The leaflet about the 747 express bus service between Montreal and Trudeau airport says it runs 24 hours a day.

A quick look at the timetable in the leaflet shows that the departure at the top of the list was at 6:00 from the city. 24 hours?

I then looked at the bottom of the list to see when the last one was - and it was at 5:13!

There was indeed a 24 hour service: early morning departures are at the memorable times of 0:25, 0:55, 1:26, 2:12, 2:57, 3:43 and 4:28.

Why are these not at the top of the column?

And at one of the stops, someone got on wanting to pay for his ticket. His US dollar bills were rejected, as was his Canadian $5 bill. The driver would only accept $7 in coin.

I'm not sure where I'd get $7 in coin in Montreal at 6:15 in the morning; and if I'd been turned off the bus for that I'd be tempted not to use it again! It's better at the airport - there is somewhere selling tickets!

How often do you use on-line booking systems for hotel or flight bookings - and how often do you swear at their design faults?

Let's ignore the many US systems which assume that everyone has a 5-digit zip code and a 10 digit phone number and move to those which really ought to know better.

I recently wanted to book a meal for IARO members at a specific Marriott hotel in Hong Kong. I went to the hotel web-site, clicked on Meetings - and was taken to the general Marriott functions web-site, asking me where in the world I wanted to hold my function! I managed to get back to the right part of the forest in the end!

When booking a hotel, I like those sites which automatically assume you are staying one night - so you enter your arrival date and the departure date is automatically generated (and easy to edit). Those which do not - which insist on me putting in both arrival and departure date, and delight in telling me that "Departure date is before arrival date" if I omit to do this are unpopular!

Similarly with flight booking systems, and especially the multi-city options, it is reasonable to assume that the arrival airport at the end of flight 1 is the same as the departing airport at the start of flight 2. It is so easy to generate this as a default - alterable, of course, if necessary. So why doesn't everyone do it?

It also irks me when I am allowed to enter "London" as a generic departure point (as an alternative to selecting from a list including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City, Biggin Hill and Londonderry) and then being told that London is ambiguous and I have to enter a specific airport! If that's the case, why offer me the option in the first place?

Emirates is one of the many sites which has a pop-up calendar on its booking web-site which facilitates the entry of travel dates. The calendar tool is good but only some people use it sensibly. When you enter the date of one flight, some sites blank out previous dates so that you can't return before you go - eminently sensible.

Emirates' multi-city option is good: enter the first leg of your journey, hit Plus and you can enter another (or hit Search to find fares and times for the sectors you've entered). Some airlines limit the number of sectors you can enter on a multi-sector journey - and the limit is always one less than I need!

And when booking multi-sector flights, it is nice (thank you, Continental Airlines) to be offered "This airline only", "Code-share partners only" or "All airlines". OK, the price may be a bit higher if you leave an alliance, but let's have the choice!

So, BA, when I express a wish to go London - Los Angeles - New York - London, I expect to be offered a direct flight between Los Angeles and New York on your alliance partner American Airlines (remember them?). I do not expect to be offered a routing on an overnight flight via Heathrow - I'm doing this routing to try to avoid overnight flights!

I'm planning a trip to Canada and the US. I need to go London - Montreal - Washington DC - London.

A constraint is that I don't like flying back by night - so there are relatively few places I can fly back from.

Coming back by day from either Chicago or Washington DC, flights arrive quite late in Heathrow - and I live two hours from the airport. So really, it's New York (EWR and JFK), Boston and Toronto.

I looked at American Airlines for fares, coming back through New York or through Boston (because, unlike JFK, there's a hotel on the airport). The difference in fare is considerable. For virtually identical flights - and, of course, a virtually identical distance - it costs 1233.57 to come back through Boston or 766.57 to come back through New York. 60% more. Curious.

Equally curious is the fact that I cannot enter a pounds sign in this post! Note that the figures above are in pounds sterling!

One theory is that New York - London is more a competitive market than Boston - London.

Other thoughts would be welcome!

In the 1890s, public transport systems in the United States were often streetcars - trams. These, of course, were electrically powered rail vehicles drawing current from overhead wires. A very popular system of collection was a long pole with a small grooved wheel at the wire end: this was known as a trolley and, by extension, the vehicle and the system also became known as a trolley.

To generate traffic at weekends (when people were travelling less for work), the transit companies would create attractions - in particular, recreation areas at the ends of their lines where land was cheap. Over 100 of these Trolley Parks were opened.

Someone returning from that era would have a shock if they found a trolley park today - a place where self-help trolleys are stored in supermarkets or at airports!

How times change - and language with it!

I liked two pieces of advertising currently on display in Chicago.

As you travel to the airport on the Blue Line of Chicago Transit Authority, you notice that some of the cars of the trains have American Airlines' advertising on their sides. The adverts are just place names - London, Frankfurt, Delhi - and a picture of an American Airlines aircraft. Good, but not as much fun as the old Munich Airport line, whose trains carried posters saying things like, "Non-stop to Osaka"!

And when you get to the airport and have laboriously got to the head of the security queue, the trays you put your shoes, coats and liquids in contain Amtrak advertising. One which caught my eye was along the lines of, "If you've a hole in your sock, no-one will ever know".

Excellent!