Don’t Make these Foolish Travel Mistakes
by Admin on Sep.22, 2009, under Uncategorized
These days I’m lucky as I don’t often have to travel on business. On a recent business trip to the states I think I made about every newbie travel mistake possible.
Things started to go wrong when I arrived at Gatwick airport in my car only to find that there were no more available airport parking spaces close to my terminal. I ended up taking a space in a car park miles away and had to pay top dollar for the privelige.
This delayed my getting to the checkin desk and I was already a bit late. The check in desk staff were not happy with me as I should have arrived a whole hour earlier. They told me that I could have checked in online and printed my boarding pass in advance before leaving home. I suppose I’ve learned not to make these mistakes again.
The early start had meant that I left home without having any breakfast so I immediately headed for one of the many airport restaurants. I couldn’t believe the extortionate prices they were charging for an English breakfast, but luckily for me I was spending expenses money.
As soon as I arrived in Atlanta I headed for the car hire providers. It turned out that there had been a huge demand for cars and all of the most popular models had already been hired out. I ended up accepting a Chevrolet pickup for my two day visit. If I’d booked in advance I’d have saved my employers some money and probably got the car that I wanted.
When I returned to the airport I was wearing a different belt, with a heavy metal buckle, and I had my big bunch of keys in my pocket. This oversight resulted in my going through the security check three times before the scan was successful.
It was after I’d boarded the aircraft that I realised that I had left my PDA somewhere in the airport. Or it may have been stolen from my pocket. It wasn’t until I got home that I found out that my travel insurance policy didn’t cover lost or stolen items like this. I really wished then that I had checked before leaving home and maybe taken out some useful gadget insurance.
It’s pretty obvious that I am a little out of practice when it comes to air travel these days. I think the best thing for me would be to stay put here in the UK.
