Made any travel mistakes lately?

[mrsterryn]

REWIND!

Tripcase interpreted the date in LOTFAP format . I had it correct!

I'd had a busy day yesterday and just took it at face value. Woke in the night thinking I couldn't possibly have selected the wrong date in the booking engine.

I wonder whether in the intervening six weeks or so between my bookings it dawned on the airline that apps like Tripcase could misinterpret dates in dd/mm/yyyy format as mm/dd/yyyy so they changed to Month day, year?

How to give the unsuspecting a heart attack!

Thank goodness you didn't try to fix in the middle of the night

 

[JohnM]

Thank goodness you didn't try to fix in the middle of the night

Once I checked it in MMB on the airline website, all was revealed .

 

[Buzzard]

About 8 or 9 months ago +1 and I booked various hotels in Europe. Some time later we made some minor changes to the itinerary and rebooted our hotels.... except for one.
Imagine our horror when we showed up to find we didn't have a booking and were a no show for the previous week. Thankfully the hotel was really helpful and able to accommodate us for all but one night by moving us around various rooms. We did have to pay a reduced no show penalty but it could have been worse.

 

[Happy Dude]

I've been in western Central QLD, doing a bunch of site work where I hadn't been able to book a flight home to CBR till the last minute with GLT or ROK being options. Adding to the mix was a one-way car hire pre-booked to drop off at ROK. All was going well, I even had time to stop off at a good butcher I know along the way.

Then I show up at ROK for my GLT flight.

It appears I'd requested flights from GLT but forgot to change the hire care and just went into autopilot and made a beeline for ROK. I had VA freedom fares but I couldn't get on a VA fight that would connect to the BNE-CBR flight so our corporate TA just made a new booking with QF. So many SCs, forward seats and lounge down the drain.....

Bouquets to the QF checkin guy who listened to my embarrassing mistake and didn’t care about my 1.5kg overweight bag and extra cabin bag.

Then I forgot to remove my leatherman from my carry on and had to do a walk of shame of sorts back to get my checked in luggage brought out. Thankfully ROK is a small enough airport to accommodate this sort of thing. The QF checkin guy was again sympathetic to my misery and had it sorted in a jiffy and with a wry “I bet you can’t wait for this day to be over”.

 

[Cossie]

Was in a small town in Germany on Monday, parked, locked the car and went off to look at a statue, the town hall and some old buildings. Took my ipad to take photos and left my camera gear in the car in it's dedicated backpack. I took the ipad as it's adequate for photographing things like this and it doesn't weigh anything like the 1DX and 70-200 lens does.

We were gone maybe 30 minutes and returned to the car. On getting in I noticed that the rear passengers window was down, don't remember doing that.
Fortunately it was Germany, also it wasn't the window next to the footpath. It would have been so easy for someone to have lent in, picked up the bag and disappeared with some very expensive camera gear!

Stupid, stupid me, in so many other places it would have gone bye, bye.

Here is the offending car, the statue and the town hall, town was Perleberg, north west of Berlin.



However my situation wasn't as bad as this, it happened just up the road from us when we in the area, but we didn't catch any of it.

Two German Air Force Eurofighter Typhoons Crash After Midair Collision. Pilots Reported Ejected.

Two Eurofighters have just crashed near Laage. Luftwaffe (German Air Force) has confirmed that two GAF Typhoons crashed after colliding midair in

theaviationist.com

 

[I love to travel]

Was in a small town in Germany on Monday, parked, locked the car and went off to look at a statue, the town hall and some old buildings. Took my ipad to take photos and left my camera gear in the car in it's dedicated backpack. I took the ipad as it's adequate for photographing things like this and it doesn't weigh anything like the 1DX and 70-200 lens does.

We were gone maybe 30 minutes and returned to the car. On getting in I noticed that the rear passengers window was down, don't remember doing that.
Fortunately it was Germany, also it wasn't the window next to the footpath. It would have been so easy for someone to have lent in, picked up the bag and disappeared with some very expensive camera gear!

Stupid, stupid me, in so many other places it would have gone bye, bye.

We all make mistakes, I doubt that anyone hasn't ever done something similar.. Good luck with the rest of the travels.

 

[get me outta here]

As my friend learned you put everything in the boot before departing your previous stop, except what you have worked out you will take with you when you get out of the car at the next stop. My friend parked at the Art Gallery of NSW. Then he put all of his valuables in the boot and went off to a meeting. When he returned everything was gone and the car was damaged.

you park at your destination

Was in a small town in Germany on Monday, parked, locked the car and went off to look at a statue, the town hall and some old buildings. Took my ipad to take photos and left my camera gear in the car in it's dedicated backpack. I took the ipad as it's adequate for photographing things like this and it doesn't weigh anything like the 1DX and 70-200 lens does.

We were gone maybe 30 minutes and returned to the car. On getting in I noticed that the rear passengers window was down, don't remember doing that.
Fortunately it was Germany, also it wasn't the window next to the footpath. It would have been so easy for someone to have lent in, picked up the bag and disappeared with some very expensive camera gear!

Stupid, stupid me, in so many other places it would have gone bye, bye.

 

[ellen10]

Good warning and suggestion there @get me outta here.

 

[Jurahn]

As my friend learned you put everything in the boot before departing your previous stop, except what you have worked out you will take with you when you get out of the car at the next stop. My friend parked at the Art Gallery of NSW. Then he put all of his valuables in the boot and went off to a meeting. When he returned everything was gone and the car was damaged.

you park at your destination

Yes, you never know who's watching.

Happened to my ex-husband and I some years ago - first trip to Queensland, had a hire car (really nice Toyota Camry), went to Dreamworld on our first day. Parked the car at 10am and decided it was going to be too warm to wear jackets, so took them off and put them in the boot (my ex didn't want to leave them in the car, as it might look like they were covering up something valuable). Came back out at around 4pm to find the driver's window smashed and the bonnet popped open - we assume they'd been trying to pop the boot instead, but there was no internal release lever for that. There was a note from the security patrol with a time of 10:30am so someone must have been watching, then broke into the car almost straight away. Nothing taken as of course as we hadn't left anything in the car, but a PITA otherwise as we had to go to the police station to make a report, then off to the hire car company where we ended up with an absolute piece of cough Camry for the rest of our holiday .

My work colleague and his wife went for a drive in NSW up to the Blue Mountains and she didn't want to carry her handbag when they went for a walk (I'm female, but I still can't understand the obsession so many women have with taking their handbag EVERYWHERE, even when they don't need it), so when they parked, she hid it under the passenger seat and off they went. Of course, to anyone watching it would have been quite obvious what she was doing and sure enough, they got back to a smashed window and stolen handbag.

Both incidents happened 25-30 years ago, so even back then your valuables weren't safe.

 

[Flashback]

Yes, you never know who's watching.

Happened to my ex-husband and I some years ago - first trip to Queensland, had a hire car (really nice Toyota Camry), went to Dreamworld on our first day. Parked the car at 10am and decided it was going to be too warm to wear jackets, so took them off and put them in the boot (my ex didn't want to leave them in the car, as it might look like they were covering up something valuable). Came back out at around 4pm to find the driver's window smashed and the bonnet popped open - we assume they'd been trying to pop the boot instead, but there was no internal release lever for that. There was a note from the security patrol with a time of 10:30am so someone must have been watching, then broke into the car almost straight away. Nothing taken as of course as we hadn't left anything in the car, but a PITA otherwise as we had to go to the police station to make a report, then off to the hire car company where we ended up with an absolute piece of cough Camry for the rest of our holiday .

My work colleague and his wife went for a drive in NSW up to the Blue Mountains and she didn't want to carry her handbag when they went for a walk (I'm female, but I still can't understand the obsession so many women have with taking their handbag EVERYWHERE, even when they don't need it), so when they parked, she hid it under the passenger seat and off they went. Of course, to anyone watching it would have been quite obvious what she was doing and sure enough, they got back to a smashed window and stolen handbag.

Both incidents happened 25-30 years ago, so even back then your valuables weren't safe.

Theft is an age old tradition, heck - it's the foundation of Australia as we know it today! Thanks Great Britain!

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Yes and only this morning - after a week in China general yesterday I consolidated all of the Ette’s gifts into 1 hotel provided canvas bag with carry handles - on checking out this morn for early flt I left her bag of gifts sitting next to Concierge desk where I was waiting for pre-booked taxi

Only realised mistake when I arrived airport and too late to go back or get sent to airport in taxi

Lucky I have Head Concierge WeVhat and he has secured bag and will arrange Express to Australia

The Ette has booked me in for some dental day after I arrive home!

 

[OZDUCK]

I made a mistake which has now turned out ok. When we were in Brunei in late Feb. this year I made a couple of attempts to get money out of an ATM and during both attempts the machine shut down half way through and no money or slip came out. I got the money elsewhere and, stupidly, thought no more of it.

Foolishly I didn't check my account then and again stupidly didn't check until about four months later. When I did, I discovered that both abortive attempts had been recorded as being completed and I was short about $900. I thought that I was out of luck because of the time lapse but I raised a query with Citibank. They said it would take about a month to check it out. Today I got an email to say that the overseas bank had confirmed that no transactions had occurred so the money was being re-credited to my account.

I don't really like logging on to my bank accounts etc when overseas and because we were only away for 10 days I hadn't bothered. But I then forgot to do so after our return as the card I used is my 'travel' card that I don't use in Australia. Anyway the lesson has been learned and luckily at little cost.

 

[Flashback]

You're lucky, Indian ATMs sporadically work... I found one that was somewhat reliable until one day it short changed me by £20 or so worth of INR. Raised the issue with my bank, who raised with Visa etc. using the copies of the money I sent in with serial numbers also. Never saw the money again as they say the machine delivered it all. Of course the ATM didn't print a slip either.

Not long after that trip I then lost even more money as they took 2 types of currency notes out of circulation. Ahhh...!

 

[harls]

Recently went for a mates wedding in Chicago.

Return flight to SYD is QF74 out of SFO at 22:30 so had to take a connecting flight with AA out of ORD to SFO at 6pm.

Got to ORD around 3:30pm and had plenty of time before boarding at 5:30 went to the AA Flagship lounge (which was pretty nice btw).

Didn’t realize that they only announce boarding for international flights in the lounge and that the flight departure screens don’t update for boarding (as I was used to for Australian airports). So I kept looking at my flight thinking that it would tell me to go to the gate when they’re doing final call.

Casually walked to the gate about 10 min to flight departure time and realized that they’ve just closed boarding and the lady at the gate refused to let me on. I told her that I had to catch a connecting flight back to SYD and catching a later flight to SFO would be too late and begged her to let me on. She refused due to gate close rule 10 min before flight departure.

Long story short due to my own stupidity I missed my flight back to SYD out of SFO and had to catch flight out of LAX the next day.

 

[Denali]

Booked a few flights in south Africa and realised the day after that what I thought was a direct Cape Town to Durban flight has a stop over at Port Elizabeth. Bugger. In the scheme of things not earth shattering but not my first choice.

 

[Flashback]

Booked a few flights in south Africa and realised the day after that what I thought was a direct Cape Town to Durban flight has a stop over at Port Elizabeth. Bugger. In the scheme of things not earth shattering but not my first choice.

Another airport code to add to the list!

 

[I love to travel]

Recently went for a mates wedding in Chicago.

Return flight to SYD is QF74 out of SFO at 22:30 so had to take a connecting flight with AA out of ORD to SFO at 6pm.

Got to ORD around 3:30pm and had plenty of time before boarding at 5:30 went to the AA Flagship lounge (which was pretty nice btw).

Didn’t realize that they only announce boarding for international flights in the lounge and that the flight departure screens don’t update for boarding (as I was used to for Australian airports). So I kept looking at my flight thinking that it would tell me to go to the gate when they’re doing final call.

Casually walked to the gate about 10 min to flight departure time and realized that they’ve just closed boarding and the lady at the gate refused to let me on. I told her that I had to catch a connecting flight back to SYD and catching a later flight to SFO would be too late and begged her to let me on. She refused due to gate close rule 10 min before flight departure.

Long story short due to my own stupidity I missed my flight back to SYD out of SFO and had to catch flight out of LAX the next day.

Do we even dare ask how much Qantas charged you to fly the next day?

 

[Flashback]

Do we even dare ask how much Qantas charged you to fly the next day?

I was wondering the same!

 

[Stuser]

Then I forgot to remove my leatherman from my carry on

I did this exact same thing in Rome airport a few weeks ago! Damn and damn and damn there's a perfectly good (expensive!) tool in the bin. (I even suggested to the quite nice but can't do anything security person that she should keep it (she couldn't) - in the bin gah.

No opportunity to get my bag back... airport very busy and long queues everywhere.

Never again!!!

 

[harls]

Do we even dare ask how much Qantas charged you to fly the next day?

I was wondering the same!

I’m not sure if I was lucky or they just pitied my stupidity but I didn’t pay a cent extra for all the rebooked flights. I was expecting to basically pay for a full ticket given that I missed the flight on my own terms.

I managed to get to SFO out of ORD on the next flight (missed the SFO-SYD flight) and at SFO got a rebooked SYD flight out of LAX the following night plus a flight from SFO-LAX with AA the next morning.

I think I was really lucky that someone at SFO knew what they were doing and cared enough to help (went to the AA counter where one of the ground staff there seem to also work as a Qantas rep during the specific time when Qantas check in opens). The AA staff at ORD was hopeless.