Made any travel mistakes lately?

[QF1]

Domestic JASAs are fully refundable, I would be chasing that 5k.

Thanks for that info.. I will definitely chase that up.

 

[Knid]

Flew into MEL on 31 Dec & out on 2 Jan at 6am - or so I though - arrived at the check-in counter at 4.15 ish and was not impressed when the agent couldn't find the booking.

Turns out I was booked for 2 Dec - 11 months later & the flight was full. QF were good enough to convert the D fare to a Y fare and oversell the flight, allowing me a quick breakfast in the FLounge before heading on my way albeit in 14A instead of 1F.

Still feel slightly guilty for whoever found themselves checking in after me & to find no seats available.

Knid

I was trying to check in well before the flight closed, and was offered a seat in the next flight 2 hours later, I then explained that it would not work as I was connecting onto a long haul flight on a StarAlliance airline. The response from the sales agent was – the flights full, but let me see what we can do, and after returning about 5 mins later I had a boarding pass and was on my way, at 4am I didn't ask any questions, I probably should have.

The predictable unintended consequence of is that someone didn't fly; if someone was displaced I sincerely hope that it was at their choosing with a nice voucher, an extra few hours in the terminal and maybe an upgrade to go with it.

Ultimately it doesn't really matter; I was in the frame of mind that I wanted on the flight, QF made it happen, and I placed my needs above those of another. A moral choice that upon reflection I don’t think I would do the same, does that make me this board’s deification of the Wanker in WP; maybe, the reincarnation of Lucifer; probably not.

I do however, identify myself as a loyal Qantas Customer; despite many travel issues, both of my own creation and not, I have found a Qantas staff member willing to help fix the issue, and make the process as painless as possible. To me, that is worth the higher fare cost, the FF Program enhancements that are endured, and it was from that perspective that I wrote the proceeding post.

Hopefully people can learn from my experiences.

Knid

In search of a rock.

 

[Awesom Andy]

There shouldn't be any issues for an airline to un-check-in a pax, although for most OLCI implementations, it is the point of no return unless you pick up the phone or you turn up to the airport and talk to a dragon/angel.

On another note, when agents say that a flight is full, quite often, they really mean that the booking class and/or the cabin class has zero availability. In most cases, if there is a proven need, someone higher up can override this and book a pax onto a flight.

 

[A330]

I flew into Venice on a delayed Air One flight from BCN. Arrived at about 7pm and headed to the queue for tickets to the island. I was staying in San Marco and planned to get the bus to the train station. From there I was going to get the water bus.

The line to buy tickets was quite long, but there was a woman at one of the windows who had become free. She asked who was next so I went to her window and asked for the best way to San Marco. Her response was to get a shared water shuttle. She also offered a discount if I bought a return ticket. I took her up on the discounted return ticket only to remember once I got to the hotel that I wasn't returning to the airport when I left Venice. I was getting the train to Rome.

To top it off, the water shuttle was very slow, and the windows so filthy you couldn't see out anyway. Turns out the woman only worked for the water shuttle company - that's why she told me to use it.

 

[rzzo]

I usually try not to be upset by travel mistakes as it's part of the experience

 

[Major]

I usually try not to be upset by travel mistakes as it's part of the experience

It's the AFF experience that enables you to adapt and recover from mistakes

 

[ozbeachbabe]

On another note, when agents say that a flight is full, quite often, they really mean that the booking class and/or the cabin class has zero availability. In most cases, if there is a proven need, someone higher up can override this and book a pax onto a flight.

Someone higher may well force a pax onto the flight when it's full which will result in an oversale so you wouldn't want to be the last person to checkin. If there are still seats available in a higher cabin an elite oax in whY could score an op-up to clear the oversale if everyone turns up.

 

[burrco]

In March returning from US with a stop over in Hong Kong. Had about 8k in $US sitting on the table in my Hotel Room. After a couple of days thought to myself, that I shouldn't leave that lying around so put it in one of my pieces of luggage.

Forgot all about it and checked in the bag. In fact the first time I remembered it was back in Australia when I unzipped the bag to start unpacking. The first thing I saw was the wad of cash.

Couldn't believe how stupid I had been - very lucky it was still there - so thumbs up to Hong Kong and Melbourne luggage staff.

Maybe given how blatantly obvious the cash was to anyone opening the bag - they thought it was some sting operation!

 

[Jurahn]

Heading off to Europe tomorrow for a 4 week vacation all completely arranged by myself... rental cars, flights with some connections on separate tickets, hotels, restaurants... feeling a little apprehensive that I have made a boo boo somewhere...

That apprehensive feeling will make the journey that more exciting!

OOh ROo

Willie

Just hope you checked, checked and triple-checked to make sure you had everything you needed to take! Mr Jurahn headed off to Europe for a 7-week trip on Sunday - he'd bought tourism/travel cards for a number of the cities he's visiting (those things can be GREAT value if you do your homework first), some currency as he's visiting several Scandinavian countries etc - so late Sunday morning he was doing a last-minute check to make sure he had everything, as well as e-tickets/confirmations for multiple flights within Europe - then realised he'd almost walked out the door without his Swedish Eurail pass!!! That would have been a big OOPS indeed as he's staying there for 3 weeks and doing a lot of train travel, so had spent ages working out all the costs to make sure the Eurail pass was good value, and of course you can't buy them once you're over there ...

 

[JohnK]

There shouldn't be any issues for an airline to un-check-in a pax, although for most OLCI implementations, it is the point of no return unless you pick up the phone or you turn up to the airport and talk to a dragon/angel.

It it possible. I had to call Virgin once to un-check me from the flight after I had used web check-in as I wanted to add luggage online and I couldn't as I was already checked in.

 

[oldbold]

When I found my bags had not travelled with me to Heathrow T5, I decided to stay overnight near the airport. I chose the Holiday Inn Express T5, but found it was located miles away in Slough. I was also caught by the hotel phone scam, being charged GBP3.00 per minute for the (I'd thought free) call to the baggage office, which kept me hanging on for 19 minutes, and when I queried the bill weeks later lied to me that I had accepted the charge. I also did not appreciate having to pay for the shuttle bus, but at least I knew about that ahead of time!

 

[peter000]

Wasted my money on an Accor Advantage Plus annual subscription when I now find that you can often get the same, or better, daily rates through Agoda or Latestays etc

 

[waimate01]

I booked my wife to travel from Kilimanjaro - NBO - DBX - SYD. Her departure from KIA got severely delayed and her connection through NBO was starting to look a bit dubious. It was then she noticed that what I had intended to be a 3hr stopover in Dubai I had actually booked as a one month and three hour stopover. Needless to say, she called me.

I rang Emirates and confessed my sins. She was travelling business, and I knew that if they couldn't fit her in business at short notice, the notion of her sitting in economy for 14hrs pondering my shortcomings would be untenable, and First would be the only option. Fortunately there was room

 

[Julesmac]

It was a bus ride not a walk so it is not at all what I expected so I had to wait for a bus rather than hoof it 400 metres.

Shades of the first scene from "The Castle" !

 

[Bolthead]

Last year we went on a driving holiday through Germany and decided to go to Prague as well as we have heard so many people rave about it. We were looking forward to it. The trip to date had gone well and after leaving Dresden we were on the way. The year before I had done a business trip from Dresden to Prague and I remembered that we had to stop to pay a toll. Not like our tolls however, you have to pull over to the side of the road in an obscure location to pay the toll. As it was we flew past the toll stop however not to worry, I also remembered you could pay at the next petrol station. We pulled in and as I was off to the loo my wife decided to pay the toll. Unbeknown to me I also went and paid so ended up with 2 tolls. (luckily we got our money back) That was the best thing that happened to us.... Our GPS map did not work once in the Czech Republic. Our maps where vague at best however I knew the approximate location of our accommodation so we headed to the southern part of the city but to get there we drove through the middle and the next thing we knew the cops pulled us over and gave my wife (she was the driver) a fine for being in a permit only area. While she was arguing with the police I ran off and found a Maccas to use their free wifi. That was great but considering I didn't know where we were and nobody could speak any English it was futile. Luckily when I got back to my wife the police pointed us in the right direction. (she had to pay the cop there and then and we had no koruna - only Euros) An hour later we found the accommodation after travelling up and down one way streets and finally I found a Best Western and they gave us a small map with the exact location.

then

2 nights in Prague and we were on our way back to Germany. Looking forward to the balance of the trip and opps.... left my backpack in the car park of the accommodation. At that time we were on the highway when we hit a giant traffic jam. It took us 3 hours to turn around, got lost again getting into Prague and finally picking up the bag and on our way again. My wife hates Prague..... me I want to give it another go.

 

[timster]

Always travelled with a single spreadsheet detailing all flights and hotels, contact numbers etc for complex multi-stop trips. Served me well for 20 years until about a year ago when I typed in the wrong time for Air Asia BKK-SIN, which was connecting with QF SIN-MEL, and so arrived at the airport just as the Air Asia flight was leaving. After rushing from desk to desk seeing if anyone had a flight to SIN that could still connect with QF in time, I gave up and paid a small penalty to rebook for the next day with Air Asia. But I then had to find a way to change my QF connection to the next day too.

BKK Suvarnabhumi is a mad house at the best of times. Went to the Qantas checkin desk where the Thai QF staff were standing around with nothing to do, flashed what limited status I had, but they were totally disinterested in my plight. They gave me a scrap of paper with the Sydney QF number to call. Message to self: Don't assume that a Qantas desk can actually render even minimal assistance to you as a Qantas passenger.

Twenty minutes on the phone later (luckily not on roaming rates) and about $300 poorer, I had at least saved the greater $ loss of a no-show that night in SIN, and was confirmed onto the next day's QF SIN-MEL.

I then headed off for an unplanned extra night in BKK. Could have been worse.

I now use Tripit instead of my spreadsheet.

 

[Julesmac]

Gal pal and I were staying in Bologna and did a day trip by train to Venice. Had a super day,and as it was drawing to a close, I checked my watch, and realised that in the general hurry of wanting to catch the train, I discovered I'd mis-read the time and it was actually an hour later than I thought. we caught a water taxi - unfortunately to the wrong side of the canal. Finally got to the station - imagine two fifty-ish portly women (ok just me) flogging themselves inside - to see the tail lights as the train pulled out. That was 7pm. Next train to Bologna? 11. Stopping every station. Terrified we'd miss it we sat on the platform, ran like mad to grab a seat - any seat, because of course we then didn't have a valid ticket (no idea why we didn't just buy another one) Could only find the pop down seats in the passage so got severely whacked in the head several times by hearty German girls carrying huge backpacks. Prostitute and customer using the loo just across from us. We were zonked but as the train was going to somewhere down in the toe of Italy were petrified if we went to sleep we'd go to the end of the line by accident. We got back to Bologna at 3am, the station and surroundings full of gypsies dossing down. We then got a severe talking to from the (young upstart!) night manager. We were too rattled to do our expensive excursion next day!

Leaving LHR to come home we were having a lovely time stooging round the shops, for a couple of hours, when I casually looked at the departures board to see the final boarding flight flashing. Well you know Qantas leaves from about gate three thousand and ten. More running, and having neglected to go to the loo I said to my friend I'm either going to have an accident or miss the blasted plane. Bless em, they were by then paging us my resting heart rate took until 3 hours into the flight to get back to normal. However we were not the last two to board, thank goodness, you are right about the death stares though. It took about three hours and the application of quite a bit of bubbly to return our blood pressure to normal!

 

[Daver6]

Taxi from Manhattan to JFK stupidly early in the morning. Taxi driver drove like a maniac. Fare was something like the high $40's mark. Decided to round up to $55 for the tip. Problem was when I keyed it into the system, the $55 wasn't the total amount, but the tip amount. Needless to say the driver didn't say anything. Only realised this when I saw my credit card statement.

 

[Milboo]

Spent last week in a cough hotel in Paris after relying on website photos, fact it had just reopened and was part of Accor group (so thus should be of the same quality as the others in the chain). Wrong...

 

[Skyring]

Taxi from Manhattan to JFK stupidly early in the morning. Taxi driver drove like a maniac. Fare was something like the high $40's mark. Decided to round up to $55 for the tip. Problem was when I keyed it into the system, the $55 wasn't the total amount, but the tip amount. Needless to say the driver didn't say anything. Only realised this when I saw my credit card statement.

Heh. It happens. I've gotten excellent tips for geting people to their planes on time. And vice versa.

I remember one time waiting outside the Canberra Casino in the early hours of the morning. Way past midnight on a weekday and only a few cabs left on the air. And even fewer passengers. What I was dreaming of was a nice long fare out to Gungahlin where the cab lived, so I could gas up, get in my car and drive home. What I got was a forreign gent so drunk he could barely walk. He told me "Rydges Lakeside, driver," and I groaned. The Lakeside was only just round London Circuit, barely a minute's drive. And the way this bloke was going, he might not make it that far without delivering his dinner into the front seat. He was pissed as.

But what the hey, he was in the car and I couldn't get him out. A fare was a fare. Maybe I'd get a tip. The taxi industry is full of tales of punters who win big, roll out with their wallets bulging and hand the driver a fifty. Balanced, of course, by those who don't have a brass razoo left in their kick.

We went through the lights, round under Commonwealth Avenue, me taking it very easy indeed on the curves and the brakes. I didn't want him to feel the slightest bit uneasy. Not until he was safely off my leather seats. We pulled up outside Rydges. Flagfall was $4.50 and the fare was another two bucks on top of that. He was fumbling in his wallet as I announced, trying to keep the tears out of my voice, "Ah, that's $6.50, thanks."

He handed me a note, smiled and said, "Keep the change." Then he wobbled off into the hotel.

It was dark in the cab, and to this day I've wondered if he really meant to give me a hundred.