Snap and Scribble

I find booking flights online really stressful. I’m always worried in case i accidentally book the wrong date or something. It would be quite easy to do – specially after i’ve spent quarter of an hour checking out various different dates with various airlines. It would be really easy to accidentally click on the wrong month and not notice. And getting all the digits in my credit card number right is a bit of a strain. But i’d never booked international flights on the web before, until today. And that adds a whole new layer of stress to the exercise!

For those, you have to put in your passport number – and if you get it wrong you won’t be able to fly! Strewth! It’s almost worth going to a travel agent instead! Well, not really, because you can save a lot of money by doing it yourself.

I booked my flight back to Darwin yesterday. I’m flying out of Brisbane on Friday the 23rd. That date was quite a lot cheaper than either the day before or the day after – possibly because you arrive on election day.

And this morning i booked my flight from Darwin to Singapore. I should have booked this several weeks ago, when i first decided to fly on that date – because it would have cost me $100 less then! But, as usual, i didn’t want to make any firm decisions that far in advance, in case i changed my mind!

However, in that few weeks, the flight from Singapore to London has gone down by about $200! So, overall, the trip should be cheaper than i thought it would be.

I’m going to fly from Singapore to London with Sri Lankan Airlines. I tried to book that leg of the journey online just now, but i couldn’t. The reason i couldn’t is because i’ve stupidly allowed my credit card to get up to the credit limit – because i’ve been spending a lot more money that usual since i left work. So i had to use my visa debit card.

It worked fine for booking the Tiger Air flight from Darwin to Singapore. But when i tried to book the Sri Lankan Airlines flight, it asked me for a password for the card. Now, as usual with these things, i didn’t remember ever having a password for it. But if i had had one, i knew what it would be. However, what i would have expected the password to be was displayed as a prompt to help me remember the password – and, of course, it would work as the password! I can only assume someone at the credit union has jumbled it up somehow. So, of course, i tried what i thought the prompt might be, in case they’d reversed them, but no luck! And after a few goes, it blocked me…

So that’s that – until someone’s in the office at the credit union i bank with.

Now i just have to hope that that flight doesn’t sell out before i manage to book – and leave me stuck in Singapore with no onward flight! It’s not very likely, but it’s something else to stress about (mildly)!

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