A stupid mistake in an airport that cost me $1000

Travel can be nerve-wracking, I know that there really isn't a way for airport travel to not be stressful especially today with the thankfully fading Covid regulations that are in place. There was a time though, if you can remember, that travel was a lot easier than it is now and you just turned up at the airport, had a ticket and an ID and that was all there was to it.

This doesn't mean that you can't make a stupid mistake that results in you losing a ton of money though.

I still am haunted by this mistake years later because it was something I could have easily prevented but through my own idiocy or perhaps arrogance, a tiny mistake resulted in me missing a flight and had to purchase a last-minute and very expensive replacement flight.

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Have you ever noticed how there are never flights at midnight? I've been on my fair share of red eye flights but they never take place at exactly midnight. This is likely because it is unclear at that time of day what day it actually is. Is it today? Is it tomorrow? These things rarely are a factor in our lives but I have been on flights that were very close to midnight but never exactly on it.

In my instance my flight took place at 10 minutes past midnight or 00:10. This is where my own lack of intelligence resulted in me badly missing a flight.

Most people know this.... I know this... but for some reason my brain didn't register it at the time. When the clock strikes midnight, one second later we are actually in the next day, not the day we were previously in even though you didn't go to sleep yet. My childish notions resulted in me being at the airport a full day after my flight had already left because I was a dope and didn't factor in the fact that 00:10 on Wednesday necessitates being at the airport really late on Tuesday. I was there on Wednesday.

I know this sounds like a really stupid move on my part, and it was. I acknowledge this. But in my juvenile mind I was still operating under the "I didn't go to sleep yet so it is not yet tomorrow" type way of thinking.

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So I turned up at the airport well before my flight feeling really proud of myself for being so responsible and beating the crowds only to arrive at a ticketing counter that was surprisingly devoid of any customers. In fact, initially it was difficult for me to even talk to a human because there were so few staff there. Eventually someone sauntered over and looked up my information only to tell me what I should have realized and that was that my flight had already departed nearly 20 hours ago.

I was still confused as to what was going on and it took me a little bit to realize how much of an idiot I was. This tiny little mistake ended up costing me an additional around a thousand dollars for a replacement flight, which I had to do with a different airline because the one I was scheduled with didn't even have a flight that day at all.

I can laugh about this now and definitely wont make that mistake again but here's a bit of a warning to anyone else out there that is as selectively stupid as I am. Pay special attention to the date on your flight and don't be a dope like me. The date changes at midnight and the airlines do not care if you realize this or not. I was not offered any sympathy and of course no replacement flight or refund was offered to me - and it shouldn't have been.

I've made a few mistakes in my near 20 years of international travel but this was by far the most expensive one.