At around 9.30am on Aug 3, I visited the Singapore Airlines website to book a flight to Sydney. The quoted price for a return trip for two adults was $692 per passenger.

However, a few minutes later, the site stopped working. The search engine failed and all online reservations were suspended.

I called the customer service hotline and was informed that the site was experiencing "technical issues". I was instructed to try logging on again in an hour.

When I asked whether I could book the flight via phone, I was told that only the higher price categories were available, and lower ones had to be purchased online.

Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to access a computer again until eight hours later, and was dismayed to find that the price quoted for the same flight had gone up to $802 per person.

As I needed to confirm my tickets urgently, I had no choice but to proceed.

What occurred that morning when the site crashed? It is not fair for customers to pay significantly higher ticket prices as a result of such glitches.

If this is a regular occurrence, will SIA consider allowing phone purchases for lower price categories when the site does not work?

Oh Jen Jen (Dr)