It Finally Happened: Booking a connecting flight on the wrong DAY

I considered myself a season FLYER who booked his own flights the
last million miles without a hitch until this year. :-) Did it
twice!

Booking a connecting flight on the wrong DATE is understandable
if it involved crossing the International Date Line. As it happened
when I flew to Singapore via LAX-Tokyo. I just got to my hotel a
day late. :-) That's sort of like the experienced diver who,
one the 15th dive of a one-week liveaboard trip, jumped into the
water without weight or fins -- that happened to me once too. :-)

But this time there was NO international date-line date change, and
the originating city Papeete was only time zones (2 HOURS) different
from LAX. It wasn't until checked onto the PPT to LAX flight on
Tahiti Hui that my connecting flight (to check through my luggaged)
was a date early and had already departed.

But I didn't panic, though horrible thoughts of having to pay $1000
for a $200 ticket (booking on the same day of the flight) and having
to pay a change-of-itinerary $100 penalty. I didn't even bother to
make a long distance call to Continental Airlines about the missed
connecting flights because I figure it is much more expeditious to
go to the ticket counter and wing it from there.

The GOOD news is that I got the SAME flights (a day later) without
having to pay ANY penalty -- not sure if that was because I am
a CO Platinum member or that's standard practice for anyone missing
a connecting flight, for whatever reason.

The other GOOD news is that I have entire day at the President's
Club catching up on my emails in the account that was not accessible
on the cruise-internet.

I figured out the CAUSE of my booking error -- the 10 day cruise was
actually 11 days!! (The first DAY didn't count! -- it was stated
in the itinerary as the "embarkation day", and Day 1 started at
Day 2).

From now on, I would note the DATE, and count the DAYS much more
carefully.

-- Bob.