Luckily for me I don’t need to travel much on business these days. 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 in the car parks close to my airport terminal. I had to pay a premium price for a parking space that was miles from the airport.
This delayed my getting to the checkin desk and I was already a bit late. This didn’t go down well at the check in desk where they told me that I should have arrived an hour earlier. They also told me that I could have checked in online and printed my boarding pass myself before leaving home. Well you live and learn I suppose.
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 what they were charging for a full English breakfast and if I wasn’t travelling on expenses I wouldn’t have been too happy at paying the extortionate airport prices.
As soon as I arrived in Atlanta I headed for the car hire providers. It turned out that there were a whole load of conferences in town and most of their more comfortable 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 Atlanta airport for my homeward journey I omitted to remove my keys from my pocket and had chosen a different belt which has a heavy metal buckle. 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 had been stolen from my pocket. It was only when I got home that I found out my travel insurance policy didn’t provide cover to lost or stolen PDAs or other electronic gadgets. I really wished then that I had checked before leaving home and maybe taken out some useful gadget insurance.
I think this sorry tale should tell you that I am more than 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.
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