✈ The Biggest Travel Mistake of My Life, Delta Confirms Medallion Status Requirements & More From TPG ✈

October 23, 2026

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by Tanner Saunders, Senior hotels reporter

Whether you’re a seasoned traveler or you just got your first passport, travel mistakes can and will happen.

I’ve been a travel journalist for over a decade, and I’ve still managed to go to the wrong airport in Seoul, book flights for 2 a.m. and show up at 2 p.m. and, just last month, leave an entire carry-on bag on an airplane because I simply forgot I had it.

But recently I made the worst travel mistake of my life: I forgot about the International Date Line.

The short version of the story is this: A week before flying to Fiji from Dallas — in a swanky new business-class product I booked with American Airlines AAdvantage miles — I realized that my flight landed two calendar days after takeoff instead of the next day.

Guess when our fancy resort, island transfers and everything else were booked for…?

At first, I panicked and thought I’d cost us an entire day of our three-night Fijian stopover. But then I jumped into action and used every resource I could to figure out how to rebook award seats that didn’t seem to exist.

I had to be flexible and change my expectations to get us rebooked on a flight (hopefully without paying a lot of money). I used this website, which displays open award seats across airlines, to find realistic flight options. Then I cross-checked every airline I could transfer points to with my various credit cards.

Nothing worked, so I finally turned to pay-myself-back options with those cards and was saved by Chase Points Boost and my Chase Sapphire Reserve®.

Here’s where you can see exactly how I salvaged this trip.

But I’m writing this to remind everyone that in your travels, things might go wrong. When they do, don’t panic. Instead, bookmark these resources to help you.

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Photo Credit: MICHELE WESTMORLAND/GETTY IMAGES.

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