There's a reason airports have lounges (arrive early!)
2025-06-15I paid $500 for a flight and I did not have to do that. I was very upset honestly. I ended up paying this money because I believe I had failed to plan. To me this is laziness and an attempt to rely on subconscious processing to accomplish the objective. The cost was deemed avoidable.
Every single purchase requires a thorough review. If its an expensive purchase, it should probably require more review.
My initial flight was hundreds of dollars. For the average American this could be over 1% of their take-home income for the year. 1% of what you make a year gone due to a mistake is pretty costly. Given the financial influence, it stands that this purchase deserved more review. I purchased this flight as most would, trying to optimize for departure and arrival timing and cost. However, once the flight was purchased, I failed to actually operate on the service I had just bought.
What an emergency fund really is for.
In a strange way, this helped me realize the utility of an emergency fund. Supposing I didn't have the liquidity or breathing-room in my budget, I might have had to take money out of some sort of money account to fund this mistake. Hopefully, I will not commit this same mistake again. However, improbable (or probable) things happen. Maybe in the future, I am ready to leave for my flight to the proper airport 2 hours before and something happens with my family where I am no longer able to make my flight. If I didn't purchase flight insurance, then I will likely have to cover it somehow. If my budget we're tight, I might have had to dip into what is known as an "emergency fund".
Here's what happened. I knew I had a flight at 11AM. I had went to bed at 4AM the previous night (or if you divide days by 24hours then the morning of my flight) and did very little preparation. Why I did so little I yet do not know. I was with a very good friend of mine at the time and I wanted to focus all of my time with him. I also could very reasonably say that I was just lazy because truthfully we were just eating pizza, talking, and then for the last hour scrolling through social media applications with the occasional "bro look at this" followed by a "damn, bro". I'm sure I could've done some preparation for my flight.
I woke up the next day at 9AM with texts from my airline saying the flight has been delayed. This bought me another hour of sleep and so I slept. I woke up again and got another delay notice and went back to bed. The flight ended up getting delayed 2 hours and I arrived at the airport thirty minutes before departure. Mind you, for this particular airline (and for most I'd imagine) gates close 20 or so minutes prior to departure. I was sweating, though I do do this sort of thing a lot.
I had already checked in online and so darted to security. The security agent asked me for my ID. I gave it to him. He inserted it into a black device. The screen in front of me said something along the lines "good to go" just not in those exact words. I thought nothing of it besides just usual airport business. The agent told me that I'd have to wait and that he has to insert the card again. I'm generally care-free so I thought nothing of it. Again, the monitor in front of me relayed the same "good to go" phrase. It was this second time around that my mind started humming. My first thought was, what a ridiculous statement. Nothing is good to go. The agent had to re-insert my card. I stepped past the agent with my hand out for my card assuming things really were good to go. After all, I had under 10 minutes to get to my gate. The agent stopped me and told me to slow down. He'd have to re-insert the card and he could only do this a maximum of 3 times. I asked him what was going on. He didn't respond and my card disappeared into that little black box that I started to develop an unhealthy resentment towards. I stared at the monitor for a third time. I shouldn't have expected that monitor to tell the truth because it had already lied to me twice before, but I was desparate. Again the same reassuring statement popped up. I knew it meant nothing. The agent told me that they had put in my information wrong during check-in and to go to my airline's frontdesk space. This confused me because I am the one who had done the checking in. I thought I must have messed something up (and boy I did which you will soon find out). I asked the agent where my airline's front desk was and he told me upstairs.
Upstairs was only a football's throw away and I was eager to not miss my flight. I dash upstairs. My airline is not listed on any of the direction-giving signs hanging from the ceiling. I ask another worker at the airport and he tells me its about a 10 minute walk in an entirely separate terminal. I knew this because I was dropped off that terminal and, for whatever particular reason, in this particular airport, I had to walk ten minutes to a separate terminal to reach a security point. At this point, I knew I had to resign any hope of making my flight and hopefully settle for some free, rescheduled flight. Truthfully, I had planned on somehow blaming my airline's systems for messing up my check-in data as the security agent has told me. I took my time with this walk.
I get to the airline frontdesk and no one is there. I walk to another airline's section and speak to an agent asking where my airline support is. He told me just he puts bags on the belt and nothing else. I re-asserted my statement and told him that I'd just like to talk to someone with my airline. He responded with what airline. I told him. He then told me they have no flights right now. I pulled out my boarding pass and essentially called him a liar. He looked at my boarding pass and his face drooped into a portrayal of pity. In a wierd way, enjoyed seeing the pity in his face. At the time, this felt validating considering the recent moments of my life. He then betrayed the damning news: you're at the wrong airport buddy. Disappointment befell me.
I knew I was in the wrong immediately. I tried to discern the odds of me getting a refund. In this particular case, my airline landed me at one airport and were going to fly me out in another airport. I hoped I'd receive some credit for that fact. As I was scrolling through different forums, I began to slowly lose any hope of getting home without having to pay for another flight. After all, I am the one who purchased the flight and the airline did, on the ticket, include what airports I'd be flying in and out of. I knew this mistake would cost me.
Without going into too much detail on the re-scheduling process, I ended up booking my flight and eating an additional $500.
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