Never buy anything by phone

Note: This is a rant. It might be disordered and hard to understand. (And uninteresting :P)

Never ever ever ever ever ever use Minitel (a kind of phone service) to reserve something when you can go directly to the shop/agency. They will keep you on the line for as long as they can, and it's expensive! I knew that, but I thought it would save me going out, and that the convenience would outweigh the cost. So I decided to reserve my flight ticket by phone. Everything went fine at first, I even found it "better" to reserve by telephone 'cos I found out while paying that I was saving about 10€ by not going to the agency. (they said that if I go to the agency to pay I would have to pay more) Well, big mistake. The tickets still haven't arrived by mail (yeah, it was partly my fault for not reserving earlier, but it was also the Easter holiday on Monday...) so I called the number again to ask for a duplicate (the guy who sold me the ticket told me to do that) But guess what they said? First they transferred me "somewhere to make a duplicate", which turned out to be the wrong place (after like 15 minutes of waiting and listening to their stupid publicity song), and that service had to go ask another service to make the duplicate for me. Good thing she didn't transfer me by phone, though, she went to check it out "in person", so she said (I think their desks are all close together) so at least I didn't have to listen to that stupid song (silence was definitely better) But they didn't even make me a duplicate right away (the guy who sold me the ticket said they would do it if I hadn't received my tickets the day before my flight). But there I was, calling them the day before, and they suddenly told me that they had to wait till the next day to make the duplicate because my flight leaves at 3.35pm. There I decided I was taking no more risks with my ticket, 'cos I wouldn't know for sure before noon tomorrow whether the tickets have arrived by mail (the mail can arrive any time between 9 and 12) and if I was going to reach the airport around 2 hours before the flight time (to check-in) I had to leave at noon! So I told her straight out (a lie, but who cares? I find it justified.) that I wouldn't have time to check my mail tomorrow (even if I did wait till noon to confirm that I didn't have the ticket, I wouldn't have time to call anyway) That was when she agreed to make me the duplicate.

Duh, couldn't they just have told me that there was too little time to send it by mail and ask me to go to the counter to get my ticket when I arrive at the airport? No they couldn't, and let me tell you, it's all a scam to get people to call their expensive number. I bet they didn't even try to send the ticket out early (probably held it deliberately), 'cos the ticket was issued on the 6th (morning, they told me) since I reserved on the night of the 5th. If they had sent it out the 6th (Friday) there would have been Saturday as a working day and I would have received it today (or even Saturday...I've already received letters that took only a day to arrive) So now I just spent almost half an hour an their line, and at a price of 34 cents per minute, that would cost me about 10€. Next time if I'm not reserving early, dash the inconvenience and I'll go to the agency. And hopefully they'll give me the ticket right away and not tell me to go there again for it.

A little thing though: I spoke to 2 people on the phone, and they weren't really that bad, especially the second one...the first guy transferred me (albeit with an error), and the the lady to whom he transferred me to was quite helpful, I guess...I was pretty annoyed (after my wait; for the first reply I didn't have to wait) and I think she heard it in my voice (and I was hardly bothering to be polite) After she had made me wait for some time while she saw to the duplicate business I asked her why on earth she was making me wait, since she had everything she needed to make the duplicate, and I already had my reservation number that I could use to get my duplicate at the airport. Turned out that it was because she couldn't guarantee that I would have a duplicate unless if she confirmed it with a colleague...and that colleague was doing something else and she had to wait till she had finished. Well, that's what she said...who knows whether it was true or whether she was just trying to keep me on the line for as long as she could? I did talk about having faith in humanity in a previous post...so I think it's highly possible that what she said was true...and that the guy who did the error didn't do it on purpose so that I would waste my time (which means he was simply incompetent...gah!) Oh well, whatever. So I'll get my tickets in double and I'll have a set as a souvenir of this mess.

Edit (11th April): I just got my tickets today...and its postmark says 10th April. What did I tell ya...