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Original poster

Have you ever left a day early or late for a holiday accidentally?

43 replies

DrMadelineMaxwell · 22/08/2018 13:42

My friend packed up at the end of her holiday last week having lost count of the days and got as far as the airport before finding their flight wasn't until the next day.

At least they just had to go back to their hotel rather than being a day late and having no hotel room or flight. Bless her.

OP posts:

viques · 22/08/2018 16:43

Not really a day early, but I did turn up at the wrong airport, so missed the flight. To their eternal credit easy jet re booked me on the first flight the next day without charging me, or laughing at me..........

FATEdestiny · 22/08/2018 16:47

My DH & I got caught by the date line (and flight transfers) on our honeymoon.

Flights booked to Fiji, with a connection at Los Angeles. So we went back 8 hours to USA, but then crossed the date line so went forward a lot (I can't remember exactly how many hours).

That all went well...

We then have a 1 night stop in a mainland hotel before our seaplane to an island off mainland Fiji for our main stay.

LA-Fiji flight at 12am, we got your hotel for 2am. Seaplane booked for 8am but we knew we had a day at the mainland first. So merrily went about relaxing. Turns out we had actually paid for that 1 night, as in 2am-8am and we should have gone on the Seaplane that same morning

To make it even more silly, we knew the Seaplane was Wednesday morning. On arrival we had the conversation that this was when it was booked so we had the full day to relax because today was Tuesday (it wasn't, it was Wednesday).

We had left UK Monday morning and were convinced that it was Tuesday when we woke up - having travelled for 24h that would seem logical. Crossing the international date line threw us.

Mhw02 · 22/08/2018 17:04

I once booked non-refundable train tickets for entirely the wrong weekend. Fortunately the lovely man at the ticket office switched the tickets for me anyway when I realised my mistake a whole week after buying the tickets!

ForalltheSaints · 22/08/2018 17:52

I booked a hotel one day too many once, and did not realise until I was there. Pretended to have to leave early for family reasons and as my flight was at 6pm, left at 4.

expatinspain · 22/08/2018 17:57

No, but I'm someone who checks I have my passport and tickets about ten times before even leaving, then another 20 times on the way. I'm organised to the point of giving myself anxiety. I'm sure plenty of people have done the same as you say though. I'm just completely neurotic

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 22/08/2018 18:03

Not me but my dad.

Booked a hotel for the night before my wedding. Asked me to check the address and direct him there.

Except he’d booked a hotel in Leicester. We’re in Liverpool. To be fair on him there is a Stoneycroft in both areas!

PurpleCrazyHorse · 22/08/2018 18:17

FIL booked our hotel near the ferry terminal for the wrong night, I spotted it about 24hrs before. Basically he booked it for the day we were travelling, not the night before. Luckily there was space to change us.

TheBrilloPad · 22/08/2018 18:20

Similar - had booked a package holiday and not realised that the flight departed from London Gatwick, but returned to London Luton. Paid for parking at London Gatwick then returned to London Luton and had to get a very expensive cab home, and other expensive cab to Gatwick the next morning to pick up the car!

Eminybob · 22/08/2018 18:43

About 20 years ago I turned up for a flight a day late, just totally hadn’t realised the date on the (printed, carbon paper, old style) ticket. Luckily they could fit me on the one that day (with no extra charge - wouldn’t get that these days)

This year a colleague accidentally booked her return flight back from holiday a whole month late! Again didn’t realise until they got to the airport. They had paid peanuts for the original flights, but it cost a fortune for them to get back.

Seniorschoolmum · 22/08/2018 18:54

Yes, My ex organised a holiday driving in Canada but when we got back to Montreal and he was sorting the paperwork, he went silent and distinctly grey, and admitted we should have caught the flight the day before.
We had to pay an extra day car hire but I threw myself on the mercy of the lady at the BA gate at Dorval airport, and since the flight was half empty, she let us use the tickets. Could have been very very expensive!

Nizuc · 22/08/2018 19:14

Twenty year old DH and his friend booked a trip to the USA and turned up at Gatwick instead of Stansted (or some other London airport). Got to the correct airport with minutes to spare and were upgraded to first class.

0hT00dles · 22/08/2018 19:44

We’d been out for a few drinks when we lived in Sydney and decided on a last minute trip to the Gold Coast as my brother was over. It was only when doing the online check in that we realized we booked the return flights for the week after - would’ve been fine for us probably but my brothers flight was the next afternoon to head home. Got the last 3 seats on the only available flight.

HopelesslydevotedtoGu · 22/08/2018 19:55

Yes, I was taking a two-stage overnight flight home from a month abroad and "I'm arriving home on Wednesday" became "I'm leaving on Wednesday" in my mind. So I arrived at check in 22 hours late

The lovely airline arranged for me to take the two flights for no extra charge as there were spare seats.

Ilovewillow · 22/08/2018 19:59

Yep! Quite often book two weeks away but in two separate places and managed to arrive a day early on week one - they were, thankfully amazing and moved us to an available lodge which was an upgrade which we kept for the week but just paid for an additional night! I've not done it since!!

ShotsFired · 22/08/2018 20:01

No harm done but we were away long haul and didn't do time zones properly, so we landed a full 24hrs after we thought we were going to.

Roomba · 22/08/2018 20:11

My mother once accidentally bought two return flights to Alicante airport when she was wanting to fly to Faro (and had a villa booked for a week near Albufeira)!. She'd been looking at flight times and the webpage reloaded, resetting all the drop down menus. So she picked a date and time and booked, without noticing it had defaulted back to the first destination on the drop down list!

She even emailed a copy of the booking details to my sister who was going with her. My sister completely failed to notice that it said Alicante in great big letters too! My mother only noticed a few weeks before they flew, when she looked at the email again to check times for booking a taxi. There followed a very panicked phone call to Jet2, who fortunately had free seats on the right dates and changed it (at a cost though). I can only imagine their faces if they'd got on a plane to the wrong place...

My ex FIL once drove frantically down the motorway to catch a flight from Gatwick, only to realise on arrival that he was booked to fly from Heathrow.

JuneFromBethesda · 22/08/2018 20:19

I turned up to the airport a day late for my flight out to Turkey for a holiday. I realised only as I was on the Gatwick Express filling out my luggage tag with my flight details and day of departure ...

Fortunately I'd booked a package through a (smallish, independent) travel operator, who got me on a flight later that day. It meant spending 12 hours sitting around Gatwick but could have been worse!

However - it was a group holiday - a group of singles and couples on a sailing boat for two weeks - so I had to turn up and meet my fellow holiday-makers for the first time feeling like a complete idiot Thank goodness everyone was lovely, and I was just so relieved to be there I didn't mind the embarrassment. Despite the start it was in fact the best holiday I think I've ever had

Applepudding2018 · 22/08/2018 21:57

We had a holiday once when we booked our return ticket after 6 nights rather than 7 as this worked out loads cheaper - so on the day of our flight we left our apartment a day early, drove to the airport and dropped off our hire car - arriving at the airport to discover that the timing of our flight had been changed and we'd missed it. They said they'd emailed us - and knowing how easily DH deletes things I believe them. They kindly rebooked us onto an available flight the following evening at no extra cost. But this left us 11 at night in the airport and even though we still had a day outstanding on our apartment this was an hour and a half away and we'd handed the keys back so we ended up getting a cab to a much closer resort and finding accommodation for the night.

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