The Travel Mistake That Cost Us Hundreds In Japan (But We Can Laugh About It Now!)

I spend a lot of time writing travel guides to help you plan your trips and avoid stress, especially in Japan. But on our recent trip to Japan I managed to make not one but TWO booking mistakes in a 24 hour period. (Anyone that might think i’m some sort of travel expert, please look away now!)

Both mistakes were expensive, both were stressful, and with hindsight, both were pretty funny! So I thought it was time to share our travel fails with you guys…..

The Transfer That Never Came

Picture the scene: It’s our last day in Japan. We have a 1am flight booked to take us to Seoul, where we have a long 7-hour transfer time before flying back to London. The suitcases are packed, the kids are in bed having a mum-enforced nap before we wake them at 10pm to get dressed and hop in our airport transfer.

So far, so good.

The alarm sounds jarringly, and even Mike and I had ended up falling asleep. So we were in a bit of a rush as we got everyone awake, dressed in the clothes I’d neatly laid out, then headed down to the hotel lobby with 4 huge suitcases, 4 big cabin bags, and the kids’ backpacks too (Yup, double the luggage we had on the way out – the boys had done a lot of shopping!)

….but the mini bus transfer I’d ordered to take us to the airport DIDN’T TURN UP! I grabbed my phone in a panic, ready to call the company and try to work out why, only to check all the details of our booking and realise….

….. I’d booked the transfer for the right time, at the right hotel…. only 24 hours later! I’d totally messed up!

I called the transfer company anyway to see if they could help, but they were fully booked. We headed to the hotel concierge (we were staying at the Oriental Hotel Tokyo Bay), and they were amazing, but despite calling every company on their list, they couldn’t get a minibus big enough for the four of us and all of our luggage at such short notice. (If you need a reminder on the important of booking airport transfers in advance, maybe this is it!)

Time was running out – we needed to get to the airport or we were going to miss our flight.

The solution? They could split us and our luggage between two taxis, which they would send out as soon as possible, and hope we would get to check in for our flight on time!

So that’s what we did. Shelling out thousands of yen (hundreds of pounds) for two peak-time, last-minute taxis to the airport, because we didn’t have any choice. And to add insult to injury, when I went to cancel the original transfer that I’d booked for the wrong date, we couldn’t get our money back for that either! Most transfer companies will only give you a refund if you cancel at least 24 hours in advance – and it was 22 hours in advance by this point.

An expensive mistake, but at least we got checked in and all’s well that ends well, right? Well, not so fast….

Heathrow Deja Vu….

Having finally arrived at Heathrow after a full 24 hours of travelling on two separate Korean Air flights, we were ready to get in the car and get home. For a treat, we’d booked valet parking so that we wouldn’t have to worry about crammed bus transfers to the car park with all our luggage after such a long travel day.

We went into the valet parking office, gave them our car registration number and…..they had no record of our car or that it was being picked up today.

Why? Because I’d only gone and done it again! Not only had I booked the airport transfer one day too late, the knock-on effect of that was that I’d booked the car collection for one day later than we needed it too!

There was noone available to collect our car from the lot for us, so we sat on our suitcases (half asleep and feeling pretty stupid) for over an hour. It might not sound like a long time, but we’d been travelling for such a long time and we were all dead on our feet…it felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Eventually, our car pulled up around the corner, we all let out a cheer, and we could finally head home. But the family haven’t let me forget my mistake…and now I ask Mike to sanity check the dates whenever I’m booking our airport transfers!

The Takeaway….

The thing is, this is the type of thing that could happen to anyone, and just because we travel a lot doesn’t mean we’re immune to making stupid mistakes! Travelling with kids has a lot of moving parts, and accepting the fails, and even thinking on your feet and finding solutions, is all part of the experience.

But we did make our flight, no one got hurt (apart from our bank balance), and now it’s a funny story to share! I’m well aware that things could have been a lot worse, and in the grand scheme of travel fails this was a pretty minor one. But I thought it was a funny story to share and a very clear example that we’re human, and stupid, and that we make mistakes too!

So tell me, what’s the worst travel mistake you’ve ever made? Do you have any funny anecdotes or major travel fails to share? I’d love to hear them! Make me feel better about my own stupid mistakes by sharing yours!