The Weekend break that never was

I am supposed to be in Dublin right now.

When Ryanair put on a special offer of £1 flights a couple of months ago my friend Rene asked if I wanted to go with him for a ‘non-romantic weekend in Dublin”. For £2? SURE!!

I have been boasting to all who would hear (yeah I know... first class irritant me). It’s not every day that you get a £2 return flight to Dublin? And seeing that we’d spent so little on flights we splashed out on a nice hotel right in the city centre. Separate bedrooms of course!!

But I’m not in Dublin…

On Friday when checking in online, I couldn’t print out the boarding pass for the flight back from Dublin. I phoned up the Ryanair customer service desk who explained that boarding passes couldn’t be printed until 15 days before the flight

“ Yes I know that. My return flight is on Monday”

“But ma,am it says here that your flight is the 14 October?

“Yeah. That. Is. MONDAY. It. Won’t. Let. Me. Print. Out. My. Boarding. Pass” Honestly. Where do they get these people!!!

Silence

“Madam, 14 October is a month away”

How could I have missed that? shit shit shit

With a sheepish “thank you for your help” I checked frantically for any cheap flights back on the 14th September – the cheapest was £73. Quick calculations brought me to the sad conclusion that my cheap weekend break was not working out to be so cheap after all. A phone call to Rene to let him know about the change of plan – he just laughed. I also had to cancel the hotel booking and got hit with a hefty late cancellation fee of £69. Ouch

To add insult to injury, I’ve spent all weekend indoors nursing a cold (It’s not swine flu) I just hate being sick

Well the good news is that those £1 deals come around again and you can be sure I’ll NEVER make that mistake again.