Saints preserve us!

I do it several times a week, but given how awful and awkward the experience can be, it's a wonder I do it at all.

No, not that.

I'm talking about purchasing products or arranging travel online. Now, to be clear, the experience is significantly easier than it ever was and for certain things—media and travel especially—the majority of my commerce is e-. One of my biggest peeves, though, is that I can't seem to convince anyone that I live in St. Louis.

This problem crops up most when I'm trying to make hotel reservations or buy airline tickets. I go through the process with relative ease until the time comes to pay. I enter all of my particulars: name, phone number, e-mail address, frequent flyer info and credit card number. Then, to validate that last bit, I'm asked for the billing address for my Visa or MasterCard. I fill it in, click "Submit" and...

Well, one of two things usually happens. Either the site insists that I've erred and provides a way for me to go back and "correct" the information, or it fails spectacularly, pitching up an inscrutible error message with no way to recover except to begin the whole process again.

The mistake? The site requires that I enter my billing address and, when I typed "St. Louis" into the City field, it is rejected.

It seems what it wanted me to say (and this varies widely across a number of sites) was either "ST LOUIS", "Saint Louis", "SAINT LOUIS" or "St Louis". The computer on the other end can't deal with punctuation or abbreviation, despite the fact that there is no indication of such on the web form I'm filling in, nor is there any indication in the resulting error of exactly what I've done wrong or why.

This is especially annoying if I've been asked to enter the address to which the bank sends my monthly statements and I'm looking right at one that shows it was sent to "St. Louis". I wonder if the folks in St. Paul or Sault Ste. Marie have the same problems.

Related peeve: Being told to enter my name exactly as it appears on the charge plate (BRAD L GRAHAM, incidentally) and then being provided with only fields for First Name and Last Name. Or a single field that, like City, won't accept periods and chides me for typing "Brad L. Graham".

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