AAfemme1984

Executive Platinum/Platinum for probably15 years and lifetime AA Platinum this year (after years with Continental) doesn't necessarily make a klutz smooth when flying. When preoccupied with prepping for work at a faraway destination and/or badly jet lagged - it all comes out.

Going through priority lane at DFW for the wrong flight (in June); leaving liquids in my carry on at LHR (twice in July); not filling out immigration card for the 13-year-old I was traveling with on Global Entry (last week). Then there's the time I went flying off the steps onto the tarmac on a late night flight to St. Vincent and the Grenadines carrying a heavy bag on LIAT (don't ask). The good news, even after these events, it's usually super smooth. But when jet lagged I can look like it's my first time flying.

Consolation: On a LGA-ORD flight I was sitting with a long-term flight attendant. We laughed the entire trip as we compared our klutzy mishaps/antics while in the air. She was either trying to make me feel good or was worse than I am! But I've not lost my passport/tickets/fast track passes or booked the wrong day (don't want to say "yet') so I just roll with it. Can't act "too cool." But a good laugh even to myself certainly brightens my day.

ybanag

Few years ago. MNL-HKG-LAX 7:20pm departure CX.
With traffic and a tropical rain got dropped at the curb 5pm.
Security before you enter departure counter area said we were late and pointed to the 17:20pm on the BP !!!
Delayed at security because of my daughter's soccer ball (could explode inside cabin) and a wooden statue ( could be used as a club). Abandoned both and ran to the CX counter which was empty except for a sole agent who was closing up. She had this worried look and then got on the radio and called the gate. She said we may still make it if we ran.
We still had to fall in line with Immigration to pay some fees.
The agent who happened to be a supv was with us all the way and made it in time.

exilencfc

I'm good at getting through security but re-assembling my stuff on the far side takes me ages.

Badenoch

Me too but I don't consider it an "amateur moment." If it takes a few extra minutes to get my things back to where they were and make sure I haven't left anything in the bin it is time well spent. The days of me rushing through an airport are over and I'm much happier for it.

Madone59

I can never decide what to eat. About 100K a year, some food, same terminals and airports most of the time yet more often then not I find my self staring at the terminal map or food court.........like its going to change......then I've wasted my eating time and have to wolf down something.

invisible

I think I can beat most of stories here.

While planning our wedding and honeymoon we wanted to attend International Latin Dance Festival and competition. We built the whole itinerary - ceremony, reception, honeymoon, etc around that event.

So, everything planned, reception held at Mandalay Bay with guests, good time. Next day we moved to Marriott - and I went to check the event. To my surprise, I did not discover anything and nobody in the hotel know anything either.

Came back, opened notebook and discovered that the event was held in the previous year.

My (already) wife told me that when came to her with the story I had the most confused look on my face she ever saw.

Well, that was 10 years ago, but we still use the story to entertain our guests and tell it around.

wintersummer

This happened about 10 years ago. I was in Boston, at the Copley Place Marriott Business Center, attempting to do online check-in for my return flight home. I continued to get a message on the computer that I was outside the acceptable window for check in. I kept saying "darn" or something like that. A guy in the room volunteered to help me. He pointed out my flight was for an entire year later!

Well, we had to get home, had to get back to work. We headed to Logan ASAP. As you can imagine, tickets were sky-high expensive and most seats were booked. One agent was able to get me seat home in about 3 days, but at about $3000 (for both my husband and myself). I think I burst into tears. Another agent came over, intervened, and in a very focused way, kept working the keyboard, for about 5 minutes (or so it seemed). Her printer started, and she handed me 2 first class tickets for the flight that was boarding, direct to RDU (home), at no cost. Oh, I could have jumped over that counter to hug that agent!

Anyway, do airlines even let you book return flights a year out now? For some reason, I thought you could no longer make that mistake. Maybe too many people like me were making that error.

Efrem

Most airlines load flights into the system 11+ months out to avoid this problem. It's not just to prevent passenger confusion. It's to prevent all sorts of confusion. There is never more than one "Flight 217 on March 13" in the system at a given time, though (on March 15, say) there may be none.

I thought they did this ten years ago too, and more than ten, but I may be wrong.

drvannostren

My amateur moments are more one offs but...

- went on a trip to St. Louis for 4 days...forgot to back underwear. I've done that TYPE of stuff a couple times.

For the most part though mine are situations that haven't occurred, I still don't understand earning miles on codeshares. If I'm buying a Swiss code share on an AC flight, will I earn based on the AC chart or the swiss chart as an AC partner since I want to credit to my AC account?

What happens if you miss a flight because you simply showed up too late? It's just never happened to me.

What happens if denied entry to a country, do they throw you in a holding cell until the next flight? Who pays? Legal ramifications?

I'm a noob when it comes to stuff like that, it's things I probably should know before they happen to me, but it's not front of mind until it occurs.

I prevented my friends from a noob mistake, being a former airport employee I often talk in airport codes and airport time, so to me the stuff is just normal. So, sitting around drinking with my buddies before they all took off for SE Asia and being a nerd I wanted to see who they were flying and stuff. One of the guys pulls up his reservation on the computer. They had all told me they were leaving on Tuesday at 2. This being Monday at like 8-9pm. I look at sure enough it says Tuesday...at 0200, they were flying EVA Air from YVR. "Uhh boys, your flight leaves at 2 AM not 2 PM geniuses" they were all like "Oh, alright well cool we can drink even more tonight if it leaves then" so I got firmer "noooo, 2am Tuesday means 'Monday night' stupid, your flight leaves in like 5 hours'". MAD scramble ensues as none of them had packed yet lol.

flg8rmatt

Twice I've booked flights for February when I needed to fly in March...I know I need to travel on "Sunday the 8th" and since, except in Leap Years, the days/dates in Feb and Mar are the same, I get careless....

s0ssos

Travelling to Puerto Rico, looking up cell phone, credit card contacts, etc, then realizing it is just the US

BuildingMyBento

My boss and I boarded a CI flight HKG-TPE without a hitch. At TPE, I realized that some time had passed at baggage claim, even though both of our bags had already gotten there.

Turns out my boss - who had never before been to Taiwan - had been "on file" from getting into a pub fight in England years earlier. He was thus subject to a 10-year ban.

His anecdotal report noted that TPE's holding cell had "damn good internet" and that they paid for his ticket back to HKG...even though he wasn't from there.

invisible

Did he get miles for both leg?

BuildingMyBento

He wasn't even a member!

(But he did mention that he drank a few bottles of vodka in LKF over the weekend to ease the anguish...and I couldn't complain, because it was an almost free trip to Taiwan.)

wintersummer

My husband and I had always wanted to take a cross country train trip. We settled on the Empire Builder, from Seattle to Chicago. In my travel research, I read that, if by chance, there was a full moon the trip was extra special - the moonlight illuminated the prairie, where the light pollution level was so low. I became focused on planning this trip around a full moon, which required coordinating my work schedule, my husband's work schedule, Amtrak timetables, and other factors. It took about 3 years to make everything come into alignment.

We started our trip out of Seattle. Sitting in the Seattle train station, I read an article about how a total lunar eclipse would happen in two days, right at we crossed that open prairie. It was an absolute black out, out there on the prairie.