrations here?

www.kropla.com/!d.htm
www.kropla.com/!m.htm

While they remain in many ex-British colonies around the world, you won't find it anymore in the UK.

You'll only see the "Type G" plug in the UK.

www.kropla.com/!g.htm

I've never even seen the round pinned kind, and I've ived here a loong time (like, all my life).

You've clearly led a sheltered life.

When we got electricity for the first time (and it wasn't that long ago) our one power point was round-holed. So were my landlady's when I lived out at university - and so were the college's when I lived in.

Practically every renovation we've done since then used to involve getting rid of a few of them.

Till the last one, when we actually INSTALLED the 5 amp version. If you want all the standard lights in a room to come on from one central switch, you have to install unfused, 5 amp points - which come only in round holes. Which means you have to connect new plugs onto all the light fittings. And then the local eco-warriors come and duff you up, because central switching is Ecologically Incorrect these days.

Any self-respecting hotel or B&B will have the rectangular three-pin power sockets (if they don't want their insurance to be worthless) - type G in this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesti...gs_and_sockets

There may be some places that have the old type D still, but I'd have thought it unlikely that you'd come across them in the UK.

Ah, the days when everything was run off adapter plugs stuck into the ceiling light socket. And changing a fuse meant stumbling into the cellar with a candle and some fuse wire....

&quot;<i>I've never even seen the round pinned kind, and I've ived here a loong time (like, all my life).</i>&quot;

A mere child you are too

When I first moved to the UK it was just one more thing to get used to - at home when you bought a table lamp or a radio or something, you just took it home and plugged it in. But in England the power cords didn't have plug ends because there were different types of wall sockets. So you had to buy a plug and attach it yourself.

I only ever experienced the round pinned ones once, in a particularly unsavoury flat I lived in as a student.

Thanks to all who replied. Looks like the rectangular pins (Type G) are what I'll be needing. Don't know why the chart at the AAA office was so outdated!!

I'll take a crack at that one: because AAA Travel Service has been superannuated by the Internet?