Diary – 30 August 2008

Sarah Standing battles to board a plane bound for Ibiza

Needs must and I’ve become extremely skilled at booking cheap, credit-crunching flights on easyJet. The volume of hours, energy, blood, sweat and tears I’ve devoted to acquiring dream e-tickets for my family ought to qualify me for some sort of tenacious travel operator award. This summer I’ve truly gone for gold: four returns to Ibiza, singles to Nice, Corfu and Toulouse and a brace of cancellations to Gibraltar. I’ve come to the conclusion that making holiday arrangements in cyberspace requires real chutzpah. Getting the flights you want is a gamble and not dissimilar to playing the Las Vegas slot machines. The odds of getting the right ticket at the right price and at the right time of day is a veritable crapshoot, yet just occasionally all the components gel and one hits the jackpot. I have to confess I’ve become quite the player.