Future reality simulation. Date — Tuesday 19 February 2008.

Time — 7:30pm.

Logging onto Jetstar’s website. Well, not really “logging on” as while the text appears 30 seconds after clicking on the bookmark, images do not seem to load. Bugger. Still 30 minutes away from Jetstar’s 1 cent sale, the server is already overloaded.

Time — 8:00pm.

Yes! It is Show Time!!! Except the Jetstar’s site does not want to load. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Lynx, Flock — I have tried them all but all I get is a spinning hour-glass (spinning beachball in the case of Safari). Not good. Press [F5] multiple times hoping the god of TCP/IP can have mercy on me to slip my request through.

Time — 9:15pm.

Now I am getting something back. “Server busy”? WTF?! Noooo!!! History has repeated itself!

Time — 11:24pm.

Wait!! I am in. Select the flight — Sydney to Gold Coast return in May. Only awkward hours are available but that’s okay. Click on Pay by Credit Card, ignore all that $3 surcharge per flight messages, enter in my card number, account name, expiry date, etc. Click click click. Next!

Waiting. Firefox returns to spinning hour-glass, and it has been there for 2 minutes…

“Server busy” !@#$#^%!!! Press [F5] again and then try to switch to another Tab telling everyone on OzBargain that I am about to score the tickets.

firefox.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost.

Aargghhh!!!!!

That is how I envision what will happen next week when the Jetstar 1c Airfare sale starts. Jetstar’s web server will crash hard as it happens every single time. I won’t even bother. Actually I have already booked my holiday in May with VirginBlue a month ago so there is no need for my to get another ticket through Jetstar.

Anyway. Good luck guys next week if you do decide to give it a try.

UPDATE 19/02/2008 at 8:20pm: As predicted, when I go to Jetstar’s website right now…

Sorry!

Thanks for your search.

Our current sale is proving incredibly popular, and our website is experiencing very high levels of demand right now.

We’re working as hard as we can to help you find the fare you want.

In the meantime please try one of the following, as it may help you find what you’re looking for:

If you’ve arrived here via the 1 Cent Sale JetMail, simply return to the JetMail and click the Book button.

Or

If you’ve arrived here and are not looking for the current sale specials, simply return to Jetstar.com to continue searching for flights.

Thanks for choosing Jetstar!