Feel Good Friday - Travel Mix Ups

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

Since many of us are about to fly to Disneyland, I felt this was appropriate.

As a road warrior, especially before covid, I’ve had plenty of travel mix ups. This is one of my favorite stories that while it didn’t actually happen to me, I got to swoop in and save the day.

My business partner, Karl, had been in Norfolk, Virginia all week, supporting a client, and counting the hours until he could get back to Denver. Our company’s travel agent handled all the flight details, Karl didn’t bother to double-check his itinerary. On Friday, he just showed up at Norfolk International Airport, strolled through the doors and got in line for security, and then things went sideways.

“Sir… Where Are You Flying From?”

Karl handed over his boarding pass and ID to the TSA agent. But instead of waving him through, the agent frowned at Karl, then back at the screen.

“Uh.. here?”

“You sure?” he asked.

Karl, now slightly nervous, nodded. “Uh… yeah?”

The agent turned the screen around.

Flight: Norfork, NE → Denver, CO

Now, Karl ain’t no aviation expert, but he was pretty sure Norfolk, Virginia, and Norfork, Nebraska, were not the same place.

“Sir,” the TSA agent said slowly, “this ticket is for a flight out of Nebraska.”

Karl blinked. “Yeah, but… I’m here. In Virginia now.”

The agent just shrugged. “Then you got a problem, because this airport doesn’t have a flight to Denver for you.”

Norfork, Nebraska is very real. A little town in the middle of the Midwest, roughly 1,200 miles away. Somewhere out there, in a small airport surrounded by cornfields, there was an empty seat waiting for a man who was very much not there. Turns out not only was he in the wrong city but also that airline didn’t fly out of Norfolk, VA.

At this point, Karl had two choices:

1. Cry, and call me and complain about our travel policy.
2. Find a way to fix this mess himself.

He chose the former.  

I called the airline that I had all my points/status, bypassing my own corp policy.

“So, um hey, uh we screwed up... the company’s travel agent booked an employee's flight out of Nebraska, but he is in Virginia. How do we get to him to Denver?”

The agent and I laughed for a while, then she was able to use my airline points to help him out.

She found him a seat on a direct flight to Denver, and she put Karl on it.

Just like that, he went from being denied entry at security to getting:

• A better flight
• A nonstop trip (his typical flight home normally had a layover)
• A slight upgrade, think it was e-plus or something

Your Turn: What’s Your Best Travel Goof?

Ever had security refuse to let you through? Showed up at the wrong airport? Found yourself stranded somewhere you didn’t mean to be? Tell us your best travel mess-ups—I promise to laugh with you, not at you. Well… mostly. Drop your story in the comments!

(Publishing this a tad early so I don't forget twice)

[Amanda Barber]

TGIF! Love this topic. I think my favorite travel flub (although not due to anything in our control) was a couple of years ago when we went out to Washington, D.C. as a family. We got stuck in D.C. due to an ice storm at home which meant some rearranging for our dog sitter at home, but also meant we had an extra day in D.C where it was going to be a beautiful, warm spring day (after a few days of cool, rainy weather there.) ☀️ We hadn't originally planned on getting to Arlington due to all the rain, but this bonus day provided the opportunity. 

Thanks for posting this week's Feel Good Friday post, @Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM!! 

[Stephen_Lugton]

5th of November is Fireworks night, and I had agreed to help out with a local fireworks display which involved setting up large rockets and wiring them in to a controller. 

No problem with that.

Then we got to cower whilst the fireworks went off around us, notice the words 'around us', well unlike the people attending the fireworks display there wasn't a barrier and minimum 20m or so!  I wasn't in the worst position; oh no, that was held by the person in the full fire protective gear who had to hand light some of the fireworks 'cakes'; he was in the middle of everything and spent most of the display face down on the ground trying to be as small as possible. 

No problem with that.

Well next day (Sunday) I had to go and do forensics investigation work in Belgium, which meant driving to the UK end of the Channel Tunnel, going through passport control and customs. 

No problem with that.

We spent a week working with the Belgian police, at the end of which we loaded up the car, and after having spent a week doing forensics work was quite a lot of dirty equipment, safety gear, personal luggage, etc.

No problem with that.

My colleague then said he'd drive and asked for the keys, I told him that I didn't have them.

Problem with that.

We looked around the car, we even got a couple of bored police officers to help us, but no keys anywhere near the car.

Problem with that.

So, we unloaded the car, looked in every bag, etc. but no keys.

Problem with that.

We knew that we had had the keys to unlock the car so they couldn't be in the 10cm deep mud all around the farm we were investigating.

No problem with that.

It's important at this point to remind you of why we were there, we were doing a forensics investigation which could be messy, so we were wearing overalls. 

No problem with that.

Now at that time large 6 D-cell Maglite torches were the norm for using on site so the overalls had a long pocket down your leg to put the Maglite in.

No problem with that.

My colleague who had been using his Maglite to look under the car put his Maglite in the long pocket and the car beeped and locked itself.

Confusion with that!

He took off his overalls and the car keys fell out of the long Maglite pocket.

Ridicule with that!

When the police stopped laughing at him we left and headed back to the Channel Tunnel.

No problem with that.

But then when we got back to the French end of the Tunnel we were stopped by English customs / border patrol for a 'random' check. 

No problem with that.

The first part of the check was an explosives sniffer dog, she started barking as she came near us!

Problem with that.

So we had to get everything out of the car.  Border patrol then swabbed everything with little pieces of cotton.  This is where the previous weekend's firework display becomes relevant; the one thing that came up with explosive residue was my jacket, yep, that's right, the one I had been wearing whilst cowering in the middle of the fireworks display. 

Problem with that.

I explained about the fireworks display, but they weren't totally convinced, so I asked them to call the person I had been doing the fireworks display with for confirmation, his name was Chief Constable 'Smith', after talking to the Chief Constable they were more accepting of the situation and allowed us to pack up the car. 

No problem with that.

Then they asked for our passports, you know the small book you normally keep in your jacket pocket? Well sometime in the unloading of the car, swabbing the jacket, etc. my passport had migrated out of my pocket, and was now somewhere in amongst all the equipment, etc. 

Problem with that.

Not wanting to unload the car for a third time that day, all of us including customs and border patrol just looked at the car, and then the senior officer there said "I just spoke to a Chief Constable who confirmed that he knew you, don't worry about showing us the passport today!

No problem with that.

[Amanda Barber]

Wowzers, this is an epic story! Glad it all ended well. 

[Stephen_Lugton]

Another short one:

My friends had 3 young children, and took them on their first holiday abroad.

When they got to the airport (about 3 hours before they needed to) they realised that they had never gotten around to getting a passport for the youngest (approx 1 year old)

45 minutes later my ex got a knock on the door, when she opened it our friends said "Here's our baby, here's our house keys, everything he needs is there, see you in a week!", then they left.

[Amanda Barber]

Sounds like that was all part of the plan. Haha!

[Matt Doar _Adaptavist_]

Oh, so many stories! The time that British Airways rebooked me on a flight from London Heathrow to San Jose, Costa Rica instead of San Jose, CA. Wrong country, mate!

Or when I travelled to the UK on my UK passport (all good) and then found out my US passport had expired. US immigration raised their eyebrows about that on my return trip.

At the airport waiting to check in, we found that half our family had checked in first and taken our passports with them through security. Lots of announcements happened after that

It goes on 

[Barbara Szczesniak]

My niece used to visit my parents for the summer when she was little, so I was flying with her to go back home when she was about 8. We boarded the plane, and then we sat, and sat, and sat, until they told us they were cancelling our flight. This was back in the day when airlines were more efficient (I guess) because, by the time we got off the plane, they had booked us on other flights. Yes, flights plural—my niece was on a different flight than me. You would have thought a last name like ours would have tipped someone off. ✈️