Travel Horror Stories

[susans]

On the UK site we have a form for PAs and Admins to send their travel horror stories, please feel free to submit it there but I thought it would be great here as well!  So Sound Off on your travel mishaps for you, your boss, co workers....

An easy one for me, (and our Sales Manager!).  Last year we attended and event in London and were put up in a local small hotel.  On the internet the hotel looked beautiful and had decent reviews.  I was not expecting a 5 star hotel but a nice reasonable place to stay.  When we got there everything was runned down and dingy, there were BIG food stains on the wall, (like someone tossed a bottle of ketchup that no one bothered to pick up for months it was icky).  On top of that the breakfast had spoiled warm spoiled milk.  By the way the next day we moved to a very nice hotel across the street.  Best of all it was clean and neat!  To this day I wonder HOW can an establishment have such a thick and gooey and icky stain on the hall wall and not take care of it... makes you wonder.

Oh at one point I worked for a VP who was traveling to Japan.  He had a flight where for some reason there was no food delivered so they went the 12 or so flight with no meals.  They did give  them a "coupon" for a future discount for a flight.  I think my boss would rather of had the food!

[misslynn]

I've got a bunch but this one takes the cake:

I had 11 people checking in for one night at the Hilton in Albuquerque.  It was as simple a reservation as possible - only one VIP (my boss) and it was just for one night.  When they went to check in, they listed my boss as having 2 reservations, assumed it was a mistake so they cancelled one and put him in a standard room on a noisy street.  The appearance of 2 reservations was ACTUALLY because he was supposed to be in a suite which, for this type of hotel, means 2 connecting rooms.

They listed one of my guys as a no-show, even though he was there.

They charged everyone different rates, none of which were the negotiated rate that I had set up.

I had sent an important fax to the hotel to be given to my boss when he checked in.  I even called to confirm they received it and would be giving it to him when he checked in.  He never got it.

But here's where it gets really bad.  The wife of one of my guys, "Lance", called the hotel looking for him.  The front desk attendant she spoke with said she didn't know where Lance was but a blonde woman just checked out of his room.  Needless to say, she became hysterical.  Lance had to have the evening manager call his wife and assure her that a blonde woman had NOT checked out of his room.

It took me THREE WEEKS to get everything cleared up with the hotel after this.  I got 2 rooms for free (my boss's and Lance's), got everyone else charged the correct rate plus an additional $30 off each room.

Also, they claimed that the story of what happened to Lance isn't possible and that it never happened.

[londonpa]

Years and years and years ago, I booked my female boss into what sounded like a very nice hotel in Washington with a good address.   Boss called me from Washington in the middle of the night to tell me I'd booked her into a brothel.  Red faces all around.  We laughed about it later.  Much later.  Thank god for the internet and 360 degree piccies.

[diamondlady]

I could tell pages and pages of stories of people with ants in their rooms and had to change hotels in mid-trip.  People that wanted to catch an early flight and missed their own scheduled flight trying to do so.  Others getting into accidents with rental cars while backing out of the parking spot from the rental agency the first day.

But the one that takes the cake for me is a gentlemen that I used to work for that would ALWAYS have a travel mishap no matter where he went, got a call from the airline saying there was a death on the plane and they were re-routing to the nearest hub.  Well, waited to hear from the guy that was travelling and he nicely said please call my wife and tell her what happened, but please make sure you tell her it wasn't me, LOL!  Only to this person would something like that happen, and it's never happened again, thank goodness.

My bosses plane got hit by lightning while waiting for take off in a really bad thunderstorm, where there were tornadoes everywhere.  It's scary.

The best one for my boss was when he was in Reno, NV last year, and his luggage got lost on the way out.  He went for 3 days without any new clothes or anything before they found his luggage.  He was washing his personal items and re-wearing them before he would go out and buy new ones.  Now he's the Chief Financial Officer of the company and can afford to buy new clothes, but chose not to.  Even his wife told him to go buy new clothes, but he refused. We told him the airline would pay for part of it.  Nope!  Stubborn!  I was calling all over the place asking where his luggage was, then he swore he would NEVER use multiple airlines again, USAir didn't know where his luggage was, nor did United.  What a mess!  Ah the fun stuff of travel. LOL!

Good topic!

Diamondlady
Peer Moderator

Edited by diamondlady on 26/01/07 06:48 PM.