nswat

Left INN and took train to MUC for a flight to KBP. Got to the check in with Laptop, suitcase Golfbag and Filofax, give the agent my M&M SEN and open Filofax to get my passport...not there. Frantic search nothing, then I realise, the week before, I had switched it to my new Passport wallet, which is still at home in INN. 200 km away. take a taxi to INN, collect passport and return to take the now much more expensive later flight to KBP. Taxi company does a regular shuttle btw MUC and INN, so that was only €76 rtn.

For some reason flying to LAX with a connecting flight I booked the connecting flight earlier than the arrival time. I had erroneously read the departure time for the return leg as the arrival time in LAX. Had to postpone several meetings in SEA.

tfar

I love the turnout of this. thanks to all for participating so freely. Looks like we have enough stupid travel mistakes to fill a book. Should we vote on the weirdest one or dumbest one or the one with the worst consequences?

The thing with taking a cab home and realizing you parked your car in the airport garage is great. Never happened to me, but I can see very well how that could happen to me. it probably will as a self-fulfilling suggestion now. :0

Till

jimthehorsegod

Well, I missed a flight by 24 hours (for some reason the website for the now defunct carrier always reset the return date to the 1st when you changed the month, and I didn't spot it at the time. Turned up and confused the hell out of the checkin bloke - my parents had just check in, so there was someone with my name on that flight! Sadly, wasn't me, so spent 30 euros on a cab fare and an hour trying hotel after hotel looking for a room for the night.. Then had to book full-fare singles the next day which cost about £400 or so..

My brother on the other hand learned a lesson: If you book flights, try to remember if you recently got married because Ryanair charge a LOT of money for changing your wife's reservation to her married name. Oh, and once you've corrected that, it helps not to have booked the flight for the wrong month, too - because by then the fees and charges end up at over 3 x the original cost of the flight...

To be fair, I'm not sure how I'd pronounce BDG8R either

martinfoss

Fortunately, I don't think I've done any big mistakes. Except from a couple of mp3-players that been "kindly donated" to some seatback pockets..

I do however have one story:

Was flying OSL-ARN, for a week of training at Arlanda (that was actually the only job-related trip I've ever taken). Ticket paid by employer, and had the word "business" on it. Showed up pretty early, for an early flight. Travel companion wanted a beer, so he bought one - yes, bought one.. This was obviously before I had heard about the word "business lounge" .

On our return, though, we arrived at ARN, checked our bags at business check in, and went to security. Line was quite long.. I do remember seeing something I hadn't seen before, called Fast Track, which obviously was for Business Class passenger and people with fancy, shining frequent flyer cards. I remember standing there, watching a guy in a suit, stressing through, making me a bit jealous, as he didn't have to wait in line.. Yes, I still had a business class ticket .

chatmax

At the time 2006, I was a novice flyer. After getting off the Qantas flight from MEL to catch my AC connection in SYD, I was supposed to check in at the AC desk but instead stood in the huge long queues in Immigration. Border agent said I have to check-in with AC so I make a sprint to find the AC check in desk. I missed my flight to YVR and so I'm stranded in paradise for another 4 days

The following year, still an inexperienced flyer, I was flying AF for the first time from BCN to CDG to catch my AC connection. I get to CDG, deplane on the tarmac and then bussed to the terminal...this was all new to me. People are lined up and so I line up behind even though I have no idea what I'm lining up for. I ask one of the CDG staff about where can I check in for my AC flight because I didn't have my AC boarding pass going to YUL. She doesn't really know the answer to my question or to many of the PAX questions. Learning from my last experience, I leave the flock of PAX and search for the AC check in desk. It turns out I could have stayed with the flock and take the shuttle bus to the other terminal instead of running frantically for 40 minutes passing different terminals. I stop at Customer Service desk and ask them to call the AC staff but the line is busy. Eventually they get through and tell them that I'm on my way. I look at my watch and I just know that I wouldn't make it in time since I have to take the shuttle to the other terminal. But low and behold, there was security issue in YUL causing the plane to arrive late in CDG. Boy was I glad for that and I made it home.

Not a dumb mistake but a bit of an embarrassing one. I tried to check into ShinOsaka Hotel instead of Hotel Shin'Osaka. Both different hotels.

passenger66

I'm originally from a land down under where the boards show boarding time not departure time. In ORD recently I sat in the bar until what I thought was boarding time and turned up obviously too late to board. I've been in a land up over now for years, so I'm trying to figure out how this relapse occurred so many years after moving north.
Fortunately for me I made it to my destination going standby on later flights for no extra fee.

Daawgon

I did the very same thing many years ago (Newark to Norfolk in 1962).

Susan4

This happened to an elderly aunt of a relative. She lives in England and wanted to attend her great-niece's wedding in a suburb of Milwaukee. The UK travel agent booked her into Central Wisconsin airport in Mosinee, WI, 3 hours away by car. Guess she just assumed that our state only has one airport.

shawbridge

So much fun in airports, but here are a few:

1. About 25 years ago, as young and relatively inexperienced travelers, my wife and I were flying to Tel Aviv for winter break. Departure time travel was say 6:30 PM to 18:30 in 24 hour time. Our travel agent typed an agenda that listed the departure time as 8:30 PM. We bought cheap tickets (was it called excursion fares back in the stone age?) on Swissair (in the stone age, a really nice airline) that didn't allow seat assignments until the day of boarding for cheapskates. So, my wife went to the airport 4 hours early -- at 4:30. I had planned to leave my office, go home, finish packing, take a taxi to Logan airport in time for an 8:30 flight. She called from the airport saying that I needed to get home, get my stuff, and get to the airport ASAP or we'd miss our plane. Rushed home, made the flight by the skin of our noses. Somehow, my wife planned for warm weather and had only left out sandals. So, I put them on. But we had a long layover in Zurich and went in to town (in sandals in the snow) to the Kunstmuseum to see Giacommetti's. Cold on the feet. Swissair bumped my next flight to first even though it seems that the travel agent and not Swissair was at fault.

2. Went to the airport in Fort Meyers with two kids (ages 1 and 4, perhaps) to return home to Boston (again in the winter). Discovered that we were one day after the reservation. They put us on standby through Cleveland and Newark and we eventually got home although all flights were delayed.

3. Was working in the USAir Club (I think) for a flight to someplace in NC or VA to lead a seminar for 40 or 50 people -- scheduled for the last flight of the day. Didn't hear any announcements and when I looked up, I realized I'd missed my flight. PUt me on a puddle jumper to another city and I had a 2.5 hour drive at 5 AM to make it to lead the seminar.

Rejuvenated

Quite a long time ago (many years ago), had a flight departing out of ONT but ended up driving to BUR. Lucikly I left early enough to make it to ONT but barely. Thank goodness I recall it was a weekend or else it would have been impossible.

BearX220

From the same file... I had a business trip to Portland, OR the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Landed, went to pick up my Avis car, no reservation, no car. I'd booked it in Portland, ME instead.

The silver lining was, a kindly Avis attendant in Portland, OR gave me a car if I swore I'd have it back by 200p for the holiday rush. I did. The nasty epilogue: in Portland, ME another Avis customer drove off in a car tagged for me. She wrecked it. I got a bill from Avis for $3,500 and had to prove I was on the other side of the country at the time.

anat0l

That doesn't sound like a dumb mistake that you made.

Although I guess that spending Christmas Eve at an airport isn't exactly the greatest.

fpm

Several years ago I had a contract job in the DC area. I flew each week from ATL to DCA with just my laptop bag; I had an apartment up there and left clothes there.

One week the laptop had to be repaired so I just left the laptop bag in the office.

On the flight home, somewhere over Charlotte, I realized my truck keys were in the laptop bag. Oh well, I had hidden a key in the frame in one of those magnetic boxes.

After searching for 20 minutes, I gave up. Got cleaned up, took the shuttle back to the airport, got a regional shuttle to the house, retrieved a second key, and reversed the trip.

Finally got home about 3AM.

And I thought the trip was going to be easier without the laptop bag 'weighing' me down

rives21

This is probably not that outrageous and probably fairly common - but I felt really stupid when I showed up at the airport for an international flight without my passport. Fortunately, my sister was able to bring it to me at the airport at the last moment.

gns

I was flying from the US to Canada and left my passport at home.

The check -in lady said it would not be a problem and let me on the flight. I arrived in Toronto and had to beg and plead with the immigration agent to let me into the country for a conference! Boy, was I sacred they weren't going to let me back in the US! Fortunately it all turned out okay.