I hate hate hate getting things online

I spent three hours trying to get the Union Plus travel center website to work. Three hours! I got thrown out of the process at every step. I got almost to the end of the process once, though. I got as far as entering my card number and clicking the last (I think) button before it threw me out and said that I had done something bad and it couldn't finish -- it accused me of using the "back" button. I did, many times, during the early parts of the process when I kept getting thrown out. But the notice to not use th back button came later in the process, and I didn't use it then. Because I entered my card number and I clicked that last button I'm afraid I bought tickets. I can't figure out how to find out. There's no contact number. Or maybe there is. I'll look again in the morning (well, technically, it's morning now).

Meanwhile, I decided to try Orbitz, and I had a similar experience, except a little less so. Now I'm afraid to finish the process for fear of buying two sets of tickets.

One of the things common to both sites is bait-and-switch. They kept listing these low prices but when I tried to select them they would invariably not be available and now the lowest price available was somewhat more.

Am I stupid? Should I be using a travel agent?

It's also, apparently, difficult to avoid flights that leave California at 7:30 in the morning (requiring us to leave the house, um, well, add two hours for check in, right? and allow two hours for travel if we get the airporter, so that's at least four hours, so at 3:30 in the morning) or arrive back in California at 10:30 p.m. or even midnight. I did find more reasonable tickets. But it took a lot of effort.


Meanwhile my all-important calendar book is in Oakland.