Christ I have heard it all, apparently Aer Lingus had a computer problem yesterday that essentially meant that Business Class flights to the US were offered on the website at €5 when infact they should be €1775.

Aer Lingus "copped on " to this problem after 2 hours and after some 100 people had "availed" of this offer, and paid with their credit cards, which would appear to satisfy the law of contract, but no! Aer Lingus cancelled all of these peoples bookings by sending them an email and "inviting them to re-book".

I heard Enda Corneille, Director, no less, of Corporate Affairs speak on Morning Ireland and saying something to the effect that people should have realised it was a honest mistake, I almost threw the radio out the window.

I heard recently of someone making their way back from a trip and the return date was incorrect on the piece of paper.The return date was entered incorrectly by the person, a honest mistake, but that person had to pay €400 to get home, and Aer Lingus's attitude was " its your fault you pay for it".

So when Aer Lingus makes a mistake, its our fault for not realising that the price could'nt be correct, when we make a mistake again its our fault. One would begin to wonder if you can trust anything that would appear on the website by way of prices.

If Aer Lingus are allowed to get away with this what is stopping them from changing the price of flights after you have paid for them?, I know that sounds silly but were are the customers rights here?. More importantly due to the advent of internet shopping, is the law of contract no longer valid? from this situation it would appear so.

I cant believe that they did'nt simply say "right we f*#ked up let the people go for the fiver", they could have actually used it for good marketing, I know thats an oxymoron,but no,they came out with a defense that frankly in the same class as "the dog ate my homework".