mecabq

Being bleary-eyed from an overnight flight, I forgot to pick up my checked bag before exiting customs. Luckily it hit me before I left the airport. Unfortunately this was TLV, and the whole area was eerily quiet. If I recall correctly, I went to the airline ticket counter first, but eventually was directed to pick up the house phone located by the closed door exiting from customs. I eventually got them to deliver the bag to me, which of course they searched thoroughly (because if I was trying to smuggle something in, this is how I would do it, right? -- although they may have rightly thought that I was a bumbling idiot so anything would be possible). At security on the way out of TLV, I got the full back-room treatment; it may or may not have been because of this incident a few days earlier.

Anyone ever do this before? I am actually surprised that after hundreds of domestic and international arrivals, I have only forgotten to pick up my checked luggage once.

MADPhil

I once spent two hours watching an amazing thunderstorm at MSN instead of catching the first leg of a TATL. The flight was eventually cancelled and I went home by taxi forgetting that I had checked a bag. I remembered at home but I couldn't just leave it at the airport because there was no space on flights the next day and I had elected to take the bus to ORD. I drove back to the airport and collected the bag so it wasn't a particularly bad experience but illustrates how a little distraction can result in a memory lapse.

RichMSN

Me:

(1) Left things in the seat pocket -- a pair of expensive eyeglasses and a set of AirPods. Both times nobody would raise a finger to help despite my noticing the items missing within minutes of going through security. Attitude from everyone both times was a collective shrug.

(2) Messed up a time change coming back from Hawaii and missed our connection at LAX while eating breakfast. Thankfully these were the days when status mattered and NW still existed -- the gate agent smiled and then put us on the next flight home.

Friend:

First trip for work with my company. Was told to fly to Portland to shadow another presales person. He flew to Oregon, the rest of the staff correctly went to Maine. In the end, we still laugh about it over a decade later, but he thought he was going to get fired at the time. He's still with the company that acquired ours. I'm not.

melissafalbo

I would say it was my silliest mistake. Once I had to go for L.A for the official tour I kept all my documents with me but forgot to take my money in a hurry, which created a lot of trouble for me which I cannot forget. This was my dumbest and silliest I mistake I ever done during traveling which I cannot forget. But now when I remember that time I simply laugh that how dumb I was.

IanFromHKG

I've remembered a couple of others. First the Memsahib picked up the wrong bag from the carousel. She realised before leaving the airport but the other passenger was livid. (She did it again a few years later, incidentally, and that time only realised when we were at the offsite car rental pick-up point where I pointed to the bag and asked if it was really ours!).

I once arrived at LHR in something of a rush to get to my M-I-L's funeral. There was only one driver waiting near the designated point so I waved at him from a distance and followed him to the car. It was, inevitably, the wrong driver and we only realised about half an hour away from the airport. Driver was furious, his intended passenger was even more furious. The driver wanted to take me all the way back to the airport but I gave him all my cash and persuaded him to let me out (which he did, in the middle of a busy roundabout, out of pure spite). I managed to contact my own driver and explain (with some difficulty) where I was and miraculously he managed to find me and get me to the funeral on time (although it was a close thing). He also kept the whole sorry affair a secret from the Memsahib...

I now check luggage labels and driver pick-up boards very carefully!!

miklcct

accidentally booked a hotel when I wanted to book a hostel

DSM Flyer

Minor compared to most of these stories, but stupid nonetheless. Heading from the office to PHX one 100F+ Tuesday last spring I was drinking from my reusable water bottle. Kept drinking as I rode the rental car shuttle to the terminal, and shoved it in my bag before heading in. As I pass through security they pulled my bag from the X-ray, and I immediately realized I had forgotten to dump my water. My options were to discard the bottle or be escorted out of security with it to dump it and re-enter. I had plenty of time (and Pre-check) so I did the walk of shame back through security to dump it. Of course I got a raised eyebrow as I presented myself to the Pre-check agent for the second time in 5 minutes… The really stupid part comes in when I did the same thing with my travel coffee mug at ONT on Friday for my return home. Again, the walk of shame in order to keep my favorite travel mug.

And the cherry on top is that was the same week I somehow booked myself a hotel room in Ontario through Thursday instead of Friday, and when I checked in on Tuesday night they didn’t have any availability for Thursday night, so I was going to have to find a new hotel and move for my last night. Fortunately our secretary kept trying and eventually managed to get me an additional night Thursday at the same hotel, as she called right after they’d had a cancellation. Hopefully I got all the stupid out of my system in that one trip!

DSM Flyer

Not mine, but one I witnessed-
One time I was in line for boarding DSM-DFW on AA. Two women in front of me were turned away because their boarding passes were for DSM-DTW on Delta… They were Asian and did not appear to speak much English so a bit of a language barrier, and I suppose I can see the confusion between DFW and DTW. DSM being a fairly small airport (2 concourses, 11 gates) the AA gate agent was able to direct them a few gates away to where the Delta flight to DTW would be boarding from.

rankourabu

2001, flying alone to Europe as a kid BUF-DTW-AMS

On a small Mesaba prop in BUF, gate agent comes onto the plane saying weight restrictions, needs volunteers, offers USD600.
That is quite a chunk of change when you are young, so my hand goes up immediately.

Back in the terminal, she asks for my passport for the rebooking. I look in my bag, not there. I look at the seat where I was sitting in the terminal - there it is!
Without ID checks at the time, I didnt even notice my passport pouch got left in the terminal as I boarded..

If they didnt need volunteers, and I wasnt a greedy kid - I would have flown out of BUF without my passports, and wouldve never gotten to Europe (and its not like one could have whatsapped your parents for help then!)

DSM Flyer

Wow, the post (quite a ways back) about the person who sat at the gate and watched their flight board and depart because they thought they were on a later flight takes the cake as the dumbest mistake, but this one is a shoo-in for luckiest!

tlglenn

Two wrongs made a right?

TravelingNomads

This is a few years ago, but I bought a nice new jacket for our winter trip to Ireland/Scotland. Somehow it fell off the coat hook and one of my lovely kitties decided to spray onto it. I didn't want to throw it away since it was still brand new, so I washed it a couple of times and thought all would be fine. Unfortunately, TSA apparently can see what the human eye cannot and that coat kept having to go through extra security checks even though the pockets were empty. I got rid of it as soon as I could.

I also booked a flight to Dublin that arrived on Christmas Day. Months went by before we were alerted that the airport is closed on Christmas! In the end this one worked out to our benefit, but I've learned to always check for airport closures.

lamphs

Just a couple of minor items...

Red eye from UIO-IAH-IAD. Extremely sleepy upon arrival at IAH. Left the customs area and then realized that I didn't pickup my checked bag and re-check it. Fortunately, I was not the first one to do this. It was fairly easy to be escorted back into the secure area and re-check my bag.

Was in Merida (Mexico). I am not attached to my phone, so for most vacations it remains off. I have a small travel clock. I had not considered daylight savings time. The boutique hotel that I was staying at made no mention of it. I arranged to be picked up at 11 AM for the bus. Staff knocked on my door at what I thought was 9:50. Staff told me that my ride was waiting. I said I had another hour. No I didn't. 10 minutes to pack. I was not happy with the otherwise great property. You say, bus, big deal. But it was a weekend and the only bus to CUN, so I had to make it. I stayed in another boutique hotel in downtown CUN. There were several signs at reception notifying guests of the time change. (FWIW, DST does not apply to all of Mexico.)

threeoh

Even worse, nowadays Quintana Roo (including CUN) is on EST and doesn't do DST, and the rest of the peninsula (Yucatan including MID and Campeche) are on CDT/CST and do DST. So half the year they are the same and half the year an hour off. Leads to all kinds of errors.

Sidenote: no way was that the "only bus to CUN"...maybe the only bus direct to airport? ADO runs buses from Merida to Cancun bus station (from which there is an airport bus every 30 minutes) approximately hourly from 3am till midnight.

wrp96

Friend was disembarking a cruise in Galveston, and flying home the next day. She knew there was the possibility of a hurricane but wasn't really paying attention because she didn't think it would affect her. She also didn't have a cellphone so once she left the ship we had no way of contacting her (and we hadn't been able to get a message through before she disembarked). She got off the ship and headed straight to her hotel, took a nap. Late that afternoon she finally turned on the TV in her hotel room to discover that Hobby was shutting down completely at 6pm that night, too late for her to catch a flight to safety. So she got to ride out Hurricane Ike (Cat 5) in Houston, thankfully not at the hotel (which sustained damage) but more inland at a friend's house with no power.

So no cellphone and not monitoring the news while knowing that a major hurricane was headed in your direction. Oops!