jobosapien

This wasn't me, but a friend booked a flight to Vietnam not being aware of their 6 month passport validity requirement. Let's just say he had to return home without ever stepping foot outside the airport on arrival. Sucks!

Personally, I had a small mistake this weekend when I forgot to put my known traveler number into my Southwest flight. First time not entering using TSA Pre in a long time and it was brutal.

Last Row Middle Seat

...booking a flight with Southwest...

helvetic

I did that in NYC once… ouch.

helvetic

I was flying with a bunch of friends DPS-DOH-LAX on QR J. I thought I booked the same flight as them, but missed a crucial am/pm difference and ended up on the noon flight the following day instead of the just-after-midnight flight.

They all had a grand time on flight, with a short connection in DOH enjoying the lounge offerings.

I landed in DOH alone an hour after sunset the day Ramadan started, wasn't served any drinks, and wasn't given the hotel night for my 10h layover in DOH because "I could've booked a shorter layover." All the sleeping rooms were already taken so I had one of my worst airport nights ever sleeping on a lounge couch in bright lights.

I was FUMING.

flashware

When that happens do you get stung some $$$ for the early return fare? Or is covered by the airline as they should have realised before sending you in the first place?

Eugeniusz Bodo

Landed in correct city but my car rental and hotel booked in the wrong one. And I learned about my both mistakes only one at the time.

ysolde

Partner I worked for did that once. We were working on a case and were traveling. I went to his office, and he said, "My secretary has made the travel arrangements. We are booked at some hotel in Kansas City. Check with her for the details." I asked, "Which Kansas City?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "You did clarify for her, right?" He opened his eyes wide, and said, "Ask her to cancel the travel arrangements, please, and go ahead and make travel arrangements for us. Then get back to me." Great. I just turned myself into a (severely overpriced) secretary. To a highly anxious partner who required a lot of handholding.

DCAFly

I currently have two Amtrak tickets for WAS-NYC for the same weekend in August.

Qwkynuf

Last February I landed in the correct city, and my car rental and hotel reservations were in the right city - but they were for the wrong month - I had somehow reserved them for March instead of Feb.

davie355

Odd that the airport agents didn't catch this.

tentseller

Landed at San Jose, CA, USA. Hertz could not found my rental booking.
Booked car in San Jose, Costa Rica.

jrl767

Qwkynuf

Yep, exactly what happened. It was kind of a slow death though, because I had to go through the "you don't have a reservation", "oh crap - what went wrong and how do I fix it" once at the exit booth, and then experience it again many hours later when I arrived at the hotel.

And then last month, I had a trip where I flew to one city on Monday, worked there Tuesday and Wednesday, then drove to another city 150 miles away, worked *there* Thursday and Friday, and then flew home Saturday morning.

No problem.

Bought my open jaw ticket flying into city #1 and home from city #2
Rented the car as a one way.
Booked a hotel in city #1 for Monday and Tuesday night.
Booked a hotel in city #2 for Thursday and Friday nights.

No reservation for Wednesday night. Something going on (probably a graduation) in city #2 has most hotels sold out. End up having to get a room at a Holiday Inn about 25 miles from my work site for one night, then pack up and move to the other hotel for the remainder of the week.

purch

I once checked in, went through security and immigration, and got to the lounge, only to discover that I'd forgotten an item of hand luggage on the trolley that had held our checked baggage at the checkin area. Long story short, police had already cordoned off the area and were scanning the bag with some machines by the time I managed to get back landslide. They were really efficient - security and immigration were completely empty so it could only have been 15 mins in total since we'd left the bag.

To be fair the police were quite understanding (maybe the thousand apologies and the sweaty, stressed out look on my face helped), and after answering a few questions about the contents of the bag, I was back on my way airside. Luckily we had been at the airport quite early, as my unexpected detour could have caused us to miss the flight.


Another one from years ago: Got into a "taxi" at CDG and only realised after setting off that it wasn't a metered taxi but one of those "limousine" type services. I didn't get ripped off too badly (maybe cost something like €15 more than it should have) but the principle annoyed me. Now whenever I see touts offering "taxis" I just ignore them and make sure to find the actual taxi queue.

DieselYVR

I was traveling on vacation and had some camera equipment packed for carry-on in a roll-aboard. I was with my wife and she always checks luggage so I generally don't have a large carry-on when we travel together. We lived in Hong Kong at the time and took the Airport Express to HKG. When I was in the queue for security I realized that I had left the roll-aboard case on the train! I was frantically trying to figure out what to do but then realized I might just be able to get the train on it's return from Asia World Expo. I sprinted to back to the platform down on arrivals level and just, just managed to retrieve it before the train doors closed. It would have not been fun or easy to recover it had I missed that train.