Anyone who has been trying to buy a Barcelona away ticket over the last two days may know exactly what I mean.

The club, to their credit have organised travel at £200 upwards, which although not cheap, is certainly better than what supposedly budget airlines are offering. A deal with Thomas Cook was supposed to allow you to book both ticket and flight together if you had the correct criteria for a ticket.

And then the problems start. On the Thomas Cook website, packages could not be purchased if the registered owner of the season ticket did not match the passport details entered. "Incorrect criteria" apparently, despite knowing that I have 22 away credits. Thomas Cook has conveniently washed their hands of any problems, directing people to contact the box office. The box office is requesting that the registered owners fax through permission that the ticket can be used. Does this sound like a good system so far?

On Tuesday then, ticket purchased separately, a fax was sent from the registered owner giving permission. (Although it could have been sent from anyone really, so is largely pointless.) I got a receipt that it was sent, and rang the box office to confirm it was received. All well apparently, they were "sorting through them" and had them "all on a wall." They would let me know. Fast forward to today, having still not heard anything, I rang again. After being put on hold for ten minutes, being asked for my name twice, I was asked "are you sure you sent the fax?... because we don't have it." I cancelled, and have booked a flight elsewhere.

The point is that this consistently bad customer service is not good enough for a club the size of Arsenal. I appreciate that it is not easy to arrange ticketing and travel under such short notice (UEFA!) but this is laughable. Firstly, there must be thousands of fans who have a season ticket not in their name. Mine is in my brother’s name as we alternate between games. (I think there was a report about United a few years ago that around 10,000 of their season tickets holders were actually dead, but the families had kept their ticket going.)

The system was doomed from the start. Secondly, faxes, which could have been sent from anyone, are creating extra unnecessary work. "We have them all on a wall." Must be a pretty big wall. How many others have they lost? It must be chaos in there right now. Currently, another plane is “being looked into” and we can register our interest in it, along with payment details. If they get one, they will take your application and process it. In the meantime fans our waiting whilst all other means of getting there are increasing in price… there may be a lot of Gooners out there with a ticket and no means of travel.

The box office is not only to blame; Thomas Cook and UEFA are also culpable. Such a mess is not surprising though when the Arsenal box office is involved, and I suppose that tells you everything. Ivan if you are reading, this is your next mission. God help you.

(Ed’s note – I am sure there are two sides to every story and would be happy to run a response from anyone at Thomas Cook, UEFA or Arsenal to put their side of events. Feel free to do it anonymously if offering your thoughts might get you into trouble with your employers.)