Raideress

We had a world ticket and was due to fly out of Thailand for London at midnight, not thinking we were thinking we were leaving the next day on the 3rd or whatever it was, but it was the night just gone, we realized in the morning, Rang Thai airways and they said come to the airport, they kindly organized a different flight Phew

msiamsia

Glad that Thai air were able to help you.
I almost "almost" book a connecting flight that leaves on the day I won't arrive... Got to factor in the International Date Line!!!

LH4116

Turning down the Japanese meal ex-Haneda in SQ Business in favor for my book the cook meal which turned out to be disgusting.

greggarious

I didn't take into account the time difference when booking a flight to Asia, and accidentally booked a flight arriving the day AFTER a business meeting. Was able to correct it but had to pay a change fee.

flashware

Even within 24 hours of the booking, or had more time lapsed?

Edit: never mind - thought this was in the BA forum! *smack*

Forrest Bump

Same here, regarding a change date line crossing flight Fiji-LAX.
Messed up with a wrong reservation to a backpacker in LA. Peak season and all beds sold. Jetlagged and with bags wasn't funny at all.

msiamsia

Boy, glad that it was AFTER the meeting, not BEFORE.
These days, everything is about fee!! At least, you got your ticket sorted out. (But, I would not like the fee part myself as well.)

anneanne777

Leaving my phone in the taxi in Beijing after we got dropped off at the airport. I literally remembered 10 seconds after i jumped out of the taxi and i tried to get my friend to run after it but he couldn't catch it.

I stopped and remembered that the hotel booked the taxi. I borrowed my friends phone and asked if they know the taxi number, luckily its policy for them to right down the number so i got it off them but due to the language barried i couldn't get much more info from them.

We had a friend who lives in Beijing showing us around so we called him and got him to call up the taxi company. He called us back and said the taxi driver said he doesnt have it. I told him to call back and that im 100% sure its there. He called back again and said nope, i told him we will pay him money if he just comes back and i can look in the taxi.

My friend called us back and said yeah he found it under the seat but he wanted some money (approximately $50AUD). So he came back and gave us the phone..

Contacts, photos from the trip etc was on that phone. So relieved when i got it back. Almost ruined the whole trip.

AEmgee

At a cruise port of call, I went on a private excursion without bringing along the cruise line's port agent contact information (all I had was cash, credit card, and passport). There was a fatal accident on the highway and we were three hours late in returning to the pier. The ship's own tours were 2.5 hours late themselves and the ship waited for them but not our tour! We had no way of contacting the cruise line to let them know where we were. Lesson learned - always bring the port agent's information and always have a plan B!

stut

A few I can think of:

A mad dash through the Slovenian countryside to try and make a train, panicked after the bus we were due to take didn't turn up until much later. We made the station, and leapt on the only train there, seconds to spare...

...only to find a cleaner looking oddly at us. We looked around, and saw the clocks were set to an hour earlier than we expected. It turned out that Slovenia was operating on a different daylight savings schedule to the rest of CET at the time.

Block-booking a load of LHR-AMS flights for about £50 ai r/t a pop, as I was going there every week and, frankly, they were ridiculously cheap. Somehow, though, I managed to miss one week, which managed to cause far too much confusion for both me, and the check-in staff who knew me by then. (Still got there...)

Age 15 - managing to throw my (paper) ticket out, and only realising this in the taxi to the airport. I got the taxi to turn round, and saw the dustbin lorry at the house, just pulling away as I got back. I sprinted through the house to the backyard, only to find... That the ticket had managed to stick to something unidentifiable (I didn't want to know) and had not been emptied and taken away. Made it to the airport in time.

Continued to eat ungutted fish in India, despite noticing that it was the case. Got giardiasis, persisted for over a year. Won't do that again.

greggarious

United's booking page froze when booking a flight. So I close the browser, reopen, go through again. Somehow, even though I never selected my seat or confirmed, the old flight _and_ the new one were booked.

Luckily they were able to send a refund to my CC for one of the flights. I was sure they'd charge me a fee but they didn't.

UA Fan

I recently thought I booked a one-way rental using one of the discount codes on FT from DTW-YYZ. I picked up the car at DTW and dropped it at YYZ. The guy who received the car in, could not produce a receipt so I had to go in. The lady kept asking me strange questions - where is the car, where has it been parked. Tried to do something on the computer and then asked me why I was in YYZ not DTW. I told her I was supposed to return the car in YYZ.

She then told me the reservation has me set to drop it back in DTW. I couldn't believe myself and looked at the paper receipt and she was correct. I still did not believe and looked at my email and it showed return to DTW. I froze as the drop-off fee was $250. She kept trying and trying to return the car in their system but it wouldn't and I thought I might have to drive back to DTW. Finally she called the DTW office and then tricked the system to show it as returned in DTW or something like that and charged me only an extra $50. Spent more than hour fretting and sweating.

GetSetJetSet

After a very blurry weekend in Sweden for midsummer parties, I went to ARN to catch my LH flight back to CDG through Germany. I couldn't get the kiosk to work, so I finally went to an agent who informed me I had booked the return for JULY 23rd, not June 23rd. They couldn't switch me to any other *A flight that day unless I wanted to pay over 1,000 euro for an SK direct (I did not). I found a DY direct flight leaving in 40 minutes, ran to their counter, bought a ticket, checked my bag and got to the gate as boarding was starting. As an added bonus the flight was into ORY which is closer to my apt. than CDG anyway.

SIA747Megatop

I once did SIN-NRT-LAX-SFO-ORD without a night's break. I landed in LAX, went into town and had my meeting, flew to SFO where I had my late evening meeting and showed up at the United check-in counter at SFO for the red-eye to ORD and the after I handed over my passport the check-in agent and I had the following dialogue:

Agent: Where are you headed?
Me: uhm....San Francisco
Agent: You made it!
Me: What?
Agent: San Francisco, you're here.
Me: OH, I meant Chicago, sorry it's been a long day, four cities, keep forgetting where I am.
The agent darted me a puzzled and confused expression. The word "weirdo" may as well have been on my forehead.

I was well and truly puzzled in the middle of that conversation. On hindsight I wish I'd stayed the night in San Francisco and headed to Chicago the following morning.

nyc2socal

Example 1
Spring of '02 or was it '03.. EXP (back when it meant something) on AA. Sunday flight @ SNA
Me: "Flying to IAD via DFW"
Counter Agent: "I don't see a reservation for you"
Me (DYKWIA): "What do you mean there's no reservation?!? I fly this route every Sunday!!"
Counter Agent: "Sorry, I don't see it"
Me (speaking slowly and deliberately): "I AM ON A FLIGHT TO IAD VIA DFW AT 1PM!"
Counter Agent: "1PM? That flight already took off!"
Me (staring at her for a good 3 seconds): "F..k... Daylight savings time.. So sorry, I'm an idiot"
Counter Agent: "That's okay, it happens to all of us, there are no more seats going out that way, but I can do a SNA-LAX-IAD for you.."
Me: "Thanks!"

Example 2
Recently:
Going through TSA PreCheck
TSA: "Sir, you don't have to take off your jacket"
Me: "I know, but I keep my cell phone in my jacket"
TSA: "Okay, come on through"
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Me: "Sh.t, I left my cell phone in my pants pocket"
TSA (smirking at me)..

Example 3
My first international business trip, thinking the American dress code of "khakis and polo" should be acceptable everywhere in the world.. Me=embarrassed.

Example 4
Eating food that you've never had before right before a long flight. My new mantra now also includes spicy foods, cause you never know!