roberino

This morning I arrived at security at my connecting gate in SIN. I know I had my passport because my BP’s were in it. I took the BP’s out to prove my destination, then everything went in the tray to be scanned. Five minutes later, post-comfort break I can’t find my passport. Turned out my carry on three times, looked all around the security area, even convinced myself it was back in the lounge.

At the gate they’re literally printing the passenger manifest and closing the gate when one of the security team sprints over with my passport, the gate gets opened again (assuming they hadn’t found my checked bag yet) and I make then flight. Phew!

It turns out that my passport had been knocked out of the tray on the conveyor belt and ended up inside the X-ray scanner. They literally shut down the machine to look inside. So glad they did! I’m sat in the plane writing this and actually in a good mood now.

Anyone else lost a passport in a weird way?

deniah

I returned a backpack to manufacturer with my passport in its interior pocket. I did not realize this. Luckily, they did, and reached out to me. I asked for them to mail it to me (at my cost) and unfortunately... they never did.

bitterproffit

Two times:

First time, I didn't lose it, I left it home. I was flying to Cancun and it was a lot cheaper from Memphis than from Nashville. So, the day before, I drove the 3.5 hours to Memphis and checked in to the hotel. I then started to go online and get my boarding pass. I had to put in the passport number and I realized it was back in Nashville. There is nothing else you can do but go get it. So, I got in my car at 5 PM on a Friday and made the long 3.5 hour drive back to Nashville to pick up my passport, and then the long 3.5 hour drive back to Memphis that night. I got back at midnight. I ate dinner at the Loretta Lynn cafe in Hurricane Mills. So at least there was that. I literally was cussing myself out for the first hour of the drive. 10.5 hours in my car.

Second time was in Frankfort and I misplaced my passport. I couldn't find it and was ready to cancel my onward flight and go to the consulate when I found it wedged in the top lid of my Delta Tumi amenity kit case. I use the case for chargers. I have no idea why I put the passport in there. I cussed myself out for another hour.

twb3

My usual carry-on bag has a external zippered compartment. My wallet, passport, phone, and other items from my pockets goes in there during screening. After screening, the items go back in my pockets. Prevents things from going astray during screening.

dbuckho

2001 was doing a 2 day, 1 night summer crossing from Bariloche, Argentina, to Puerto Varas, Chile via a series of buses and boats - known as Cruce de Lagos.

We take the first boat and arrive in the middle of the National Park. Many people continued on immediately to the next bus as they were doing it all in one day, but those staying 1 night on the way, on the Chilean side, go for a hike up to this very old tree. There was a lodge at this first stop - I remember thinking thank god we are staying at the one in Chile later - there is nothing here.

We come back from the hike and someone is calling out my name. My wife and I go over and this woman from the tour company says “good news - we found your passport.” Had no idea it was missing.

Apparently it had fallen out on the bus back in Bariloche. Then she said “no problem - it will come on the boat tomorrow - so you can just stay here instead of the other hotel and pick up the tour tomorrow.” I still remember the feeling watching the rest of our tour go off without us.

That said, turned out the other hotel was swarmed with cicada like bugs (we would find out the next day). Even though the place we stayed had nothing in terms of tv, Internet, etc - and it was just my wife and I, two architects from Buenos Aires, and the family that ran the lodge in the middle of nowhere that night - it ended up being a great experience and it was really beautiful.

My passport showed up the next day as promised and away we went.

Since then (20+ years) I check for/confirm I have my passport constantly when traveling internationally even though I have an internal zippered pocket in my carry bag for it and other important documents.

gaobest

Lucky - I’ve yet to lose my passport. I’m from a city with high crime and I’ve grown up being mindful of robbery potential and I’ve tried to not have a situation of losing my passport and id. My spouse is from a suburb and is less concerned with losing things and once I had to search their domestic F seat in order to retrieve a driver’s license that fell out of the back pocket of jeans since of course that’s a normal place to put one’s driver’s license lol lol

ElevatorEnthusiast

I had mine left in the passport scanner at the Conrad Istanbul - I realized it after spending about 10 minutes in the room and then opening my backpack to put my passport in the safe. I rushed down to the front desk where they opened the lid on the scanner, and there it was just like they left it.

planesquid

I used to use a large-ish laptop bag which has lots and lots of pockets and compartments, and also doubled as a rucksack, which was very convenient for my purposes at the time, anyway one time I was in the US, which for me is far enough away to be ravaged by jetlag, and after a couple of days it occurred to me to check where my passport was, as I had vague memories of stashing it in said bag. Could I find it? No, not even going through it thoroughly a second time, and checking all my other luggage, pockets etc. Cue brief panic with visions of having to travel half-way across the continent to find a consulate capable of issuing some kind of replacement. I was on the cusp of making expensive and inconvenient arrangements to do that, but decided to do one more check, and there it was, nestled in some inside pocket I'm sure I'd checked, but maybe the passport had spent a few days in an alternative dimension or something.

I have since optimized my passport management by acquiring a small rectangular case, maybe two-thirds the size of an A4 sheet of paper, which has a transparent front and a solid magnetic clip, which is excellent for stashing passport, boarding passes and any other bits of paper which need to be brought out when passing through an airport (recently that's been Covid-related documentation); the transparent front makes it very easy to be be sure where I put the passport, and the presence or absence of the case itself is much easier to determine.

Badenoch

I lost a passport when mine was left on my desk at home and discovered by my then young black lab who chewed it into pieces. At the passport office I was greeted with skepticism when I told them "my dog ate my passport" until I held up a clear plastic bag holding what was left of it with visible teeth marks.

iwanm

Twice, once in Kiev on a business night out in 2014, woke up in the morning with a bad hangover, packed bag to go to get flight and no passport. Called local business partner and he came to pick me up and we retraced our steps (bars) from the previous evening. About 5 in, opened door and a waitress smiled and said 'passport?' went to a drawer and fetched it, Gave her 500 hryvnia as a reward and she was happy as!

2nd time UK to Sydney, arrive in Sydney, go to get arrival form and passport ready before we deplane and no passport. empty rucksack 3 times, crew pull seat apart and nothing there. Went through the hassle with Immigration and was allowed entry successfully. I must have had the passport when I went through the boarding gate in Singapore so only place it could be other than the aircraft was there. Emailed Changhi help and yes they had it. Colleague was flying to Australia in 2 days so he picked it and gave it to me.

Athena53

My late husband had a shoulder bag with way too many pockets- black, of course, to make a passport down in the depths less visible- and I'd always bitten my nails while he went searching through it for his passport. The irony: he never lost his, but last May I was in Malta waiting for my Bolt (similar to Uber) driver from the airport and couldn't find my passport. It had been in a small zippered shoulder case along with my phone and some currency. My guess is that when I stopped at a coffee shop and took out the phone to download the Bolt app, the passport slipped out and fell on the floor. When I discovered it missing, the case was zipped shut- I doubt someone who stole it would have bothered to zip the bag shut again.

I called airport police- no sighting of it. I spent a lot of the next 2 days with Bolt drivers, to and from the US Embassy, separate trip to get passport pictures, etc.- but I had good conversations with them (they included a Brit, a guy from Africa and one from Serbia as well as a Maltese woman) and less than 24 hours later I had a replacement passport, bless them. I even managed to get my scheduled guided walking tour of Valetta postponed and was able to make that. Good thing it worked out that way- I had come in from Munich on Wednesday, was flying back on Friday and had to leave Munich to fly back home Monday.

GUWonder

An Indian female acquaintance had her Indian passport go missing from the room safe in a hotel in Germany while visiting on a job interview. I initially had my suspicions that the passport may have slipped down somewhere close to the room safe, but that wasn’t what happened.

cardsqc

At least you weren't showing them the remains of the passport after it had passed through your dog.

DELee

What did happen?

David

GUWonder

It was stolen. Suspect that the theft was an insider job or had an insider job aspect to it.