Yesterday I received a couple text messages from a friend of mine asking me to call her. This is rather atypical, as we communicate primarily by text. I’ve helped her and her family a couple times with travel planning, and I suspected that the “urgent” need was along those lines.
I felt awful as this was one time I was unable to answer quickly, as I’d been traveling for a project site visit in (extremely) rural southern Utah for several hours with no cell reception. I called her immediately after I got the text. My heart sunk when I heard the situation they were in.
Booking a Flight to the Wrong Airport
Turns out they had made one of the nightmare mistakes I’ve feared I’d make some day: they booked a flight to the wrong airport. Given that there are multiple U.S. city pairs that share a name, it’s not impossible. If you’re not paying attention when searching for flights, you could easily be duped.
In their case, they wanted tickets to Portland, Oregon. Instead, they found themselves with tickets to Portland, Maine. The two of these aren’t even close.
Unfortunately, with little more than a day to figure out new plans, there wasn’t a whole lot to do. American Airlines was graciously willing to provide them a full credit of the amount they’d spent on their original tickets (which amazed me, as they were ticketed through Expedia). However, booking new tickets would have cost substantially more, nearly twice what they’d paid. Even flying Spirit was going to be expensive. The kicker was that they needed five tickets.
It was one of those moments where I wish I really could have helped. With a good number of miles available, I could have easily made things happen for them for one or two tickets. But five seats this last minute was an impossibility. There’s unfortunately not a lot they can do except rebook with new tickets to still make the trip happen.
Other City Pairs to Watch Out For
Portland isn’t the only city pair you need to watch for when booking flights. Here are some others that can be confusing:
- Springfield, Missouri and Springfield, Illinois (at least these are geographically close)
- Columbia, Missouri and Columbia, South Carolina
- London, Ontario and London, England
- San Jose, California and San Jose, Costa Rica
- Sydney, Australia and Sydney, Nova Scotia (read about this one years ago)
- Birmingham, Alabama and Birmingham, England
I’ll admit that I am less prone to making these mistakes as I nearly always use the airport code in the search engine, and I also search directly with the airline. Typing PDX instead of PWM would guarantee this isn’t a problem. This is one of many reasons to know your airport codes!
Final Thoughts
There was little that could be done to salvage their trip aside from booking new tickets. These would be at an immense cost. The bright side is having American Airlines credit for the original fare, but at the end of the day, they will have paid twice for this particular trip. I feel so bad and wish that there was more that I could do to help.
Have you ever booked a flight to the wrong airport?
Us/AA used to have two Manchester flights depart next to each other in PHL. One to Manchester UK and one to Manchester NH.
That…sounds utterly confusing. Totally forgot about the Manchesters. Another to add to the list.
Bend Oregon is a wonderful town in the center of the state full of outdoor adventure and wine tasting. Some people mistakenly booked tickets to North Bend Oregon, a small paper mill town on the coast. Quite a shock when they step off the plane and it was so prevalent that North Bend has now changed their airport name to “Southwest Oregon Regional Airport”.
North Bend has regular air service??? That is the most shocking part of this to me!
To those that complain about their player2, this was my geography challenged wife and I on like our third date. Her: there are so many states on the East coast, but only 2 on the West coast. Me: and those are? Her: California and Washington. Me: what about Oregon? Her: Oregon’s landlocked. Me: “PORTland”?! Her: Maine?
That is too funny! My wife is a bit geographically challenged as well. 😉
I once translated for a Russian only speaker to a US border patrol person at Schiphol Amsterdam that the person was going to Vancouver, WA, USA and not the famous Vancouver in British Columbia. They were not going to let him on the plane because he did not have a Canadian visa. Very close to each other, but a border apart!
Funny he mentioned Vancouver, Washington. But I guess you need to be exact with where you’re going/staying, as it’s close, but not quite the same as Portland.
My boss once booked a flight to Charleston, South Carolina, when meaning to fly to Charleston, West Virginia. He flew to the wrong state before figuring it out at the rental car stand when they couldn’t find his reservation. At first I questioned how he was able to board the connecting flight, but the next year I was in Dulles and actually saw United boarding regional jet flights to both cities–simultaneously–from the SAME gate. (It was one of those situations where they board multiple small planes from the same stand.) Astounding, and poor gate assignment on United’s part. I wonder… Read more »
Oh man. That sounds awful, and a mistake that even a savvy flier could make.
I bet I know the exact gates you’re talking about in Concourse A. I’ve been through there once, and it was a total crapshow with 2 or 3 flights boarding at the same time.
Funny you should mention the Springfield’s. My Mom used to work in Ozark Airlines reservations starting in 1967. A passenger was flying ORD-PIA-SPI. The flight continued to STL and SGF. She fell asleep and woke up en route from STL to SGF. She heard “Springfield”, got off the plane and was like “Where Am I”? They put her on the next flight back to STL with a connection to SPI. Ozark discontinued that particular routing shortly thereafter!
That sounds like a complete recipe for disaster with both on the same route!
I was in Portland, ME, on business last year and a passenger from Korea had got sent there by mistake by her travel agent (in Korea), instead of to Portland, OR for a connection to Korea. Everyone felt bad for her, and from what I gathered Delta was trying to help even though they hadn’t made her reservations. It has to be scary to be in a foreign country and have this happen.
I heard about a young guy who had a ticket to Oakland, California, heard it was boarding, got on the plane, discovered after a few hours THIS plane was going to AUCKLAND, New Zealand. This was way before 9/11 and no one looked at his boarding pass carefully. He ended up just getting put back on a return flight and a 24 hour-long trip. But got his ’15 minutes’ of fame out it.
Haha, I wouldn’t have ever thought about confusing these two, but I can see how it happened! No way this would happen these days with passport checks.
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People that careless or dumb shouldn’t be allowed on airplanes anyway. They could be a safety risk to themselves or others.
Have a little grace for people who fly maybe once every couple years. I almost moderated your insulting comment, but I decided to leave it.
I have flown all over the world. Yet whenever I see a sale to Portland listed, I always wonder which one it is. I never see a state listed after it!
ROC & RST
I didn’t even know there was a Rochester, Minnesota!
What!?!,
You mean, you’ve NEVER, EVER heard of the internationally famous Mayo Clinic, located in none other than Rochester, MN!?!
Well, I’ve certainly heard of the Mayo Clinic. But I didn’t know where they were located, other than Minnesota. Figured Minneapolis.
mayo in jax fl also vs jax NC