cl.lurker

Hmmm.... where do I start??

Realized that I didn't have my Blackberry Bold 3 blocks from home (on my way to the airport) - and panicked

Got back home and couldn't find it for sh$@#t.... On my way to the at&t store to buy a replacement (I was on a business trip, had to have my BB, no question...), I then found it. On the road. In pieces (left on top of the car, you get the rest of it...)

2 hours and $565.00 later, I get to EWR and check-in, only to realize that I had my son's passport, and not mine....F#@K!!. Ended up updating my new BB, calling the nanny and making it to the flight -barely- on time.

The real kick? it all happened today. Am sitting at ORD waiting for my flight to GRU and cannot believe I found this thread!!

flashware

Just a few small ones for me.

Had a business trip to SYD and booked a flexi-rate booking at the hotel as it was the cheapest when the trip was originally booked (6 months prior to the trip).

Closer to the date, the client booked me into other accommodation; I forgot about the original booking and had to stump up one night's charges!

Another time flying PER-BME, the flight was delayed for 3 hours and it was my first time using the lounge; kept knocking back double vodka & oranges. Anyway, upon landing in BME I was almost at my hotel when I had a call from QF going "Mr Flashware, we have your wallet here if you'd like to come and collect". Oops! That was close.

iadsyd

Similar situation back in 1990. We flew in from Sydney to LAX and checked the gate for the connecting flight to Tucson. We went to bar until boarding. Went through gate as boarding was well underway. My co-worker found his seat (2A). I had seat 4A but found that seating went from row 3 to row 6. I then found a FA who looked at my boarding pass and said that this plane was heading to Cincinnati! There'd been a gate change while we were drinking.

[This was also the trip I had "smuggled" two garden gnomes from a friends place and took them OS. We had friends from around the world send postcards. I took pix of the gnomes flying Business class in QANTAS. It was also the time of the 1st Gulf war, which made going through scanners etc. an interesting exercise with these statues: almost another dumb travel-related thing. If you're interested the Gnome story, pictures, and postcards are online at Gnorman Gnome - Postcards from the ledge ]

CMK10

Yes actually, see post 21.

hauteboy

Ah.. i remember another one. Last December my buddy and I were traveling through Central America. I was flying home out of Managua and he was continuing overland to Costa Rica. I left the hostel at 3AM for my 5:30 AM flight.. get to the airport and a long line. Start looking through my bag.. no passport. I ran outside, grabbed a taxi and said I'd forgotten my passport.. we zoom back into town where found my passport under a pillow on my bed (and I'd moved stuff around the bed to make sure I didn't forget anything!).. surprising my buddy. The taxi raced back out to the airport and the line had hardly moved.. finally find out that the flight was canceled due to snow in Houston. There wasn't a way back to the US that day (I was on an award ticket and they wouldn't endorse me over to another airline). Back to the hostel where I surprised my buddy a second time, heh.

drewbles

Wow this thread just reminded me of how many 'mishaps' i've had over the past 5-6 years (and also reminded me how careless I can be whilst travelling despite my full intention of being attentive!)

1) Rocked up to PER for a flight to MEL. This was pre-quick check so joined the J queue. Present FF card "Hi I'm here for the 776 to MEL. *tapity tap* 'Sorry Mr drewbles, but I see no booking you'll need to go sort it out with the Sales Desk'. I wander over to the sales desk 'Yes Mr drewbles we have you on the a flight on the same date... next month'. Turns out that I somehow (and stupidly) selected the wrong month from the dropdown box on the QF booking site. $750 later I was on a plane back to MEL (and more out of pocket as I had to book another flight back to take the one I booked in error, oh the humanity, and miles/status credits)
2) Whilst waiting for a lift to MEL for a flight to CHC, My lift informed me they were running late. By the time they got there, it was a bit of a rush to get to the airport, but no big deal. Load luggage/duty free into car. Get dropped off and proceed to NZ checkin. Checkin goes fine, go through customs and then past the duty free lady 'Any duty free for you sir?' "Yes.. I have it... right in the back of the boot of the car of the person who just dropped me off. crap' (this was the days where Duty Free Stores actually existed in numerous quantities outside of airports). Fortunately, Air NZ shon. A call was placed to friend who came back to airport, dropped off bag at Air NZ CS, and the bag was quickly rushed through to me in the Koru Club (gotta love taking Duty Free for friends). This lead to...
3) Whilst recovering from the rush and re-delivered duty free, I decided to see if my pay had gone through. No dramas, I just need my wallet to check the number for my bank. This would not have been a problem, if I had my wallet on me. Was too late to get it to me, so I took the flight to CHC, jumped in a cab where I informed the driver I had no cash but the person on the other end would pay. No problems. Get to other end, person not home yet (was running 20-30 minutes late). Cab driver had no issue, offered to come by collect the fare the next day (and did!). 24 hours later, wallet was DHL expressed to me in NZ (was there for 2 weeks), minus cash, as they would not let me ship cash. Housemate put cash into bank account, I took out. What a kerfuffle This then lead to....
4) Rock up to CHC for the return flight home (redemption on NZ in J). "Hi I'm here for my flight to MEL"...'Sorry Mr drewbles your flight was yesterday'. I panic, worry and stress to be told 'but that's ok we can fit you on tonights flight'. Even got J, no need to slum it in Y ^
5) Flight from SFO-LAX-LAS in March (this year). online checkin. All fine. Get BP and as it was a day trip went straight to the security queue. showed my Australian drivers license and all was good. Get to LAS no problem. On the way back, going through I was stopped when I realised I had not brought my passport with me. TSA stopped me, quizzed me, and almost refused to let me in (and I was flying in F!)
6) Various incidents in hire cars. Hired a car in CBR and forgot my CD's i'd taken with me (had CBR-Bathurst and Goulbourn and other stops in a 2 day marathon for work). Avis fortunately found and returned these. Avis did not return the chocolate coated coffee beans I bought as a gift and left behind on the passenger seat of a car I rented at SYD though
7) During the Impulse Airlines days in Australia, I was a regular on the MEL-SYD hop flying it weekly for work. As they only had a few a/c I got to know the crews pretty well. One trip I convinced a friend to fly up with me for a weekend of general alcoholism and debauchery. Flight was the 0600 on a Thursday morning. Set alarm for 4am as the airport was a 20 minute trip that should be fine. Packed bag night before. Wake up in the morning thinking 'my alarm should have gone off by now' and it had not, it was 5:15. Sat bolt upright, jumped out of bed, banged on door of housemate and informed him to get the hell up. at 5:50 we were sprinting accross the floor of MEL INT to the Impulse counter. The crew yelled 'hang on! here comes drewbles!' and held the flight for me. Got an escort through security (leaving from the International terminal as they did) and got on the plane with around 30 seconds to spare. I think I broke the land speed record to get to the airport for that one!.
8) Work trip to SYD. Left mobile at home and was spending all day in a location i had to be on phone calls, that had no phone. 30 minutes later I was on a 12 month contract and had a new phone. Was easier than trying to expense a new handset to work, and got a new phone out of it
9) Latest trip to NZ managed to leave passport in room safe. Got back to hotel to claim it and fortunately (apparently) the room had not been cleaned. If it had, it would have taken forever to get the passport back
10) After redeeming a heap of FF points and getting a coveted J upgrade from LHR to MEL, I sprung for a driver to take me home rather than a taxi. Flight was 2 hours late out of HKG and duely late into MEL. Upon arrivals there was no man with a 'Mr drewbles' sign. I dig out laptop, find number for said company, and call "oh your flight was late and we needed the car for a wedding. I can come get you in around 2 hours". Was not impressed. Not my fault, but i'll never use the company again
and last but least
11). During a school trip from PER to LAX-TPA and everywhere in between, we had an ordeal with a bus driver. 100 kids and 10 teachers. Split into two groups for flights, the one group waited for their coach which never turned up. Bus driver slept in Fortunately, DL were great and re-accommodated us all and we all got from ATL to TPA, on 3 flights

I'm sure there's more, but that's far too many as it is

kenish

- Some AA gates at DFW are dual (21A/B) and split off to separate aircraft after going through the door. They often co-board two flights and interleave boarding announcements. I was on the flight boarding through 21B and had seat 21A. You all know where this is going! I was settling into my seat when another pax politely said I was in her seat. A look at the BP cemented the horror! Fortunately both A/C were only halfway through their boarding but it was tough fighting upstream to get off the wrong plane.

- We were on a road trip through Arizona and Utah and rented a car to save wear and tear on our own car. At Zion National Park we stopped for lunch. I got out of the car, locked the doors using the door switch, and shut my door. A shiny object reflected off the seat...the keys! My son was last out of the car and I shouted "DON'T SHUT YOUR D..." (slam!). AAA said the closest garage was in Hurricane, UT about an hour away and they would call me back. We started planning how to spend the better part of the morning in town. The local garage called within 10 minutes and as we discussed my location and AAA member details their truck pulled up! He had just driven up to Zion to handle a dead battery and was about to head back.

- I was on a biz trip in HKG, a colleague and I had an afternoon flight to LAX on UA. We went to the hotel to shower and check out. My colleague said we should meet at a certain time in the lobby; I mentioned that was cutting things close but he felt we were OK. In the cab to the airport he seemed pretty nonchalant and I was a nervous wreck cutting things so close. We arrived at Kai Tak and our flight was flashing "CLOSING" on the monitor! He saw 14:30 on his ticket and mentally thought 430pm! I then said I wondered what he had been smoking! We rushed to the counter where they quickly checked us in and even escorted us through security and Immigration to the plane. On the jetway we looked at our BPs and realized they had upgraded us to C! My colleague said "I knew it would pay to be late someday!"

- Back in March I rented a car in Australia online for July 6 using the Aussie Avis website (lower prices than the same rez through the US site). In early June I received an email confirming our rental for June 7 ! Yep, I was too impatient to deal with the little pop-up calendar widget next to the date box and hand keyed "07/06/2009" per standard format in the US (mm/dd/yyyy). I don't need to explain what the problem was! Fortunately the confirmation email had a "change my reservation" option which fixed the problem....good thing it wasn't nonrefundable airline tickets!

flashware

It must be us Aussies...! Reading that reminded me of some others.

1) Flew home to PER from ZNE only to get there and realise I left my laptop power supply at the client's office. No worries, was flying up 2 days later so dealt with that OK.
2) Flew up to BME (this is the same trip I left my wallet on the plane, sometimes you just have bad days...!) only to realise my laptop power supply was left at home. I thought I had left it in the QP, but luckily not; it was sitting on my bed at home (along with a few shirts I thought I had packed also!)
3) Just recently I did a trip by car PER-ZNE-TPR-PHE-BME, overnighting in ZNE. About 1 hour out of TPR I had a sudden thought about my backpack (which had my laptop, medications, etc). Oops, that's right; left it sitting in the unit in ZNE. Not a problem, was put on the next flight and arrived back in PER the next morning. Luckily the person travelling with me had all the applications on his laptop that I needed to use and it ended up being all OK.

There's something about ZNE and BME!!

anat0l

OK....my mistakes garner no Academy awards unlike some shared here in this thread, but here we go...

• Oz Fest #5 in HBA. Whole bunch of us decide to pool for a taxi to the airport to catch a flight to MEL leaving 0605h. I set the alarm for about 0340h intending to meet the taxi at 0440h (noting that I was in a different hotel than the others, but not a big distance to walk).
  Wake up earlier than the alarm, turn it off and stupidly decide to get just a little bit more shut eye as I woke up quite early (you know, one of those "just 5 more minutes" things). Woke up again at .... 0440h! Have no contact with my fellow taxi-goers so they're left confused as to where I am but I assume they just go. I, on the other hand, spend the next 10 minutes madly throwing things into my bags as I try to call the few taxi companies in HBA to arrange a taxi to the airport, which were also in very short supply!
  Made it to the airport with 45 mins to spare, although of course quite a bit lighter in the pocket since I had to pay for the whole taxi ride myself.
• I tried to book a SC run AKL/WLG for a day. I missed one pair of AKL-WLG-AKL due to compounding delays of aircraft. Can't do much about it, ticketing weren't sympathetic and far too short for any travel insurance to cover. Expensive exercise ensued; have never been zealous about tight transfers involving intra-NZ travel ever again...... (well, almost....)
• Had a flight ASP-MEL as part of a SC run. Almost missed the bag drop for the flight after having to claim it first at ASP arrivals then racing to check-in to drop it for the return - all within less than 10 minutes from disembarkation. Bag checked in, was catching my breath in the ASP QP. Left the QP at "Final Call" to see a really long line, which puzzled me as I waited for the line to become sufficiently shorter, i.e. why "Final Call" yet the line is still very long. Took me a few minutes and a question to realise I was waiting at the wrong line (the line I was waiting at was going to DRW); the line for my flight had all but disappeared! Made the flight, but was given a very wry smile by the FA at the gate.
• Left my bags at AKL i-Site so I could go hand-carry only for a day trip. I was tired so when they asked how did I spell my name I produced my drivers license. 8 hours and 3 flights later I realise that my wallet is sans a drivers license. Called AKL i-Site who said they couldn't find anything. Luckily the lady who took my license had left it on top of my bag in the storage area, which I found out later that night when I reclaimed my bags.
• Me: (during in-flight meal service, pointing to bottles on the cart) "How much does that small bottle of white wine cost?"
  FA: "You're in Business class, Mr anat0l. It's free."
• I'm at PER domestic airport early for the flight to KGI. This is when I was still a PS with no QP access, so I resign to ordering a muesli with yoghurt and a coffee from the airport cafe for breakfast. My supervisor appears about 5 minutes after I've purchased breakfast. He's a WP.
• Booked accommodation at the Hilton ADL for 28-30 November 2008. Or so I thought. I'd booked the accommodation for the correct date numbers but the wrong month! Heart dropped when I got a call 2-3 days later from Hilton ADL saying that I had no-showed. Being the semi-proactive but foolish person I am, I had given my credit card details to guarantee my booking. Ended up paying 1 night's rate as a penalty. For rates where I have the option, I now just tick the option saying, "Should I not turn up by xx time, please automatically cancel my booking".

jmshapiro

Sadly, this is the thread for me.

I went away to London for the weekend with my wife. We arrived at Heathrow, had a lovely weekend and headed back to Heathrow sunday night. I put my BA card in the machine and it said it couldn't find our booking so couldn't check us in. So I toddled over to the desk in my usual smug manner and told the lady their machines weren't working again to which she replied "you might find it worked sir if you turned up at the airport in your booking". Sure enough, I'd booked us down to Heathrow and back from Gatwick. Embarassing and costly.

tuapekastar

Flying MEL-SYD-CHC. Tight connection in SYD, entailing a transit from domestic to international terminal, such that when I went through security in the Int terminal, I was in a bit of a rush.

Placed keys and coins in the tray and sent it off through the x-ray.

Made flight ok, arrived in CHC late at night (~2300), met friends who had arrived on a different flight and shared a cab to our suburban Christchurch accommodation.

A few beers were had and at around 0200 decided to turn in. Went to unlock suitcase - no keys! In my rush I had neglected to retrieve the tray after it passed through the x-ray at SYD.

An engineering firm conveniently located across the road 'removed' the lock from my case the next morning (boltcutters or ground it, I can't remember) and despite a number of calls to SYD lost and found, never saw those keys again!

jmshapiro

Then there was the time we packed to go to Florida on holiday. There were 8 of us in total (2 families). We'd purchased a whole set of disney/universal tickets etc. I 'accidentally' threw the whole lot out (tickets for both families) with the rubbish before we left to discover no tickets when all were in the car ready to head to the theme park. I got out of it intact but it was ugly and costly.

kaka

simple as that - thought arrivals time was departures. get to ZRH, thinking have time to spare.
"sorry kaka, your checkin is closed already"
!?!? i'm 1.25 hr early!
"flight is at 3pm and we close 45 mins before"
duh.... can i get on the plane the plane is still here!
"no"

duh....
i had a train pass so i went back to my fd's place. At 10pm: *Knock Knock* Why the hell are you here?
I wonder.

*Grin*

arrozcomfeijao

If this post were turned into a contest (why not?) I guess I might be a serious contender.

My mistake was a Groundhog Day (the movie) experience.

My wife and I were flying from Japan to Hawaii on an extended vacation. As we had first crossed the dateline, flying from Brazil all the way to Japan, I knew I would lose a day. Leaving on Thursday from Brazil meant I would arrive in Japan on Saturday, even though we would have flied "only" 24 hours.

But I didn't know I would regain the lost day on my way back. How stupid is that?

So as we arrived in Honolulu from Tokyo, and tried to check in for our continuation flight to Kauai, the check-in machine said "too early to check in for this flight". I wondered why, as the flight was only a couple of hours away. I tried the check-in desk and it was only then that a lady from Hawaiian Airlines informed me it was yesterday all over again. My booked flight wouldn't leave until the next day. I had regained a day!

So instead of trying to rebook my flight and rebook the hotel in Kauai, we just spent a day in Honolulu. And so I had two April 21sts, one in Tokyo, one in Hawaii.

CantWait2Retire

That's okay - they don't wear underwear in Rio! lmao!