Press 1

I'm jet-setting off to Palmerston North tommorow - no thanks to my father, who originanally told me to be there on the 22nd, and only informed me after I had booked and paid for my flights that he'd given me the wrong dates. I'd booked my tickets, as one does in today's age, online, and because I'd done so I thought I'd be boarding a long haul telephone trip to sort it out. Then the most wonderful thing happened, a person - a real live one - answered the phone, after 6pm. And, after grovelling to the CSR I has booked new flights (albeit at impossible times of the day). My hat off to House of Travel, whose service was in stark contrast to my most attempt to call a company I do business with.

This lot, who recently ground the country to a stop, were impossible to get information out of. Admitedly, after a day of faults they decided to put up a message saying they were broken, but only if you managed to call the right number. One would assume their main portal, 0800 000 000, would at have a way to naviage to the faults/broadband line. But no, you don't even get 'if you are expeirencing trouble with a telecom product or service, hang up, step away from the phone, and don't contact us until you pay your bill'.