Wednesday 24 February 2010

Classic ASP (VBScript) - Type mismatch: 'URLEncode'

Just a quick note - half aide memoir and half you-never-know-when-this-might-come-in-handy. We do quite a lot of maintenance work on Classic ASP (VBScript) sites and there are loads of gotchas.

Back in the day when it one of the main technologies I used they got me less, I seem to remember, but nowadays thats not entirely the case!

It's the obtuse error message that got me this time.

baseString = URLEncode(baseString)

Generates this error:

Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'

Type mismatch: 'URLEncode'


The fix? Simple.

baseString = Server.URLEncode(baseString)

DOH! Hopefully if this trips you up, you'll find this post in less time than it took me to realise what a doughnut I was being..!

Wednesday 10 February 2010

lastminute.com - our top secret hotel saga Part 2!

Well. Phew. We've made some significant progress on the 'lastminute.com top secret hotels' front.

Because I made a big fuss on twitter (and here), I managed to get a lovely lady from the lastminute.com VIP desk to look into our problem and it has been more or less sorted out.

At least she actually listened to / read / understood the problem! While I'm happy that it has been adequately dealt with, the misleading information correct and we have been compensated (with a room upgrade!), I'm still somewhat peeved by how hard it was to get the same simple message through via their standard support channels.

I dread to think what would have happened if I hadn't used social media to complain, though.

Apparently they are going to investigate the awful asssistance we received - I shall report back with the outcome (if we are kept updated, can't remember if they said they would or not)!

Thursday 4 February 2010

lastminute.com top secret hotels? Just Say No!

The title kinda says it all. I won't go into details yet, but we are currently involved in what I will politely call a "wrangle" with lastminute.com.

Their customer service is frankly disgusting. It is the worst experience I have had with a company when something has gone wrong for a VERY long time.

Will post more once the matter is concluded (for better or for worse). However, in the meantime, my personal advice is - if you are thinking of booking a top secret hotel via lastminute.com, just don't. It's not worth it.