Why not paying attention to your Geography teacher could cost you dearly

Next time you go online to book flights, be careful. You may end up miles off course if you don’t double check your booking before you confirm travel.  As an ex-Geography teacher myself, I couldn’t help but shake my head in despair at the unfortunate couple who this week made the news as they managed to book themselves flights to Las Vegas from Birmingham Alabama rather than the UK’s second largest city:

Couple book flights from Birmingham airport… What could possibly go wrong?

Vegas, baby!

While it’s a shame they missed out on their dream holiday, it shouldn’t be an easy mistake to make.  Flight booking sites are easy to navigate and cities clearly identifiable.  They’re not the first, either.  I remember a couple trying to get to see their daughter in San Jose, Mexico but who ended up flying to San Jose, California instead:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Couple-mistakenly-fly-to-San-Jose-California-instead-of-San-Jose-Mexico/

The flight codes are only one letter different, so if I’m being generous that could have been hard to spot. But then there was the granny who actually wanted to be in San Jose, California but headed to the Costa Rican capital instead:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-118629/Grandmother-flown-3-000-miles-way.html

The beautiful Spanish city of Granada

While many accept responsibility for their mistakes, some just can’t believe it. This American couple decided to sue when they were wrongly routed to the Caribbean island of Grenada instead of the Spanish city Granada:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/25/american-couple-sue-british-airways-grenada-granada

They aren’t the only ones to fall foul of these two similar sounding places, though at least this granny can claim she was misheard:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2478016/Granny-sent-Grenada-instead-Granada-booking-mix-up.html

Dakar’s colourful boats

I could go on and on.  The internet’s full of tales of people mixing up Dakar and Dhaka, respectively the capitals of Senegal and Bangladesh and located on different continents, Melbourne, Florida and Melbourne, Australia (I’d recommend the latter if you can’t decide which to add to your bucket list), and Paris, Texas with the French capital itself.

So, if your child isn’t paying as much attention as you’d like in school, show them this blog and tell them to pull their socks up, or one day they might find themselves facing an expensive onward flight!