worldiswide

My parents were attending my daughter's college graduation on a memorial day weekend. They were flying from Chicago to Syracuse. They arrived on Friday at the airport to find out their tickets were for the previous day. They ended up getting as far as NyC on a plane and hired a driver, he had recently had surgery and couldn't drive, to get them the rest of the way. Missed the night before celebratory dinner but made it to their first grandchild's ceremony on time. Made for good stories and memories.

Leviticus

Forgot to pack sock on a three week trip to Asia.

CMK10

I once forgot to pack black dress socks for a trip. So there I am wearing black slacks, black dress shoes, buttondown and white socks

Forrest Bump

Like I forgot to pack underpants on a sultry and humid trip to Indonesia.
The show of the explanation of what I needed to the staff of a small shop in a remote village inland, belogs to the funny moments of that travel.

AA_SPG_Fan

I really feel badly about this one, but was young and somewhat broke -- but loved to travel. Rented a rare automatic car in Barcelona to drive around Spain for a month. Car was really nice, clean and ready for the autopista. When the agent gave me the paperwork for the car, he creased/folded the papers to create a large carbon-copy crease on where the car is marked for damage. He gave me my copy and we went on our way. Somewhere along the way to Sevilla, I was (trying) to park the car (which by this point had become a burden) in a very narrow and small, European-style underground parking spot. I ended up misjudging the passenger side and scraped out the entire side of the car -- the turns were just too tight. My travel mate started panicking to the point of being in tears realizing the damage that was caused. We inspect it -- sure enough, it's pretty bad. We barely had enough cash to close out our trip. We drive the scraped up car for another week and try to avoid looking at it. We had to return it to MAD, where we were running late for the plane back to the US. The rental agent noticed (how could he not) large scrape on the side of the car, but just waived it off saying it was noted on the prior damage (the crease of the paper) -- and just sent us on our way. We ran out of there and got to the terminal in relief. I still feel badly about that, but at that time and at the end of the trip and funds, it was a relief that we still comment about to this day.

venkol

I've enjoyed reading this thread, makes me feel better about booking an AA return one-way two days before my Arrival one-way! I didn't really need that $168 anyways.

thumbun

This is both stupid and highly embarrassing. And it is not an April Fool’s joke. Apologies in advance for questioning the wisdom of UA pilots.

Flying SFO-LAX on Tuesday, 4/1. My flight was canceled, and I was rebooked on the next flight 90 minutes later. Slim pickings on seat selection. E+ sold out. Put in E-, row 27F – behind the wing. Didn’t like being so far back, but great view of flaps and the flight is only an hour or so.

Bad weather in SF and down the coast. Push back delayed 60 minutes because of a late crew arrival (pilots only). We finally pushed back and started to taxi to 28R. There were 4 or 5 planes ahead of us in the sequence. Finally we are next to go. I look out and see that the flaps had not been extended. I immediately thought of the NW flight a number of years back that crashed immediately after takeoff from DTW because the pilots failed to extend the flaps. For some reason – and completely out of character – I started to panic. I had images in my head of crashing into the 101.

We taxied onto 28R and then immediately pulled off the runway. The captain made an announcement that because of ATC flow control, we would be delayed up to 20 minutes, but that we could leave sooner. He said that he would give us the 2 minute warning before departure.

After about 5 minutes of waiting and seeing that the flaps were not yet extended, I was fully agitated and nervous. A couple of people got up to use the restroom, so I did the same. In the back galley I quietly admitted to the FA that I was being a bit paranoid, but that the flaps were not down and someone should call the captain to tell him to do so. She was very polite and said, “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.” At this point, I didn’t know what to do, so I went back toward my seat. Two rows ahead of me on the aisle was an off-duty pilot in uniform, so I knelt down beside him and said, I’m not a pilot, but I’m concerned that the captain hasn’t put the flaps down. He looked at me with a very annoyed expression and replied, “you’re right, you’re not a pilot – go sit down.”

I guess my instinct to not embarrass myself (any more than I already had) was stronger than my fear because I returned to my seat. A couple minutes later we heard the double ding and the flaps still weren’t down. However, as we began to pull on to the runway, the pilot extended the flaps and I breathed a big sigh of relief.

Thank you UA pilots for getting me to my destinations and home again safely more than 150 each year. You are the best and I am a complete idiot.

bones718

buying 2 bottles of liquor from duty free and throwing it in my check in bag. completely forgot to wrap it in clothing for padding as it was zip tied at the store. i come home and find all my crap soaking in vodka and glass shards. good thing the liquor was clear.

to add insult to injury, pissed me of to find the friendly "tsa bag search" notice.

CMK10

I was at BUD last month and someone in line behind me had a bottle of vodka that fell out of his bag and shattered all over the floor. Smelled great!

javabytes

Thinking a triple EQM promo was a triple RDM promo.

Larry Siegel

In 1979 or 1980 I missed two trains in a row out of Chicago's Union Station because I was in the bar.

- - -

I bought a $700 book of coupons good for flights on Kiwi Airlines and left it in the seat pocket. They went bankrupt just before the money was about to be refunded...

Duke787

+1. My teams always have a "no new restaurants on travel day" policy after we had a bad experience at lunch on a travel day in Kansas City

tmorse6570

Bought some white tennis shoes at Sears. Didn't really look at them except for the size.

Now I'm on Marta in ATL on my way to the airport in a cabin with just me and three black guys. They're pointing at me and they can't stop laughing. I'm trying to think what's so funny, but can't so I just ignore them.

I get home and tell my partner about it and he just points to the back of my tennis shoes.

Both had the word "WINNER" printed on them. Might as well have said "LOSER".

I tossed them in the trash.

Jaimito Cartero

You caved to peer pressure?

tmorse6570

Well, they WERE pretty stupid looking. At least the guys on the train had a good time laughing.