Here’s a thing:

I was on-line looking to book flights to take us to England in November – planning ahead for a holiday you see. I checked Aegean Airlines as I always do and found Rhodes to Athens, Athens to Rhodes for the sensible price of €10.00 each – plus about €50 in taxes I expect but I didn’t get that far as I couldn’t book these flights until I had confirmed the connections. Those are to be with easyJet as we always do – none of this first class treatment for us!

So, I went to the easyJet website to see if their winter schedule was up and running yet but could only book as far ahead as October: this was in June. Not wanting to miss out on that offer from Aegean I decided to contact easyJet to ask when the earliest date to book November flights was to be. The help menu wasn’t much help with this particular and specific question so I used the e-mail contact form and wrote something like:

“Hi. We would like to know the earliest dates for booking flights from Athens to Gatwick and from Luton to Athens for November 1st and 24th respectively. Can you tell us when we can see the November schedule and make bookings for theses dates?”

All well and good – I sent the e-mail and a new ‘help’ page appeared. I read the additional information that that page supplied. These were questions and answers apparently relevant to my enquiry. Or were they?

Dear James Collins,
The Answers below were selected based upon your enquiry type. We hope you will find these helpful.

1. Does easyJet carry service dogs?
2. Do you offer assistance to elderly passengers?
3. Can I take my pet onboard an easyJet flight?

*** HOWEVER, IF AFTER READING THE ABOVE INFORMATION AND YOUR QUESTION HAS NOT BEEN ANSWERED, PLEASE CLICK "FINISH SUBMITTING QUESTION" BELOW ***

Of course I clicked the ‘finish submitting question’ button. What have dogs got to do with the November schedule? I know we sometimes call Neil ‘the puppy’ but he’s not exactly what I would call a ‘service dog’, though the ‘pet’ reference might be considered relevant. And as for ‘elderly passengers’? I’m only in my forties! Blooming cheek.

Anyway, I made a note of my reference number and the fact that I ‘should’ receive a reply in the next 20 days… good job it’s nothing urgent then… and debated whether to risk booking Aegean now and then hoping easyJet would fit into my plans later.

Maybe not, I’ve just looked at the Aegean offer in more detail:

Cost for two people, Rhodes to Athens €20.00 and back for another €20.00 = €40.00 – not bad in my opinion, but: Taxes and ‘other charges’ €43.39 (each) making a total round trip for two €126.78, not quite the €10.00 of the original offer but there you go.

P.S. I got an email back from easyJet the next day – bravo! It didn’t answer my questions but at least there was no mention of dogs or OAPs. Their customer service folk may not be useful but at least they are quick.