We’re planning a vacation. That means booking flights.

After half a dozen failed attempts to book one on BA’s web site (all ending with a cryptic error message) I called their support line. The first thing the guy asked me was if I had, by any chance, entered first and middle name in the box for first name. Well, yes, because it says “Enter name exactly as in passport”, I said. No no no, we don’t actually mean that, we only want the first name, he says. I tried again, and when I only entered the first name, it worked.

The BA support staff are so familiar with this problem that they immediately knew to suggest this as a potential cause… and yet they have done absolutely nothing about it. There is no clarification next to the box, no validation (but they do validate my phone number, so they are obviously familiar with the concept) and no clue about this in the error message you get. Is it really cheaper to have support staff sit in a call centre than to add a few lines to the web page?