04 Oct 2024 LONGREACH BOOKED

My annual visit to Longreach in late March had to be postponed because Simon and Nicole were getting ready for their ambitious round the world overseas trip, comprising a week in England, a week on the Queen Mary sailing from Southampton to New York, and a week in New York, before returning home on a 19 hour non-stop flight from New Jersey to Singapore and thence to Brisbane and Longreach.

 In my constant experience, the Qantas website is the least user-friendly of all. I tried to book a return flight to Longreach from Brisbane, taking advantage of one of their red-e deals. Somehow, I was prevented from finalising payment until, against my wish, I became a member of their frequent flyer programme. Having done this, I found myself timed out of the transaction and tried again. By now, the return flight had almost doubled, so I gave up in disgust. The travel agent in Barcaldine I regularly used because their prices were competitive, had closed earlier in the year. To be fair to Qantas, they redeemed themselves by sending me an email saying that they were holding my booking at the original price. This had happened once before. I had until midnight to complete the transaction, which I swiftly did.