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I booked the flights for our upcoming European holiday today. It was harder than i thought. We planned on flying from Canberra to London via Sydney, and then after a 4 week jaunt through England, France and Italy, we intended to fly home to Canberra from Rome.

I spent several weeks meticulously crafting the perfect itinerary. Each travel leg was researched and logged to the minute. Train schedules, platform numbers, and airport departure gates were duly noted. Anticipated expenses were carefully recorded. It was perfect. And then i went to book the airfares.

Fortunately, we had enough frequent flyer points to “buy” one complete return flight. I logged onto the Qantas web site and started the process to book a seat only to discover that there were no award bookings available on the requested day. Bugger. This was not good. I looked to the days either side. Nothing. I started to panic. I soon discovered that there was one, and only one, solitary frequent flyer flight available from Italy to Australia for the months September through to November. I was aghast. The holiday plans were in tatters.

Luckily, there were a reasonable number of award flights from Canberra to London, and after a decision to shift the holiday by a few weeks and to extend the trip a few days, we were able to find an end-to-end schedule that worked and could be booked with frequent flyer points.

Phew. What remained was the need to book a matching “paid” flight (so Megan and i could travel together; one of us under an award booking and the other under the standard paid fare). You would think this would be easy. Unfortunately, i could not for the life of me find the right flights on the Qantas web site. The award booking had us leaving Rome at 5:30 in the evening, while every single paid fare option on the web site departed at 12:45. Where was the 5:30 option?

I rang the Qantas booking line and was told i needed to specify that i wanted to fly from Rome to London to Melbourne to Canberra, rather than simply specifying Rome to Canberra (as i did for the award booking). Excellent. I thanked the operator and returned to the web site. Unfortunately this approach did not work. I was told there were no flights at all from Rome to London on the day requested. This was impossible, as we’d already booked an award flight.

I called Qantas a second time and spoke to another operator. I explained the dilemma. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Operator: Just book the flight over the phone.

Me: But won’t that incur a $100 surcharge?

Operator: Yes.

Me: Well, i’d prefer to book online. Can i do this? Can you explain why the web site is not showing any flights from Rome to London?

Operator: You’re doing something wrong.

Me: What am i doing wrong?

Operator: You need to request a multi-city flight.

Me: Oh, yes, i’ve done that. Rome to London. London to Melbourne. Melbourne to Canberra. The problem is that the web site is saying there are no flights from Rome to London.

Operator: It’s because you’re trying to book a complicated flight.

Me: It’s not complicated. I want to fly from Rome to London.

Operator: But you want your flight to match up with your award booking.

Me: Sure, but that’s irrelevant. I just want to know why the web site is not showing any flights from Rome to London.

Operator: Because your request is complicated you need to book over the phone.

Me: It’s not complicated. I want to fly from Rome to London.

Operator: You’re doing something wrong.

Me: Is there someone i can speak to that might be able to explain what i’m doing wrong? Someone that can talk me through the process of booking the flight online?

Operator: We don’t use the web site. We use a different booking system.

Me: Are you saying there is no one at Qantas that can help explain what i am doing wrong on the web site?

Operator: You’re selecting the wrong options at the start.

Me: What options? I can only select a departure city, an arrival city, the date i want to fly, and whether i want the system to return the available flights ordered by schedule or price, and i’ve tried both options. What else can i do?

Operator: You’re selecting the wrong options at the start.

Me: What options?

Operator: You need to close your internet browser.

Me: Close my internet browser? Why will that help?

Operator: [silence]

Me: Hello?

Operator: [silence]

Me: Hello? Are you there?

Operator: [silence]

Me: Excuse me? Are you there?

Operator: [silence]

Me: [Directed to Megan who is sitting on the couch across the room] I think he hung up on me.

Megan: I think it all went pear-shaped when he started the conversation with “you’re doing something wrong”.

Me: I think you’re right.

Two more phone calls later and it was clear that i was not the “problem”. The web site only allows you to book a subset of flights and it just so happened that the flight i wanted to book wasn’t shown. I had to pay the surcharge and book over the phone. And you know what, in the end, the person who sold me the ticket was wonderful, and i was happy to fork out the admin fee. All it took was someone to say, “it can’t be done; we don’t provide that service”. No bullshit. No blame. Just an honest admission and a friendly and helpful tone.

After all of that, i feel like i need a holiday.