Hello everyone – it’s Dad again. When this post gets published, I will be finally be in flight for my first budget luxury trip that I spent close to a year planning and anticipating. My wife and I were supposed to kick off the trip by experiencing the marvelous Cathay Pacific first-class cabin together, for the first time, and I patiently waited forever to experience what Angelina said was her best flight to date. However, there is no room for Dad in the first class cabin.
My day started out great with a nice breakfast before heading off to an easy day at work and special pre-departure family dinner (sans Angelina who is working down in Philly). My son was nice enough to drive us to JFK, and when we arrived, we excitedly approached the first-class counter to receive our golden tickets boarding passes. This was the day… or so I thought.
At the counter, with our passports and confirmation numbers in hand, we were quickly snapped out of our dream. My heart dropped to the floor when the ticketing agent told us that our flight was actually yesterday…at 1:30 am. Is this a joke?! How could I be so stupid to forget that 1:30 am means a new day?!? Cr*p!!!!!
While trying to remain calm, cool, and collected in front of the crying wife and the surrounded passengers, I am sweating bullets inside. This was certainly not earning me any man points. For heaven’s sake – Â I am not a travel rookie, I’ve traveled to over 40 countries, and have never missed a flight due to my own ignorance. Out of all flights for this to happen, why does it have to be this one?!
Luckily for us there was a light at the end of the tunnel. We had the pleasure of being assisted by a terrific customer service representative from British Airways named Bruce Hardwicke, who took a lot of time to make sure we got could get on the flight… without having to purchase a new ticket or pay any outrageous change fees. He was genuinely sympathetic and understood that what happened was an innocent (and apparently very common) mistake.
One problem though – there was only 1 first class and 1 business class seat available… Decision time… is it me or my wife? Naturally, I elected to take the business class seat because every man knows the saying, “a happy wife is a happy life.”
While my wife was fully enjoying the lounge, I was fortunate enough to be able to re-book all of my HKG/Macau hotels for the correct dates without any loss or penalties. I’m glad everything worked out for us.
Also, I hear my wife is in good company up in first class – she’s seated next to Mike, who writes the hustle blog and his wife. And of course she had to “tastefully” rub in her first class experience by texting me this before the cabin door closed:
In the meantime, I will [hopefully] be experiencing my new first-class experience in one of Singapore Airlines first class suites to Australia with my favorite blogger daughter for my birthday in March 2013. I heard that’s better anyway (sorry Marie!)
I look forward to sharing trip reports and other interesting encounters during the rest of our trip. Hopefully there aren’t any more hurdles!
Has a similar experience happened to you before? Feel free to share.
Happy travels,
The Dad.
P.S. – I guess the only real “loss” here is that I purposely did not pack pajamas because I was expecting to rock some stylish Shanghai Tang pjs in flight… shucks.
Glad it still worked out. Could have been worse! Your dad sounded like he had a great attitude about it.
This happened to me on my very first flight ever SFO/JFK on a charter back in the 70’s. We had to purchase the return, but eventually got the money refunded. There must have been 25 people in the same situation. ;)
Good thing we still have travel checks leftover, otherwise we’d have been up the creek.
I’ve done something similar. I booked the wrong date online and didn’t notice my mistake until I tried to check in at the airport. I was a day late. Doh!
Glad it all worked out for you. Hope you and your wife have a great trip!
@Dad! Oh so sad! Fact is, as you’ve discovered, it happens. I know that you feel like a jerk, one without his usual, manly powers, but you have survived. You won’t make that mistake again, I’m sure! And, yo were very lucky, perhaps because of your ticket class or other technical booking details; some folks are literally SOL – and yes, you can figure that out. I hope that the rest of your trip goes well.
Happened to me once. Wrong day! Doh! Red and all. But AA helped me out and got me on the flight without and fees.
I overlooked 8am as 8pm once.
Great attitude Dad, hope you’ll enjoy that 1st class exp
Thanks for this post! I am on this flight from JFK-HKG in January. It’s the 12:20am flight and I must have checked the date a hundred times before I booked my positioning BOS-JFK flight to arrive the day before (yet only by a few hours). This will be my first, CX first experience and I would be devastated to do what you did. Great attitude!
Sorry you couldn’t make it up front but glad that everything worked out in the end! Mrs. A was so sweet and she looked had she had a blast, as did we!
Definitely going to be earning more AA miles.
@Benny.Thanks attitude is surviving the WTC bombing 2x..anything else is small in comparison
@dhammer-Glad you got refund..
@aaadvantage-Thanks..trip is awesome. have some great tips soon..
@cook-Not the first time I felt like a jerk and probably not the last time.I will soon blog about my top 5 mistakes in travel..hopefully i can save someone else from my mistakes.
@Patrick-felt your pain.Could be worse.
@mark-Thanks..looking forward to singapore 1st class my bday next year.
Rebecca-Enjoy your experience.Let us know how it goes.I will have some great tips soon..
@Mike-Maybe next time.Marie enjoyed the first class experience and meeting you both.
My worst mistake: a train ticket purchase. We were taking the overnight train from Paris to Venice in June of this year. The train leaves at 7:00pm. I accidentally purchased tickets for one day later! 5 Non-refundable tickets! I was so upset. I called and I did get some of my money back. But it taught me a great lesson about double checking dates.
Ha! Many errors over many years. Most have been small, if seriously stupid, like standing on the WRONG track platform in Germany and watching MY train pull out. (I Learned how to read the gleiss (sp?) signs.) My other major error was allowing too little time for airline connections, especially late in the day. My current rule is: If anything is going to fly on-time, original flight or a connector, the odds are far better before noon. So, I try to fly as early as possible and heck yes, I’ve always got a Plan B. If a particular trip includes weather, strike or polotical strife issues, I generally engage a personal travel monitoring service, usually costing $100 – $150 per trip. If the trips looks ood, I don’t bother, but if there are weather or international events possibly in play, it is good, modestly-priced insurance against getting stranded wher I don’t want to be. I’ve used a couple of them, needed assistance only once and, due to my failure, it kind of flopped. The nex time that I feel the urge, I’ll probably sign up with Brent Snyder at Cranky Flyer. Typically, I have plenty of notice for important trips and I can make my own backup arrangements. I’m giving some thought to an annual subcription program, but have not inquired about them – yet. Like any other insurance policy, one does not want it until one rally needs it. When that event happens – and it will if one travels enough, it can be worth its weight in gold. We’ll see…