I don’t know if you have ever lost a parking garage ticket, but let me tell you: it sucks! First of all, if there are parking attendants, they will struggle to find your car without the ticket number. Then you will need to prove the car is actually yours. And, since they don’t have a record of when you parked you will get whacked by the biggest fee possible.
This happened to me once, and that was once too many. So I came up with a simple system to never lose a parking garage ticket again.
I simply take a photograph of the parking ticket (I have an example of one from last week below) on my iPhone (the Starbucks coffee is optional). Then I store away my ticket like a normally do. If I lose the ticket, I can show the attendant the picture and I am good to go. If I lose my iPhone (it would totally suck) but at least I will have my ticket. If I lose both. . . well then it will be a bad day.
If you have a “lost parking garage ticket” horror story…. share it. Oh, please share it…
I lost my ticket once and the attendant had to look at their computer to see when my license plate entered the garage. A 5 minute nightmare.
Love this Mike! I’m reposting………
Awesome! Please spread the word!!! I am looking for more tips like this too.
Hey Ed – It almost sounds like a story out of Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Thanks for sharing.
Also a BIG thanks for reading The Pumpkin Plan. I am so happy that you have shared it with your wife to. Fingers crossed that is will bring colossal results (I think it will).
Horror story not so much but a stupid one at that. I was at the airport returning from a long trip. I get in the elevator and press floor 1 since thats were I normally park. I start walking to where I “think” my car is and begin feeling a sense of misdirection. I take out my keys and begin to honk the horn. Nothing. So I walk a few more rows down, still nothing. About 10 rows I hear a honk. YES!!!! I begin to follow the noise. When I get to the noise, my large SUV is nowhere to be spotted. Damn. So I go up a level. I begin to retrace my steps from the previous floor and get to the honk. Still nothing. To make a repetitive story short, I finally got to my car on the fifth floor. I forgot the airport was busy the day I arrived and I parked somewhere completely out of my routine. Lesson learned, take a picture of the floor and row number.
Moral of the story is, take pictures of your parking ticket and where you parked, lol.
Been there and done that. I have parked in NYC and forgot the street I was on. The picture of the ticket and the street itself is key.
I did the exact same thing – thought for sure I knew where my car was parked at the airport – after 20+ minutes walking around trying to find it – I called airport security who was able to tell me exactly where my car was parked – creepy for sure – but nice to find the car after an exhausting trip – so now I do the same thing as you – take a picture of where I parked plus the ticket!
Janet!!!!
I liked your suggestion about taking pictures of your parking ticket. That does seem like a good thing to consider if you don’t have to put the ticket in a machine when you leave. It might be smart to get a parking package that allows you to prepay or not have to put a ticket back in the machine.