Flew from LHR to JFK with Virgin to spend a few days in New York and then onwards to Nicaragua with Taca. After 2 days, I was to do the whole thing in reverse, but without the NY stopover. Well, I managed to miss my return flight to JFK and was told to come back the following day with $240 for a new ticket
So I go back to my hotel and turn up the next day only to find that the whole eastern seaboard of the states is snowed in and that no flights were leaving that day for NY.
Because I literally couldn't wait to get out of Managua (horrible place IMHO), I just asked to be put on their next flight to the US and said that I didn't care where it was going. I was offered a flight to Miami with Iberia and told it would be comped, the whole $240 thing never mentioned.
So now I am a thousand miles away and a day overdue for a connecting Virgin flight home; BUT - The weather is beatiful and I'd never been to Miami before, so I just thought what the hell....who am I to complain. Got a Taxi to Miami beach, booked a cheap hotel, stayed for 3 days, had an absolute blast and got a great tan.
The best part about it was, when I finally did make it to the miami airport, I went up to the Virgin desk handed over a ticket for a flight that had left New York 5 days earlier and was handed a boarding pass. Not an eyebrow raised or a question asked. Couldn't belive it.