So, I’ve been waiting to post this shit for like, a solid two months. Fuming the entire time. Fuming vociferously, in fact. To all who were willing to listen. However, given their raging and heretofore unimagined ineptitude, I’d thought it might be nice to make sure I could actually return from the trip I’d booked with them before I unleashed The Fury of My Blog on The Worst Travel Website Ever. Well, I’m back now, so buckle up, Bravofly, you’re about to learn exactly what I think of you.

P.S.- If you’re looking for a rather funny disaster-story, it’s in here, promise, but if you really aren’t up for a ridiculously pissy, damn-it-Nina’s-at-it-bitching-again, ragingly ridiculous rant, you might could just mosey on over to the rest of this blog and avoid the following:

Why Bravofly is the Wost Fucking Thing I’ve Ever Had to Deal With in the Entire Realm of Human Endeavor.

Ok, that’s harsh. Let’s re-phrase:

Why Bravofly is the Worst Fucking Thing I’ve Ever Had to Deal With in My Travels to 41 Countries Over The Past 19 Years (I mean, for fuck sake!).

Now that is true.

Let us start at the very beginning, for once:

My dear dear friend, a delightful woman with a penchant for puns (I love you, Weezie!), decided earlier this year that weddings aren’t her bag, baby, and invited about 20 people down to Costa Rica to celebrate her union with an adorable Englishman with an equally, if not even more disgusting, penchant for puns (I kinda love you too, Stewie!). To interrupt my rant for a second, it was a lovely ceremony, EVERYONE should walk down the aisle to the theme from Star Wars, and a fantastic, champagne-soaked time was had by all. So far, so fabulous.

Now, I realized that attempting to book a flight from Mother-Fucking Perth to a miniscule beach town in Costa Rica for the Non-Wedding might be a challenge. But I, as I’m sure y’all all realize by now, am not one to shrink from travel challenges. While my Adorable Husband took the intelligent route back to the Western Hemisphere (given that he was already in Waga Waga, which is not only the best-named town in all of Australia, but also located on the East Coast, ish, and clearly much closer to western civilization), I decided that I would instead go with the a site touting, and I quote, ‘Cheap flights & low cost airline tickets: search flights and book cheap airfares! Search and book cheap flights using the best price comparison engine!!’ Now, this wasn’t quite as dumb as it’s starting to sound, ’cause I didn’t actually google ‘skeeziest / cheapest flight search engine available on the interwebs’ or anything. Nope, I went through Expedia (who, as we speak, is hopefully reading my wrathful condemnation of their fuck-witted, hopefully soon-to-be-ex, business partner…), who has always treated me well in the past. They showed me a ticket cheaper than I’d thought existed, and I said, ‘Fuck yeah, Bravo-what’s-it, sign me up!’

And that is how I found myself in possession of a $1300 round-trip ticket from Perth to LAX, incl. tax. Push your jaws back in place, Yankees amongst us, ’cause that’s like, half the price of a regular ticket from this God-forsaken town I inadvertently inhabit. Yeah, yeah, it was a ridiculously unpleasant sounding adventure, but I’m fine with that, given the cost (Yes. It is true. I am occasionally a “cheap-ass little shit”, as a dear friend recently termed me. Though I do feel you shoulda worked that out previously). My PURCHASED, PAID FOR, AND CONFIRMED itinerary:

Note that this doesn’t actually get me to Costa Rico, no no. In fact there was another flight to Houston, a two-hour layover at like 5am, and a further flight to San Jose, CR. But that’s not really the point… The point is that this is the e-mail I got from the retarded-monkey ass-wipes at Bravofly, a mere 18 days before my flight left:

I mean, what the fuck is that ‘button’ at the bottom? Do I accept this? Like, I’m really meant to just accept the fact that you’re proposing to LEAVE ME IN DARWIN which, while it does sound like just a terribly lovely town, is also only populated by about 130,000 people and contains a suburb (I’m seriously not joking here) called… Humpty Doo. Not only this, but Darwin actually lies 2,497 miles, or a 43 hour drive, from my house. Seriously.

So clearly I assumed there’d been a glitch, the flight had been cancelled, something like this, and that dear dear dearest Bravofly would fix this shit during a simple phone call. HAHAHAHAHAHA, stupid fucking me. Approximately 4 calls and 3 hang-ups (by them) later, I got a human. Fair enough, the world has out-sourced, whatevs. I explained to this supposed ‘human’ (though after his answer, I no longer consider him as such) what had happened and he said:

Supposed Bravofly Human: “Yes, that is correct.”

Me: “Sooo…. What are we going to do about this?”

SBH: “Well, what is the problem exactly?”

Me: “Umm… That I don’t live in Darwin? That I booked a round-trip ticket back to Perth? That I would, indeed, like to be returned there? By you??”

SBH: “Ah, I see. Well, these things happen.”

Me: “… Sorry, WHAT?”

SBH: “Well, you see, the flight is cancelled and, you see, these things happen.”

Me: “Umm… Yeah, these things do NOT happen. The flight’s cancelled, fine, so put me on another one!”

SBH: “Oh, no no. No, these things just happen.”

Me: Motherfucker. “I’m slightly too annoyed to speak to you right now. I’m calling Philippine Airlines and I will get back to you.” Click.

Long story short, Philippine Airlines responded that the flight was indeed cancelled, as they would no longer be servicing Perth (turns out I was actually on the last flight out, haha), and that this really wasn’t their problem (Truth, sirs). Eight further calls to Bravofly (and, yes, they only have one employee in their Australian office, as they are a Spanish company. Though I do not blame all of Spain for their fuckwittery. So yes indeedy, I did get to speak to my very least favorite SBH eight more times!) went absolutely nowhere. That’s a lie, actually, one further call to the SBH and I’d about decided to murder someone, so the Adorable Husband took over, as his temper is significantly longer than mine. He, however, also proved unsuccessful at dealing with the SBH.

My Personal Favorite Bits of This Asinine Situation:

3) The bit where, on phone call number 7, the SBH promised the AH that he would get back to us within ONE HOUR. He did not.

2) The bit where, before leaving on my trip, and with nothing as of yet having been fixed, the SBH sent me a customer service survey. Oh, did that get filled out upon my return…

and the absolute best: 1) The bit where, on phone call number 6, the SBH finally decided that this WAS INDEED SERIOUS, not because of the facts of the situation, not because of his inability to book travel or be a human, no, but because the AH finally threatened the following: “You know, my wife writes a very well-read and influential travel blog, and she’s about to bash you people ALL OVER The Internet.” And I swear to god, this is what actually got the man scared. Seriously. ‘Course, he still never did shit about anything, hence this public bashing.

In the end, Philippine Airlines (I heart you, PA!!) finally took pity on us. The lady who fixed it had this to say:

“Oh my god! That’s ridiculous! We would never just leave you in Darwin! All the other passengers have already been rebooked on Qantas, we’ll sort you out right away.”

And, shock and awe! She did, in about an hour. Because she’s a travel agent. And a human. With a brain. To paraphrase what I (quite lengthily) told the Bravofly customer service survey-monkey, this is the year 2013. It’s not like the customer has no options. It’s not like travel agents still even exist or anything. It’s not like EVERYONE ON EARTH doesn’t read TripAdvisor (Hmm. Def heading over there next…) Despite where I live, this ain’t the Wizard of Oz, so it’s not like BEING A FUCK-TARDED ASS-MONKEY will still fly in the travel business (no pun intended). My parting words to the survey-monky: “Best of luck getting your shit together, though I doubt you’ll accomplish it.”

And finally, in summary, don’t fly fucking Bravofly.