I do pretty well in travel but also make my share of mistakes, mostly out of habit or path dependence. Since I know how things ‘usually work’ I don’t always pay attention to schedule changes. And I don’t pay attention to the details of my reservations – I’m on auto-pilot, I know that when I land in a given city I ‘always’ go to the same hotel. If I booked a Hyatt there, it must be my usual one!
Here are the (5) biggest mistakes I’ve made in travel, though each one worked out just fine. I thought I’d share these to show my own fallibility, I know the correct advice and should always follow it but I am… human.
- Showing up at the airport in the afternoon for a morning Sydney – Los Angeles flight Virgin Australia had changed the flight time months earlier, which at some level I knew, but Delta (who issued the award tickets) hadn’t notified me of the change. Delta re-booked me onto their own non-stop the next day in business class (revenue inventory) and Virgin Australia gave me a hotel room for the night.
- Snuck into a United Airlines club lounge when my ticket would have granted me access anyway, only I didn’t realize it. That was over 20 years ago and I still feel rather dumb for it.
- Showed up at the Novotel Bangkok Suvarnabhumi hotel only to learn I’d made a reservation for the following month they simply moved my prepaid booking ahead.
- Drove to the wrong Hyatt in Miami out of sheer habit, I’d simply gotten used to staying at the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables. To save me the hassle of changing hotels they simply transferred my booking and I wasn’t treated as a no show at the other property.
- Let my AAdvantage miles expire when I was a teenager. I’d accumulated about 20,000 miles from a trip to Australia (I flew American back when they served Sydney via Honolulu with a DC-10) and when I went to credit a trip to Florida I learned my account was no longer active. I didn’t re-join the program for about 5 years, and though it wouldn’t benefit me in any way I still wish I had my original account and joining date.
What dumb or absent-minded things have you done?
Landed in Springfield, Illinois and a passenger next to me says looking out the window, I didn’t know Abraham Lincoln was from Springfield Missouri. He got on the wrong Springfield flight SGF v. SPI
I showed up late one evening after a flight to Las Vegas at Paris to check in and found out I had made the reservation for the following month, not that night! I was Diamond Plus w Caesars and was moving to another hotel after 2 nights at Paris. Paris was full but their VIP host booked me 5 nights at the other hotel (instead of 2 and 3) and my reservation was upgraded so all ended up well but I felt like an idiot. BTW I have been to Las Vegas over 100 times and traveled extensively for 40 years so no excuse for booking my wrong dates
@ Gary — Got greedy and took a DL bump and then had to sleep on the floor at LAX since there were no hotel rooms nearby. I always check these things before voulnteeing now!
1)As a 15 year old, I swapped boarding passes with someone else to try a different airline to the same destination on an international flight and was caught.
2)When I was in college, I guided my family to the wrong hotel in Athens.
3)As a mature adult, I accidentally kept the rental car keys from a Houston rental and took them to Washington DC. And then, Fedexed the keys back to the rental car’s Dallas location. LOL.
1) I didn’t credit my first United flight to Mileage Plus. That influenced my travel by avoiding United for 2 years.
2) Got on the wrong plane at Houston Intercontinental where the gates were a round concourse and somewhat close to each other. I noticed it later and ran off the plane after being seated and hearing an announcement.
3) avoided flying Virgin America once because I didn’t want orphan miles. The next time, I decided to choose fare and schedule over loyalty. In the end, the miles were not orphan miles but turned into Alaska miles plus a 10,000 mile transfer bonus. So, my disloyalty really paid off to the tune of 10,000 miles.
Missed my midnight Saßnits Express from Ostbanhof in ( East) Berlin.
Overhead this past April at DCA, “I’m flying out of the Dulles Terminal.”
Showed up at hotel thinking I had made a reservation, but had not. Worked out fine even though it was a very late arrival.
I showed up in the wrong airport with my family on a JetBlue flight.
I went to sfo and my flight was out of Oakland..
I went to Oakland and took a later flight with no penalties.
“Drove to the wrong Hyatt in Miami out of sheer habit, I’d simply gotten used to staying at the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables. To save me the hassle of changing hotels they simply transferred my booking and I wasn’t treated as a no show at the other property.”
Actually, this is a big problem among certain brands. Like Holiday Inn Express, Fairfield, and even Marriott. In bigger markets, there are often multiple hotels flagged under the same brand. Heck, Miami has TWO JW Marriott hotels. Houston has THREE Westin hotels.
I’ve made SO many mistakes. This is my top one. It taught me a good lesson about protecting myself from my own stupidity when travelling.
Years ago, when flying to the US, I left my handbag with all my money and credit cards in the Air New Zealand Auckland lounge. I was on the plane before I realised. All I had was my passport – no cash or credit cards. The flight attendant contacted the lounge and, mercifully, my handbag arrived before the plane left.
Now I spread my money and credit cards around in my handbag and carryon. I also travel with zip pocket pants with my passport in one pocket and a credit card (and sometimes some cash) in the other.
I didn’t make sure my Air France flight (code-shared by DL) credited miles to SkyMiles instead of Flying Blue. So, I not only missed out on a ton of SkyMiles (MRU-CDG-ATL), but I now have a bunch of orphan points with AF. Tried for months to get the SkyMiles, AF wouldn’t budge. I hate AF. 🙁
I trusted United to get me from BUF to LAX via ORD on Columbus Day, October 13, 2014. I had bought the tickets several months before. The trip from LAX to BUF a few days before was relatively uneventful. On October 13, the ATC was restored to it’s normal state from the arson fire of September 26 but it had major glitches. United got me to Chicago way late and then lied about the weather causing me to have to pay for a room and food and also lose a day of pay (vacation was all spoken for and personal time off hours would be paid if not used). I have not flown on United since. How foolish of me to trust them in the first place.
Booked a Air NZ flight flight from Syd to AUK for that day rather then 1 year later.
Pre smartphones, booked NATIONAL rental at Boston. Emerald Aisle so grabbed a car & at the booth couldn’t find my reservation. No paper printout so had to boot laptop to get reservation number. Found out it was at AUSTIN, TX! Got it moved but always verified & spelled airport code after that.
Landed in Cincinnati, got luggage & contacted hotel for shuttle pickup. Told me to wait at door marked “3”. Only saw a 2. Told them was at UA baggage. They said it would be 3. I’m pretty good at id’ing numbers – they asked what airport I was at: Cincinnati! They said they were in Columbus. Asked if that was far… Several hrs away. They suggested that I rent a car but that meant I would need to return the car back to Cincinnati. Asked if any possibility of getting a ride if I tipped big. 15 min later they said to wait for a couple of hrs & they will pick me up. Tipped big & corporate travel sent me a bottle of wine to apologize since they booked the airfare & the hotel!
Booked a nice business class flight from OGG to DFW for my young son and I — for the wrong month. Even worse, didn’t realize the error until the flight had departed, so lost my points too. My wife and daughter were on the same flight – right month, different res — so my son and I booked another flight home (cash, economy) with a stopover in LA. Ended up being a cool experience for us, guys night out kind of thing. Don’t remember the points, but I’ll always remember that night.
I showed up for an international flight without my passport had to race home and back to grab the passport. The airline actually held the flight for me for 5 to 10 minutes and I just barely boarded the flight while dripping with sweat
My “wrong month” mistake was the most innocent: Jul vs Jun. The mistake was buying a China domestic ticket at CA’s city office after flying LAX-PEK-HKG in Y (lacking sleep) and finishing another errand. Somehow the HK CA city office used English printout there wasn’t any 6 or 7 on paper. So I arrived at PEK check in 30 days early. My ticket was full-fare Y, the next flight in 7 hours had Y availability, so it was a free change. Lesson learned: Avoid human ticketing. Going online I at least would’ve notice what day of the week it was.
While doing a lot of flying for work, landed in Paris and realized I had not made a hotel reservation for a 5 day stay. Fortunately, was able to get a decent but tiny room close to meetings at the last minute on my phone.
Let’s see, let me cunt the ways.
Showed up at the wrong airport in Edmonton (when it had two airports), still barely managed to make my flight out of the other airport.
Got all of my family (both young kids and elderly parents, eight in all) to Gare du Nord in Paris, found out we were supposed to be at Gare de L’est, then repeatedly tried to get a cab from one to the other even though, as I found out during the cab ride (the third cabbie who finally agreed to take us), they are a two minute walk apart. Still managed to get on our train, just 20 euros later.
Booked a hotel in Portugal for the very night I was booking it instead of the following month, same dates. Hotel was kind enough to apply my payment to the correct dates. I even got elite night credit for both reservations!
And, most egregiously, allowed my Southwest rewards points to expire. They said that their points didn’t expire and Awardwallet records them as having no expiry. While the points never expire, what they don’t tell you is that the account does expire and takes all your points with it. Absolutely no way to get them back
Oh, one more, flight was delayed overnight in Hong Kong. Following Gary’s advice, I made my own hotel reservation. One problem, it was on an island that does not allow private vehicles and it was 1 am so there was no transportation to the hotel
I’m far too (overly) careful for travel to have much to report. The best I did was hang out in the TWA STL lounge and arrive to a closed door and retracked jetway. They let me on the flight.
In the old Prodigy computer days, I started booking flight online when it was not done much. I was able to book my R/T flight from A to B as two A to B one way flights. Easy phone fix.
I got to the gate way too early- it must have been 90 minutes before the flight took off. So I found a quiet corner, pulled out my laptop and dug into a work assignment that was due the next day. Got so involved that when I looked up, everyone was gone and the gate was closed!
1) Disembarked DC Metro after cross-country flight and walked underground to Marriott Crystal City desk instead of Marriott Crystal Gateway. Twice – 20 years apart. (‘Back To School’ Thornton Melon, “There’s Greek letters. That must be the fraternity!”)
2) Somehow bought a Derby-London St Pancras train ticket for the following day. Couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get through the turnstile.
3) 2003, went to the wrong airport in Berlin – different from my arrival airport, and OA didn’t mention it when booking.
4) Forgot a few times at European hotel checkouts to request local currency, and fell victim to the Barclay’s 3% ‘home currency’ fee scam.
5) Traveled with a coworker who thought it was a good idea to buy some ‘souvenier’ joints in AMS. I used to always get extra-screened at LAX customs, and apparently she looked guilty while that was going on.
6) Traveled with same coworker who’d never flow international business, with free alcohol, and pretty much had to help her stand up up until the hotel desk. Also in AMS, fortunately the Sheraton at Schipol.
7) Made the mistake of raising my voice during a dubious shakedown for more fees (only one in group) at La Paz, Bolivia. Was only $8 or so as it turns out. But got every inch, every item of my carry-on and work bag searched. AA was about to close the door and go.
One more – Somehow managed to drop my passport in a cab in Tokyo. Fortunately our field office assistant was a local and was able to track down the cab from the little paper receipt. Hired the cab to transport the passport to my meeting location.
Years ago, I let a buddy of mine make the reservations for a rental car at Gatwick. Since it was his first TATL trip, he failed to realize it was an overnight flight and got the dates mixed up. At the counter, could not find the reservation. Once realizing the error, the girl relented and give us the car at the original rate.
Went to LGA (or was it JFK?) instead of EWR. Paid a cabbie a LOT to race me across the two rivers and somehow I still made my flight.
Showed up at EWR for China flight, realized I forgot my asthma meds. Paid a cabbie a LOT to race me back home to Manhattan and then back to the airport.
It wasn’t me, but this happened to several of my coworkers. When I lived in South Florida, my company’s online travel agent would automatically search for flights to/from FLL and MIA when we’d look for flights in PBI (they’ve since changed that). Since I lived half-way between PBI and MLB, I always changed the search to look at those two airports, but many of my coworkers, who lived much closer to PBI, would just use the default and not realize they’d booked a flight from FLL or MIA until they showed up at PBI and couldn’t get through security.
SAS has a promotion where you can earn 1 million SAS miles/points for flying 15 Skyteam carriers. I hope this doesn’t become a major points collection fail for me. 100k SAS miles/points for flying 10 Skyteam carriers is ok, but going for 1 million is the real win for flying 5 additional Skyteam carriers.
I once flew to Greenville, NC when intending to go to Greenville (Spartanburg), SC.
Booked two SLC hotels (Home suites and Marriott) for same stay and forgot to cancel the other, did not know if I was going to make Marriott Platinum before stay. By end of first night Hilton called for no-show ended up paying for first night. At least was able to cancel the second night.
Flew to Texas from California for a meeting with Enron. Booked my hotel stay etc. Got up the next morning, went out front and requested a taxi. Waited a couple minutes. Guys at front door asked where I was going so they could relay to the driver. I gave them the address.
Taxi arrived, I jumped in, it pulled out of the hotel, stopped at the light, took a left turn and pulled over to let me out at the destination. Maybe a 30 second cab ride.
AA AUS-LAX. For years AA had a 7am, mid day and 7pm non stops. Oops.
I booked tickets for some friend traveling in Greece departing from some island to Italy. I put them on them on the 4:00 flight thinking that would be a great time. Turns out it was a 4:00 am flight. Didn’t realize the website used military time. They showed up 12 hours too late.
I once had a very early morning train from Brussels to Amsterdam. Nord station was next to my hotel; Midi station was a subway ride away. I absent-mindedly assumed I had booked the train out of Brussels-Nord, looked at the departures board, then didn’t see my train. I had booked it out of Midi.