Back in the days when I was traveling a lot between San Francisco and New York, I always used JFK for the non-stop and upgrade on United Airlines' s premium service transcon. However, for some reason one of my return trips was booked departing from Newark, probably due to the meeting being in New Jersey. Out of habit, I told my car driver to take me to JFK, and did not find out my mistake until a familiar check-in agent told me: “Mr. Lee, your flight is on time, and your upgrade is confirmed, but you have to hurry in order to get to EWR as the flight is departing in an hour.” It had just took me 90 minutes to get from New Jersey to JFK, there was no way I could make that flight with the afternoon traffic. As an UA 1K, it really made a difference, the agent rebooked me on one of the UA p.s. flights from JFK that I normally took, confirmed my upgrade, and did all this with a smile and a wink.

On one of my trips to Philadelphia, the rental car I got was a Mustang, same color and model as the one I drive at home, except that the rental is an automatic. I stopped at a convenient store on my way to the hotel at the end of the day, and left the car door unlock since I was just going in to get a soda. I got back into my rental car sipping my soda, but the key could not unlock the ignition, then I noticed that this car is a stick shift! I jumped out of the car, and low and behold, MY rental car was one space over. What is the chance of another person driving the same color and model Mustang, went shopping at the same convenient store, and also left the door unlocked at the same time?

When I was working a telecommuting job, I had to travel very often. My administrative support staff was in Chicago, and so was the corporate travel department. I called the corporate travel agent to book a trip to Dulles-IAD (Washington Dulles Airport), but somewhere along the line, the booking was made to Dallas-DFW (Dallas Fort Worth Airport). I found this out as I was trying to check-in online, and could not find my itinerary to Washington D.C. Luckily, the ticket booked was full-fare, and we were able to rebook to Dulles easily at the last minute.

The 2008 Aircraft interior show was held in Long Beach, California, in September 2008, and I signed up to attend. It has been a while since I was on a Virgin America flight, and I wanted to sample their services again, so I booked my coach tickets on Virgin American from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The show starts on September 9th, and since the show was relatively small, and I did not want to fly on September 11, I decided to just stay in LA one night attending the show, and return the next afternoon. I returned my rental car on September 10, made it quickly to the Virgin America check-in kiosk area, and was offered a First Class upgrade for $150. I accepted the offer, and paid using my credit card, however, the confirmation screen said that the system could not process my boarding pass, and directly me to see an agent.

Have you done anything similar, I would love to hear from you.