Well, a couple of things:

- I live in the Arab world, and the dates of my trip were during the Eidh El Addah period, when all flights get fully booked very fast. Indeed, when I went back a few hours later, the flights I wanted were fully booked. This is why I took what I could get at the higher price. Otherwise I might not have got to fly at all. So I think I did in effect exercise common sense, no?

- I did indeed try to call Air France's local office immediately after making my reservation, only to get a recorded message in arabic stating that - yes you got it! - "due to a technical incident this number is out of order".

And I SWEAR I did not make up that last bit.