Not just the airlines...
Earlier this year I wanted to go from Girona to Madrid and back. As the locals are all raving about how good the AVE is - that's the new high-speed TGV train from Barcelona to Madrid - I tried using RENFE's website to book the tickets, RENFE being the Spanish national rail system.
After two eight-hour days of crashes, lockouts, BSOD's etc., I gave up on the RENFE website and booked our seats on Ryanair. As usual, Ryanair's website worked perfectly and as an added bonus our seats were cheaper than the AVE would have cost.
There are some really lousy booking sites out there and a few good ones. Uh-uh, this isn't anything new is it ! But the Spanish RENFE railway website is about as crap as the French SNCF site is*.....so as comfortable as TGV train travel is, if I can't book the ticket I go elsewhere.
* Showing "Trains Unavailable" for the past week.
RaF