Woman: Travel agent missed by more than 1,300 miles

[DeadPoolX 9]

I always check and recheck my information regarding flights. Sometimes I'll even rewrite the information to create my own itinerary. I'm somewhat obsessive about it.

For argument's sake, let's say someone wasn't obsessive (like the woman in this story).

The destination is shown in the following ways:

1. Online Records.

2. Boarding passes

3. Check-in (whether online or in-person)

4. The airline itself if you need to check any bags.

5. The notice at the terminal (i.e. flight number, destination, departing time, etc)

6. Flight attendants remind passengers what their final destination will be before take-off.

Even if none of this clued someone in, the captain or the flight attendants would once again tell the passengers something such as "Welcome to [wherever]" after landing. Figuring it all out at this point might be somewhat less-than-useful, but at least it's better than wandering around in a completely bewildered state.

Any individual would have to painstakingly oblivious to their surroundings and all information presented to them for this to occur.

[kitteh 1]

OK I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I can't really excuse this lady's oversight because I know Latin American geography pretty well and have studied the various cultures and languages (sure sure, it's all Spanish but you try to tell me that Chilean Spanish and Mexican Spanish are the same thing. Not so.)

But if, for instance, I were to travel to Japan and somehow wound up in Hokkaidō rather than in Honshū or Kyūshū I might not notice the difference right away, or even while boarding the plane. I'd trust that if I hired a travel agent they'd send me to the right fricking island already.

Maybe Japan's not a great example...but maybe a better example would be the islands off of Russia or Norway--for instance--which would probably be easily confused by me. Anyhow, I'm shocked that anyone could end up in PR when trying for CR, but I also think it's all relative and if we were talking about the other side of the world I wouldn't feel so smug about the confusion.

Then again, I'm American

[Kajikit 65]

Porto Rico isn't that bad, she should have just use that money to see the island and have a great time, when the card give you lemon you make lemonade.

Was she trying to make a point, San Juan is the capital of Porto Rico, Vers San Jose they don't sound too similar, 1st when she got the itenary, second when she was at the airport before boarding and they are making the announcement, glad it wasn't another american geography bashing

Puerto Rico, not Porto Rico. SJU is the airport code for San Juan's intl port. SJO is the airport code for San José's intl port.

I see... in that case, it was probably an easy mistake to make, and one that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed until it was too late!

[HAL 9000 96]

Porto Rico isn't that bad, she should have just use that money to see the island and have a great time, when the card give you lemon you make lemonade.

Was she trying to make a point, San Juan is the capital of Porto Rico, Vers San Jose they don't sound too similar, 1st when she got the itenary, second when she was at the airport before boarding and they are making the announcement, glad it wasn't another american geography bashing

Puerto Rico, not Porto Rico. SJU is the airport code for San Juan's intl port. SJO is the airport code for San José's intl port.

I see... in that case, it was probably an easy mistake to make, and one that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed until it was too late!

Yeah- U and O are separated by I on most North American US Keyboards... but still you can only wonder about the traveler's attention span and listening skills at the boarding gate. OR before that... reading the ticketing information.

[Peikko 1,575]

Porto Rico isn't that bad, she should have just use that money to see the island and have a great time, when the card give you lemon you make lemonade.

Was she trying to make a point, San Juan is the capital of Porto Rico, Vers San Jose they don't sound too similar, 1st when she got the itenary, second when she was at the airport before boarding and they are making the announcement, glad it wasn't another american geography bashing

Puerto Rico, not Porto Rico. SJU is the airport code for San Juan's intl port. SJO is the airport code for San José's intl port.

I see... in that case, it was probably an easy mistake to make, and one that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed until it was too late!

Yeah- U and O are separated by I on most North American US Keyboards... but still you can only wonder about the traveler's attention span and listening skills at the boarding gate. OR before that... reading the ticketing information.

That's probably how the mistake was made by the travel agent but it doesn't really explain how it continued being a mistake. Anyway, someone will get to decide who's 'fault' it was. I would have thought the travel agent would give the customer the benefit of the doubt just for good relations, but hard times, hard times...

[HAL 9000 96]

Porto Rico isn't that bad, she should have just use that money to see the island and have a great time, when the card give you lemon you make lemonade.

Was she trying to make a point, San Juan is the capital of Porto Rico, Vers San Jose they don't sound too similar, 1st when she got the itenary, second when she was at the airport before boarding and they are making the announcement, glad it wasn't another american geography bashing

Puerto Rico, not Porto Rico. SJU is the airport code for San Juan's intl port. SJO is the airport code for San José's intl port.

I see... in that case, it was probably an easy mistake to make, and one that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed until it was too late!

Yeah- U and O are separated by I on most North American US Keyboards... but still you can only wonder about the traveler's attention span and listening skills at the boarding gate. OR before that... reading the ticketing information.

That's probably how the mistake was made by the travel agent but it doesn't really explain how it continued being a mistake. Anyway, someone will get to decide who's 'fault' it was. I would have thought the travel agent would give the customer the benefit of the doubt just for good relations, but hard times, hard times...

Some travel magazine's ombudsman won't be able to help much. Its assumed the traveler had enough time to *smarten up* before actually traveling. But yes... since the stem of the issue likely came through a typing glitch... then the travel agent would likely offer up some sort of accommodation. Half reimbursement of the original travel price I'd say, to be honest.

[Amby 490]

Daily flame war at it again.

I have to say, I read my tickets very carefully and check that not only the destinations are correct, but that I know the dates, times of flights and the terminal (if there is one) so I can't quite see how this mistake remained unnoticed until the person landed in the wrong country. Very odd.

One time I had a guy book my flight from Newcastle Australia instead of Newcastle England...I noticed the mistake when he's like ok we're going to charge your credit card for $2400...I was like ughhh...ummm...wasn't it $600 like 5 minutes ago? Turns out he sucked at speaking English since he also got my last name completely wrong

[HAL 9000 96]

Daily flame war at it again.

I have to say, I read my tickets very carefully and check that not only the destinations are correct, but that I know the dates, times of flights and the terminal (if there is one) so I can't quite see how this mistake remained unnoticed until the person landed in the wrong country. Very odd.

One time I had a guy book my flight from Newcastle Australia instead of Newcastle England...I noticed the mistake when he's like ok we're going to charge your credit card for $2400...I was like ughhh...ummm...wasn't it $600 like 5 minutes ago? Turns out he sucked at speaking English since he also got my last name completely wrong

Shhh please no England and Australia with people that don't read too good post here umm kay?

What's up Amby?