fter the story of my first flight on Southwest Airlines arrival in Charleston should have been the least stressful part of that Thursday evening. However, I made a mistake in Geography that my fifth-grader would have caught: I booked my rental car in the wrong state.
So once I finally staggered off of the noxious fumes of flight 417 and into Charleston airport, all I wanted was a rental car and a night of sleep. I sauntered confidently to the Alamo booth…which didn’t exist! So instead of my easy-peasy exit, I had to re-book a new car at full retail.
How does someone who has flown over a million miles, stayed over 1000 hotel nights, and rented over 100 cars do this? Easy…by being careless and by not paying attention to the details. I needed a car, I typed “Charleston” into the search engine, (for the 2nd time…having done it a week earlier so knowing they were around $100), saw a $50 price, and grabbed it.
Of course, the reason it was $50 and not $100 was not because of some great bargain (I now know) is because it was in Charleston West Virginia, not Charleston South Carolina.
Point taken…and lesson to pass along: no matter how experienced a traveler you are, sweat the details!
Original publish date: Sept 14, 2013
