I was supposed to go to a meeting in Japan. Although my expenses would be reimbursed when I got there, I needed to pay my way over upfront, so I used miles MSP-SFO and got a cheap NH deal to NRT.
Having had a scary experience the year before where my connecting flight almost made me late for my LAX-NRT flight, I decided to go to SFO a day early and camp out in a nearby motel so that I would be SURE to be on time for my NH flight.
So there I was near the head of the line as soon as check-in opened. When I was at the head of the line, I pulled out my passport and flight confirmation, and as I started paging through my passport, I realized with horror that it was not my current passport, but the previous, expired one, which I had grabbed out of my desk drawer without looking. It was at that point that the customer service rep called me forward.
I was a stammering wreck, but decided to switch to Japanese to explain the situation (something that tends to make the always kindly NH personnel even kinder). After making sympathetic noises, the check-in clerk called her supervisor and they discussed the situation. They told me that there was space on the next day's flight and that I could be tentatively booked on it if I could get my passport by that time.
That would mean jumping directly onto the first Shinkansen out after my arrival in Tokyo, not fun, but doable.
OK, first order of business, call the airport motel and tell them to keep my room open. Second order of business, call Tokyo hotel and cancel my first night's reservation. Third order of business, try to find someone who could get into my apartment and FedEx the passport to my motel for early morning delivery. That meant tracking down one of my brothers, both of whom have jobs that keep them away from phones most of the day.
Four hours later, I finally contacted one of my brothers and gave him the phone number of my landlord, the most likely locations for the current passport, and the address of the motel.
Then came the big catch. My landlord was nowhere to be found. His phone message said that he was out of town and wouldn't return till the next day.
That meant no passport until it was too late to make the meeting.
I spent the rest of the day contacting the people I was supposed to meet with, canceling all my Japan reservations, telling NH that I couldn't make tomorrow's flight either (they said I could rebook the ticket within a year since THEY had denied me boarding), and changing my award ticket (with an Indian call center rep who first forgot to take the International Dateline into account). I flew back to MSP the next morning.
When I arrived at MSP, I decided to take the shuttle to my home. Unfortunately, the street I live on sounds like the name of a famous hotel chain, so the dispatcher put me on a shuttle that went to downtown Minneapolis, which I didn't realize until the driver turned onto the freeway into downtown. So I sat there while other people were dropped off at five different downtown hotels until I could guide the driver (who didn't know major Minneapolis landmarks and natural features) to my neighborhood AND to the nearest Subway sandwich shop so he could grab some dinner.
PS. My brothers now have keys to my apartment.