When 62 year-old Lamenda Kingdon settled into her seat for a relaxing flight to her holiday destination, turning to her neighbouring passenger to talk of her excitement to visit Spain, she was startled to discover that she was not in fact headed to the Mediterranean for sangria, the Alhambra and tapas. Instead of winging her way down through to the south of Spain, Kingdon soon discovered that she was actually onboard a ten hour flight across the pond to the Caribbean island of Grenada.
In a heart-wrenching addition to the story, Kingdon´s trip had been booked as a part of a ´Bucket List´ after being told she had both breast cancer and a brain tumour. The misunderstanding from Avios, the air miles travel company Kingdon used to book the flight using her late husband´s air miles, resulted in her travelling some 4,000 miles from her original destination. Upon receiving her tickets, she had no inclination that one mere vowel stood between her planned holiday and what became into a great inconvenience.
Rightfully so, Kingdon was upgraded into first class, and placed on a flight back to Gatwick Airport when the plane stopped in St Lucia. Upon her return to England, she was booked into a hotel, reimbursed her points and placed on a flight to Malaga the next day.
Avios have since expressed regret for their mistake, and by way of apology, given Kingdon the air miles to travel to New Zealand; the next destination on her bucket list.
Kingdon says “Looking back on the Granada mix-up, I genuinely don´t blame anyone. The person on the other end of the phone probably just misheard me. I honestly didn´t notice the spelling difference... But I´m certainly not complaining, they treated me wonderfully once they found out what had happened. “
Upon her return to the UK from Granada, Kingdon has thankfully been given the all-clear from cancer and is excited to make her trip to New Zealand in 2015.
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