- send vast majority of connections straight to "busy" server. - allow small number of connections through. - once you have a connection, your connection is prioritised (sent straight through to the real server) and you have 5 min to get through the 4 pages required (front page, which-ticket link, ID number, credit card). After that you're back to being one of the hoi polloi.
It's a reasonable theory.
What they appear not to have done is ensured that the "real" server can deal with the number of connections they're allowing through. So you occasionally get no-data pages returned, or "connection reset" or a brand new different "busy" page halfway through. Occasionally, this happens halfway through e.g. submitting your credit card details.
I suspect that the problem is somewhere in the connectivity part of things - that the "real" server doesn't have a sufficiently prioritised connection to the current privileged users, and/or to the credit card company.
In addition to this, to avoid what happened last year (people not getting a confirmation page & therefore rebooking & winding up with duplicate tickets), they've instituted a check on the ID numbers. If you've already been through once, you can't use those IDs again. Fair enough: except that if your transaction went tits-up halfway through, you have no idea whether your debit card did or didn't reach the server, & thus whether or not you've successfully booked.
It *may* be that for anyone whose IDs checked out & who got as far as the "paying" page, they've automatically allocated tickets & if the card failed for whatever reason they'll sort it out afterwards. One can but hope.
no subject
The rough method they seem to use is:
- send vast majority of connections straight to "busy" server.
- allow small number of connections through.
- once you have a connection, your connection is prioritised (sent straight through to the real server) and you have 5 min to get through the 4 pages required (front page, which-ticket link, ID number, credit card). After that you're back to being one of the hoi polloi.
It's a reasonable theory.
What they appear not to have done is ensured that the "real" server can deal with the number of connections they're allowing through. So you occasionally get no-data pages returned, or "connection reset" or a brand new different "busy" page halfway through. Occasionally, this happens halfway through e.g. submitting your credit card details.
I suspect that the problem is somewhere in the connectivity part of things - that the "real" server doesn't have a sufficiently prioritised connection to the current privileged users, and/or to the credit card company.
In addition to this, to avoid what happened last year (people not getting a confirmation page & therefore rebooking & winding up with duplicate tickets), they've instituted a check on the ID numbers. If you've already been through once, you can't use those IDs again. Fair enough: except that if your transaction went tits-up halfway through, you have no idea whether your debit card did or didn't reach the server, & thus whether or not you've successfully booked.
It *may* be that for anyone whose IDs checked out & who got as far as the "paying" page, they've automatically allocated tickets & if the card failed for whatever reason they'll sort it out afterwards. One can but hope.