I have just had the most screwed up experience I have ever had with a travel agent and/or an airline...

Went to Sydney airport to catch a United flight to the US. Flying business as usual.

At the airport find that United's global computer has crashed so all the flights have been put back and the lines are not moving and seem endless.... Well, that's fine. Listen to some podcasts on my iPod, stand in line and be patient.

An hour and a half later the computer is back on line and I am now at the check in counter..... Where I find that my travel agent has not issued me with an E-Ticket - and by the way has not got my frequent flyer number in the system. (This is the 3rd or 4th consecutive time that this has happened - and I am not feeling forgiving any more - particularly because I am now at "Global Services" level in United which is like 1K on steroids. And normally when you flash your Global Services card people at United stand to attention and salute).

So I get on the phone to the travel agent and ask them if they can please get onto this IMMEDIATELY and issue an e-ticket....

Twenty minutes later.... and nothing has happened. No e-ticket issued, no action....

So I get onto the agent again (Stage And Screen Travel in Sydney). They have been trying to figure out what has happened to the ticket and trying to get hold of the people at United and consequently have done absolutely nothing. UNBELIEVEABLE!

So time goes by and the ground staff from United are trying to get the flight closed and away so that they don't have to pay any more ground fees to Sydney Airport.

The ground staff receptionist is sitting there with boarding passes issued and ready to go as sooon as the e-ticket arrives in the system. And in the mean time the head of the ground crew announces that the flight is full, no more room aboard and the gate is closed.

So I am on the ground and going nowhere and I still have the agent on my cell phone trying to talk to the head of the ground staff to negotiate something or other.

I was a tad cranky.

So I am now heading home and advising the agent that I am now going to miss an important meeting in Vegas and it is now not my problem but his, and I am looking for him to solve it.

The reality is that he is not going to get me to that meeting regardless of what strings he pulls. That is a given. So I am going to have to just like back and take it easy in Sydney for one more night - which is not a hassle.

So I speak to Rozanna who is looks after travel in the Sydney office and tell her what has happened. She starts looking into it with the agent. And guess what she discovers - They forgot to issue the ticket! They wrote it up in the system, charged it to my credit card, but then omitted to do anything more!

So we have United with their global computer system down at pretty much the busiest time of the day on the west coast of America on the one hand, and an incompetent travel agent on the other, who not only forgets to issue a ticket, but then can't get it together to convert the ticket into an e-ticket.

Well, it is going to cost them. (1) They have now offered to fly me out tomorrow morning 1st class on Qantas (a much better airline these days than they used to be - getting right up there with Cathay Pacific and Singapore) which I will accept, and (2) they will lose the business as I am going to take my account to Ken O'Brien at Moves travel. He has always taken very good care of me in the past.....

So on it goes.... I will be blogging from the CES show in Las Vegas if I can get there!