Dumbest Booking Error

[brett]

It is no easy to make a mistake.

We have been booking our own travel for years. Air, hotels, ferry, etc.

My practice is now to check it twice before I hit the buy button.

I am now particularly careful about booking accommodation when there are multiple options for no refund, etc.

I was very fortunate a few months ago. Booked air travel to Europe-non refundable. Then realized the next day we had a time sensitive credit on another airline.

I was fortunate. The non refundable Europe air that I booked came with a 24 hour cancel/refund. Just made that deadline by a few hours and was able to get our credit card charge reversed!

I booked a tour in Morocco last week for the end of this month. Just prior to completing the booking the tour operator had a large print warning for customers to double check the YEAR. Apparently it is not uncommon for some customers to mistakenly book the right month, day tour but in the wrong year!

Several airlines let customers hold flights/prices for up to 2 days. We have used this inexpensive option a few times when we have not yet confirmed accommodation, etc.

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, thank goodness for the 24 hour cancellation windows. I was really struggling with booking a ÖBB Railjet (train) ticket and when I realized they wouldn’t let me make a reservation on the reservation required train I was able to cancel.

I suppose TAP honors 24 hours cancellation window but after that too bad. Ouch!

 

[brett]

We had non refundable Air Canada tickets to Morocco last Sept. Two days prior to departure the earthquake hit.

I called AC. Even though they were still flying they did agree to bank our flight.

I called six weeks ago to rebook. There would normally have been $175. per ticket service change because of change and because we were booking outside the window that we had been given.

The CSR said hang on, I will speak with my manager. Perhaps the service charges can be waived because of the situation. Ten minutes later she came back on the line and said that you are booked, email sent to you....all fees have been waived. Have a good trip.

That is how you build customer loyalty!

Whenever I need CSR phone assistance I make it a point to call an airline around 2AM or so. Little call waiting and the CSR's seem to be more helpful, less rushed.

 

[Koolau]

We had non refundable Air Canada tickets to Morocco last Sept. Two days prior to departure the earthquake hit.

I called AC. Even though they were still flying they did agree to bank our flight.

I called six weeks ago to rebook. There would normally have been $175. per ticket service change because of change and because we were booking outside the window that we had been given.

The CSR said hang on, I will speak with my manager. Ten minutes later she came back on the line and said that you are booked....all fees have been waived. Have a good trip.

Whenever I have changes or issue I make it a point to call an airline around 2AM or so. Little call waiting and the CSR's seem to be more helpful.

That is how you build customer loyalty!

Air Canada just made a friend for life, I'm assuming. Not bad advertising here on FIRE FORUM as well. Good on them!


Thanks for the 2AM hack as well.

 

[Lorenzo]

Fun thread ... though not at the moment the booking error is discovered.

My worst was calculating the date wrong when returning to the US across the Date Line and finding out my domestic flight home was not until the next day.

The funniest error I have heard was from a fellow traveler on a trip to Moscow who told me he had at first booked a flight home from Moscow, Idaho instead of Russia, before discovering his mistake.

 

[MatatuPuncher]

My brilliant wife (girlfriend at the time) booked our destination wedding/honeymoon plane tickets with her last name for mine and my last name for hers. That was a cluster **** to unravel.

 

[Koolau]

Not truly a booking error, but my office mate went home to India for the holidays and was scheduled to return on (wait for it) January 18, 1991.*



He ended up traveling the rest of the way around the world to get back home. Worst leg was on Aeroflot. He wasn't really certain it would actually make the flight - or even get off the ground. Old city bus in the air was the way he described the experience.









* Gulf War I had just started.

 

[luckydude]

Mine is a minor one. Bought two gondola ride tickets (NZD $86) on-line for Sklyline Rotorua and entered the wrong e-mail address by accident so I never got the tix. Didn't realize it until I closed the browser so I didn't even have a confirmation number for the purchase.

I went to the Skyline Rotorua ticket office to see if I could get the problem sorted, but the line was half an hour's wait. I said "f*** that" and went online again to buy two new tickets, this time making sure I got the e-mail address right. It wasn't worth my precious vacation time to wait 30 minute to try to recoup a lousy USD $50.

 

[athena53]

My brilliant wife (girlfriend at the time) booked our destination wedding/honeymoon plane tickets with her last name for mine and my last name for hers. That was a cluster **** to unravel.

There are plenty of examples on FlyerTalk of couples booking honeymoon flights using the husband's last name for the wife since the flights would be after the wedding- except the wife would have no ID with her married name on it. (Not what happened in your example, of course.) I think you can get through with some paperwork showing proof of the wedding, but it's best to have consistent name son your reservation and your ID.

 

[DJRR]

Worst I did was a family trip to Orlando when my kids were little. Got a really cheap flight at 9:30 and hustled everyone to the airport that morning. Missed one little detail that it was 9:30pm not am

Luckily we got there early, they had seats on the early flight, and after a little running we made the flight. Gate agent took pity on me and no fees. So we ended up getting a cheap early flight just like I planned

 

[sengsational]

^ That reminded me of yet another goof I made...same thing 12 hours off.

I was on the airline's site and it had the option to select morning or afternoon. I selected the morning check box, but of course they listed other flights. I was flying to attend a concert, and even did my "second pair of eyes" by forwarding the confirmation email. Nope, neither I, nor my cuz noticed the flight landed as the concert was ending. By the time I noticed it, the ticket was 5X, so didn't even go.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I read this thread when it was new and snickered at some of the errors. But we all make mistakes. I could honestly not think of any significant booking errors I had ever made.

Well, I made up for it on our recent trip to Saipan. We had a stop with several days in Guam on the way. Although I understand it and have traveled across it many times. I totally screwed up out stay in Guam because of the international date line! We left HNL on 2 June and arrived GUM on 3 June. But I booked our car rental and hotel for 2 June for some reason.

Fortunately the rental was NOT prepaid and Hertz charged me nothing to be a no-show but they had no cars. When we got to the hotel...no reservation. They would have charged a night for no-show but waived it for me, likely because I am lifetime platinum with Marriott and this was the Westin.

So, embarrassing but no real financial harm. We did not have a car for a 2-day stay in Guam which was limiting but we spent more time in the water and took a few rideshares. Cost was probably about $150 but that was less than the three day rental would have been.

It was embarrassing to have been so stupid. I thought I had verified everything and even Tripcase did not show any issues based on the emails forwarded to them. But, yeah, I own it! It could have been more costly had I not had hotel status and prepaid for the car to save money!

 

[pb4uski]

I do all the travel booking for the two of us, and although I send copies of confirmations and ask for "another set of eyes", things don't get validated.

So today I was organizing my month-long fall trip that includes a multi-city airline booking that starts and ends the trip, then a few flights and a cruise in between. When I booked that multi-city, I had lots of thrashing, so ended-up keying it in way too many times. Finally booked it a few weeks ago. Today I realized the last leg was the wrong date Thankfully, it was booked with points, so I was able to cancel and re-book without a penalty, but if I hadn't see the boo-boo, we'd have been a no-show for the flight, and had no way home when we got there later.

Once I get things booked, I put everything into an itinerary spreadsheet, and I would have noticed the problem with the date, but I don't usually bother with the spreadsheet so far out (the travel starts in late September).

Here's a really dumb one that I DIDN'T catch. I stepped off the trans-Atlantic cruise in Florida and requested an Uber to the airport, and it was telling me it was a 3 hour drive! At first, I was booking a cruise ending in Port Everglades, so booked the flight home out of Fort Lauderdale. Then I switched to a different cruise that ended in Port Canaveral, and didn't fix the flight

I realize, I'm really bad at this travel booking stuff. There's probably not many people here that can top my blunders, or want to admit theirs, but if so, might be entertaining/instructional. Or maybe how you make sure you don't book travel like I do

That's nothing. I had dinner with DBIL and DSIL the other day and DSIL was telling me that her son-in-law had booked a trip to the Carribean for he and his wife along with 4 other couples who were turning 40 this year. They when checking in for their fight the night before the flight he discovered that he had only booked a flight for himself and neglected to book a flight for his wife , so they had to scramble around to get a flight for her and it ended up being on another airline due to poor availability and costing thousands more because it was last minute.

I guess that he is one of those genius absent minded PhD types. Nice guy but wow, what a screw up.

 

[MarieIG]

^^^ Booking for yourself, forgetting your wife and putting her on a separate plane may win the grand prize here - for multiple reasons (per post #63).

 

[brett]

Booking for yourself, forgetting your wife and putting her on a separate plane may win the grand prize here - for multiple reasons.

For a number of reasons my spouse was booked on a different flight/airline from Calgary to FLL. We left within an hour of each other, we changed planes at different airports, and her plane arrived in FLL 15 minutes after mine. I met her as she de-planed. No issues.

Married 30 years at the time so neither of us thought that this was a big deal. We were both used to frequent travel.

 

[MarieIG]

For a number of reasons my spouse was booked on a different flight/airline from Calgary to FLL. We left within an hour of each other, we changed planes at different airports, and her plane arrived in FLL 15 minutes after mine. I met her as she de-planed. No issues.

Married 30 years at the time so neither of us thought that this was a big deal. We were both used to frequent travel.

Not the same at all. (See post #63). The DW was not booked. It was not a pre-planned strategy, led to inconvenience and stress, and cost thousands extra.

I stand by my opinion of PB's scenario as the worst booking error mentioned on this thread thus far. You are, of course, entitled to a completely different opinion.

 

[Pointby2]

I book all our trips and reading through these gives me anxiety!

I've been blessed so far, without any serious mistakes on some pretty complicated multi-city, multi-country trips.

But this year I set up a trip to Banff and booked one of the hotels that was suggested for Banff. It was really nice, located on a river and all, except it was in Mt Robson and four hours away from Banff. I caught it in time but had to pay for two nights lodging.

 

[Chuckanut]

Married 30 years at the time so neither of us thought that this was a big deal. We were both used to frequent travel.

That is wonderful!

 

[Koolau]

For a number of reasons my spouse was booked on a different flight/airline from Calgary to FLL. We left within an hour of each other, we changed planes at different airports, and her plane arrived in FLL 15 minutes after mine. I met her as she de-planed. No issues.

Married 30 years at the time so neither of us thought that this was a big deal. We were both used to frequent travel.

Sounds like you're good for another 30 years! Enjoy.

 

[sengsational]

It was really nice, located on a river and all, except it was in Mt Robson and four hours away from Banff.

Ouch! Some of these things are "by design", I think. What I mean by that is you search for "A" and you get back maybe some "A", but also stuff they're trying to pawn off as "A", so only "A-like". You got hit with the fake geography, but they also do fake temporally, you specify a morning flight and they give you back 11AM and 11PM. You know what you searched for, so 11 looks good, but you better look to make sure it's the correct 11. Or maybe you specify a date, and "to be helpful" (and because they can't accommodate your dates), they offer you the following week. Again you might see Monday through Wednesday, but the wrong week. In the very old days, travel agents were to blame. Now, we do it to ourselves, LOL!

 

[Chuckanut]

Even worse are the non-refundable rates. Such a deal on a nice room in the historic old town? Not if you cancel even months early.

But, the worst, IMO, are refundable rates that have to be canceled weeks in advance. I found a great rate for the same room that listed for nearly $80 more. The difference was hidden in the refund policy. Less than 2 weeks notice was non refundable. Two to six weeks notice was only a 50% refund. Regular rate was fully refundable up to 24 hours in advance. I found a room at another hotel.

 

[potto0213]

We were going on a cruise out of New Orleans. We wanted to go a few days early to see some of the sites in the city so I booked our flights and reserved hotel rooms for the 3 days prior to the cruise. The day before our trip I get a notice from the airline that our flight was canceled due to a snowstorm. No substitute flights were available so we needed to book a flight for the next day. I think no big deal, we'll just miss one day in New Orleans. But wait .... I recheck the itinerary and I realize that I had booked the return flight a week earlier than we needed. And I had booked through a third party so no changes and no refunds. When I call the airline to rebook the outgoing flight they ask if the rescheduling had caused any issues. I tell them that I now need to leave the city a week later than planned. They say no problem. The snowstorm saved my behind because I would not have seen the error until we arrived at the airport for our return flight and we would not have had tickets!

 

[explanade]

Leaving for Italy in a couple of weeks.

I booked everything a few months ago but I discovered just this week that I booked a rental car for June rather than July.

Fortunately, AutoEurope asked Europcar to refund money for unused voucher and they agreed, subject to a $50 fee for no-show.

But I had to book another rental at higher rates for July.

Then back in April, I was refused a pick up in Sicily because I didn't have an International Driver's Permit. In 20-30 years of travel to Europe, I've never seen an IDP required for rental car. In fact, right then and there in the same airport, I went to a different agency and they rented me a car without an IDP, though obviously at a high rate. And I lost the money on the reserved rental as a no-show, because I didn't look at the fine print on the voucher -- who does?

In any event, I got an IDP at AAA in May. My upcoming car rental doesn't require an IDP, even though it's in the same country, Italy.

Beware of EconomyBookings.com. They are based in Latvia or something and came up through a Kayak search.

 

[sengsational]

^ I complained to Kayak about several car rental outfits. Thoae shady outfits' listings say "fully refundable if you cancel >24hrs", but when you go to the site and dig into the fine-print, they only give you a credit, and even getting that requires you to go through hoops. Not at all equivalent to the true free cancel outfits...like ones that don't charge you until you're at the counter.

I wonder if, when car availability is tight, and you got a good price because you booked way in advance, if that's when you need a IDP. Then they use your reservation for a high dollar walk-in. I've been burned enough times on rental cars to pay more and go for the big names that have a reputation they care about.

Too easy to get the dates wrong. Especially easy to mess up the month if you're on a site that's got the European date format.

 

[brett]

Leaving for Italy in a couple of weeks.

I booked everything a few months ago but I discovered just this week that I booked a rental car for June rather than July.

Fortunately, AutoEurope asked Europcar to refund money for unused voucher and they agreed, subject to a $50 fee for no-show.

But I had to book another rental at higher rates for July.

Then back in April, I was refused a pick up in Sicily because I didn't have an International Driver's Permit. In 20-30 years of travel to Europe, I've never seen an IDP required for rental car. In fact, right then and there in the same airport, I went to a different agency and they rented me a car without an IDP, though obviously at a high rate. And I lost the money on the reserved rental as a no-show, because I didn't look at the fine print on the voucher -- who does?

In any event, I got an IDP at AAA in May. My upcoming car rental doesn't require an IDP, even though it's in the same country, Italy.

Beware of EconomyBookings.com. They are based in Latvia or something and came up through a Kayak search.

We have found that in the last few bookings we were asked for our IDP. For a long time I stopped bothering with it. Then, one autoeurope Italy and another Greece booking highlighted the IDP requirement so I started to get them again. Just wish they were valid for more than a year.