I took advantage of some cheap airfares with an Australian company to fly from Adelaide to Melbourne - a very short domestic flight. The fine print requires passengers to arrive 30 minutes prior to departure. Due to traffic and other circumstances I arrived 25 minutes before departure. There were no other customers at the counter and passengers were boarding still as I talked with the attendant. No way were they going to let me on the plane.
I lost the tickets (no refund) and hired a car to drive across for an important event in the early evening. Got lost in Melbourne and missed my event by just over 1 hour!
Moral of the story - (1) don't be late (2) just because an airline thinks it's a star, don't believe it -choose 1 that shows a little flexibility!
