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Bizarre incidents

Sometimes you read stories about those events with travelers that make you think: this can’t be true…

We all know the stories about tourists that booked a five star hotel, arrived at their destination, just to discover that the hotel did not yet exist, but was under construction.
Or lists of bizarre ‘reviews’ of unhappy guests, of which you almost certainly know that they must be myths or urban legends: “My fiancee and I had requested twin beds when booking, but instead you got us a room with a double bed. We will keep you responsible and want to get a compensation for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not never have happened if you had put us in the requested room.”

Connoisseurs of the tourism industry

But what happened to us this week is also very special I think…

Last January we had contact with a, according to her e-mails, very charming lady from a country on the other side of the world, about an apartment on Bonaire for herself and her husband. She told us that they are the owners of a small holiday resort themselves and their type of questions also revealed that they know the tourist industry very well.
After they booked we mailed a few times back and forth about WiFi (so that they could keep up with the bookings for their own accommodation) and car rental. So far nothing going on and business as usual!

Strange flight number

Until last week, when we asked them what their flight number would be, so we could pick them up at Flamingo Airport…

Although we have seen a very nice jet from Qatar standing on the platform the past week, we knew for sure that the company that belonged to the flight number given by these people, had never flown on Bonaire!
So with the idea that they would be traveling the last piece of their journey with InselAir, we asked them for their flight number from Curacao or another hub in the area and then…
Because of our questions about the flight numbers they suddenly realized that they booked for the wrong island! And they weren’t just slightly off, no they were convinced that they booked a property (with the same name) somewhere on an island in the South Pacific!

Have you ever…?

A bizarre mistake and also quite a bit strange, because in all our e-mails, on our website, et cetera we write quite often “Bonaire”.
At this moment we are investigating if we can still do something for these people, although it is obviously difficult or impossible for our client to get the accommodation rented again on such short notice!
Have any of you ever experienced or heard of anything like this?