Made any travel mistakes lately?

[EvanC]

Toll Holdings are responsible for ground arrangements, including boarding for CX flights in Perth

Say no more.

 

[adrian]

My mistake was to think I could get by on a non-flexible ticket (as someone who needs to change tickets all the time), and the cost was 3 forfeited first class sectors BKK-CDG-BKK-SYD

I couldn't resist the US Airways Dividend Miles promotions, so had been buying up miles. Hadn't bothered to think if I could actually make any use of their non-flexible (once-commenced) return flights.

Booked Thai first class: SYD-BKK(stop)-CDG(stop)-BKK-SYD. Bangkok was a 2 day work stopover on the way to a quick pre-Christmas holiday in Paris. When I landed in Bangkok, it became apparent that the 2 day work stopover would be a 3 day work stopover, and there was no way I could avoid it, and I would miss my flight to Paris by a matter of hours. And it was the Thai-leased Jet Airways plane, with the first class suites. Cost - rest of itinerary forfeited, and had to a purchase a one-way back home....

 

[amaroo]

SWMBO left hand luggage in our BKK hotel (I did the check-out thing......she did the porter/bag thing) didn't find out until we unloaded the hotel car at the airport. Quick call back to the hotel, arranged another car to drive our bags to us. Family checks-in & enjoys the Flounge while I wait land side for the bags......waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally car pulls up & empties the wallet of all remaining baht.

Check-in, just in the nick of time & fast walk to the lounge.......to see the wife & daughter leaving the lounge about to walk to the gate. Ask where the MIL & son are? I let them walk ahead was the response :shock: Long story short.....last to board after mounting a search & rescue of MIL and son - last seen wandering aimlessly around Suvarnabhumi:evil:

Walked on board to see someone in my 1K seat......short discussion (bassinet seat) and shuffled back to take 5A.......then the drinking started!

 

[Aus ATC]

Once I travelled BNE-CBR for a work meeting. I couldn't recall which meeting room was being used as the venue, so I pulled out my laptop in the cab while heading into Civic- only to discover the meeting was actually in Melbourne! And to make matters worse I had forgotten my phone! A quick visit to our travel admin group, and I was back out to the airport and on the next flight to MEL - ended up 2.5 hrs late for the (2 day) meeting.

Trying to understand why, I realised that the initial advice of the meeting had been a phone call - "can you be in CBR on xx_ days" - but when the actual meeting invite came out it had been moved to MEL, but I didn't take note of the meeting location, so just booked what I was expecting.

 

[TiredOldFlyer]

Booking an internal flight in the USA on United !

 

[cove]

Missed Lesley Grant by 24 hours. We did turn up for the night before gathering!
Almost ok but doubts raised by Mrscove on whether I am losing it.

 

[markis10]

Toll Holdings are responsible for ground arrangements, including boarding for CX flights in Perth

You mean Toll Dnata - AKA Emirates

 

[oz_mark]

You mean Toll Dnata - AKA Emirates

Toll Dnata was 50% Toll Holdings last I checked....

 

[markis10]

Toll Dnata was 50% Toll Holdings last I checked....

Point being its Toll DNata ie the trucking company in a 50 50 with Emirates owned Dnata as opposed to just being a trucking company.

 

[oz_mark]

Point being its Toll DNata ie the trucking company in a 50 50 with Emirates owned Dnata as opposed to just being a trucking company.

My point being that "Toll Dnata - AKA Emirates" is, in my opinion, misleading as to the owership structure and management of Toll Dnata.

 

[shellthom]

How about taking my mum and auntie on a 4 week road trip around Scotland and England?

This is the one I made about a year ago and am paying for right now.
3 weeks with my never travelled as in not only not travelled overseas but not many flights in their lives with my mum dad and partner (ok I travel with my partner all the time but he is annoying me on purpose because he too is stuck on a holiday with my parents).
I love them dearly but ...

 

[JohnK]

I have made way too many travel mistakes.

The majority of my travel mistakes happen while I am travelling and usually preceded by too much alcohol consumption.

- I have lost AUD1,600 on a trip. Not fun when it is your hard earned money and then have to resort to credit card.
- I have been up till 3:00am-4:00am with a 10:00am flight and instead of leaving with the train back to airport and EUR3 cost I ended up paying EUR50 for taxi and still only just made it. How I managed to wake up at 7:00am is a miracle in it's own right.
- I have missed my bus stop in country Greece and continued on to final destination for bus only to find no other buses back to where I was going. Cost me ~AUD50 to get back in a taxi but only after walking around and around for hours and in the end getting an illegal taxi from the railway station. I actually feared for my life at the time as he was leading me to all these dark places where the taxi was parked until I decided no more and sent him off to bring taxi over while I waited.
- Paying USD200 for an Embassy Suites expecting to be in hotel for ~8 hours but with flights delays, missing luggage did not get to hotel until ~1:00am and left at 5:00am. Waste of money.
- Exiting a domestic Lounge only to find myself in an empty international terminal, hearing my name paged for a flight but unable to go anywhere, then questioned by customs/immigration and finally on my way and just making my next international connection in another city.

I have booked the occassional wrong flight time/date but have been able to recover by changing plans.

I have way too many flights towards the end of the trip when i am already tired but thinking I can get through them easily. Spent most of the time sleeping on each of those flights which is a waste as I booked them for the experience.

I stay away from expensive hotels as there have been way too many disappointments of not getting value for money.

You would think I learn from my mistakes but that is not always the case....

 

[wazza888]

Bought some new clothes to wear after discovering my luggage was lost. I was getting weird looks throughout the day and only noticed when I took off my shirt for a shower. The tag was still attached. LOL.

 

[CathyZ]

Yes I've just made one of the biggest about half an hour ago. I wanted to select Hubbie and my seats on the return leg of our London trip next month. But instead of clicking on seats, I clicked on cancel. So before i knew it the screen came up with refunds, etc. Panic stations!!! It was business class from London to Hong Kong and then back to Sydney. Was so looking forward to the Business lounges along the way. But thankfully I'd just received hubbies new platinum card in the mail yesterday. So I quickly rang the number on the back and explained my stupidity. After about 25 minutes Jane came back and said that it had all been reinstated - with a little hint that a case of Champers was in order.

But does anyone know the address of the Qantas telephone sales in Hobart. Jane said that they are in Glenorbie???

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I can definitely say that Platinum is worth it. And yes I am blonde - but not a natural

 

[crm911]

Entire thing cancelled, no refund. 780 SC, gone.

Only AFF readers can truly appreciate your pain there. Ouch.

A couple of weeks ago, I rushed out of the QP in SYD, read the wrong row of the departures monitor, went to the wrong gate and found out the hard way that the barcode scanner lights up red if you're in the wrong queue. I went through that fog of a FF when you are told that this is the Brisbane flight and you're wondering "So what's the problem there... oh wait, I am going to Melbourne!"

Luckily, the gate agent was patient enough to read my BP, realise that I was late for my real flight and passed me on to the counter agent. He rang the gate and told them I was on my way - the plane was waiting for me. The cabin crew were very nice, took the time to greet me by name, telling me not to rush as there was still time. And there was - someone else was still to board and I had caught my breath by the time they arrived. The shame of being the last to board was narrowly averted.

Added: Recently we visited the Holocaust Museum in DC but our tickets were ordered by my daughter's uni friend who was accompanying us. Since a lot of tickets are now barcoded, it's not possible to sneak through if you make an error. The first comment made by the lady at the turnstile was that the ticket was for "today but the date is wrong", e.g. if today is Friday the 17th, the ticket was for Friday the 16th (something like that). Upon closer examination, the ticket had been booked for June 2013! We had to buy fresh tickets (just $1 from memory).

 

[crm911]

But does anyone know the address of the Qantas telephone sales in Hobart. Jane said that they are in Glenorbie???

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I can definitely say that Platinum is worth it. And yes I am blonde - but not a natural

TMI.

Probably Glenorchy, unless there is also a Glenorbie.

 

[CathyZ]

Thanks I'll put it into Google maps and try it.

 

[get me outta here]

Airlines that don't think their passengers can cope w' a 24 hour clock so that I got confused and turned up to LHR 14 hours early for a flt.

 

[MadFairlane]

Not sleeping before my flight to the USA routing (BNE-MEL-LAX-MCO all in one hit)

Figured since I was up till midnight I just wouldnt go to bed and would sleep on the plane...

Didn't sleep a wink, 36+ hours awake wasnt fun at all...

 

[vertisol]

Turned up to our hotel in Lucerne, couldn't find our booking, so I pulled out the email confirming our booking and I'd booked 4 nights .... the month before... The gave us a free night in their best suite but didn't have room for the rest of the stay so we had to find another hotel for the rest of the stay. We were in luck though because the new hotel was 'now smoke free'. My guess is that only started about 30 minutes before our arrival....