Your flight, airport parking, car rental, and hotel are booked. You’re doing last-minute checks on your bags, and you just can’t wait to spend the next five days soaking up some sun. Two days into your holiday, you receive news about a family emergency and that you need to get home as soon as possible. So you immediately grab your phone to cancel the rest of your bookings and try to catch the earliest flight home. You try not to panic. Before you break down and give in to frustration; stop and take a few deep breaths. You can do this. Here’s what you need to do.

Clear your head

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Instead of rushing around, calling everyone you have previously made bookings with, stop and think about what you need to do first. Rushing around without a clear mind can easily lead to confusion, frustration, and poor decisions. You need a clear head to deal with difficult situations and come up with the best solutions. After all, you don’t want to create more problems because of stress-fueled decisions.

List down what you need to do

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Listing down the tasks you need to do is an effective way of making sure you don’t forget anything. It’ll also help you figure out which one to prioritise. Take note of all the bookings you’ve made, which can include:

1. Flight
2. Hotel
3. Airport parking
4. Car rental
5. Planned activities
6. Events

When cutting your holiday short, call your airlines right away and see if they can help you book the next flight home. Keep in mind that you may have to pay a cancellation fee and higher ticket rates because it’s a last-minute booking. Once you’ve made flight arrangements, call the other companies you’ve made a booking with.

Ask for help

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Don’t hesitate to ask someone for help. In some instances, you might have only a day or two to re-arrange the plans you’ve made months ago. When calling your airlines for a flight change, explain to them your situation. Be honest and sincere when talking to flight agents. Just as stressful as you may be, appealing to the agent’s better nature is the best way to get help. You’re not the first person to talk to them about sudden flight changes because of an emergency, so they’re sure to understand and know what to do. If the agent is savvy enough, you might not have to pay for cancellation fees or you may even get a refund for your cancelled flight.

Check out travel apps

Handy travel apps such as GateGuru allows you to create a travel itinerary and access the information via your mobile phone. With all your bookings compiled in one, easy-to-understand interface, it’ll be easier to re-arrange your plans. Some apps even send you alerts on flight delays, gate changes, and available seats. With all these information within your fingertips, cancelling and booking flights at the last minute becomes more manageable.

When looking for travel apps, it’s best to look for an all-in-one app like TripIt that lets you deal with not just flight changes, but also changes for hotel, car rental, and airport parking bookings. You’ll want a tool that’ll let you multi-task and sort out changes in just a few clicks.

If you have to suddenly change your plans, calm down and think things through. Remember, the more you panic, the more you’ll find it difficult to get things done. So take a deep breath, calm down, and pick up that phone. For more travel tips, check out the Alpha Airport Parking blog.