An Ottawa woman says a travel agent’s mistake thinking they were booking a trip from Ontario, California, and not Canada’s capital, will force them to take a lengthy detour with a four-and-a-half-hour drive and five flights to get to Venice, Italy for vacation.
Keri Oakley is set to embark on a two-week trip through Italy, Croatia and the Greek Islands this week.
In a posting on Facebook, Oakley says instead of booking a flight from Ottawa to Venice, the travel agent booked them to travel from Ontario, California, “and won’t fix it!”
“So, our amazing race begins Thursday with a 4.5 hour drive to the Toronto airport, from (Toronto) to Atlanta, Atlanta to Ontario, California, then Ontario to San Francisco, (San Francisco) to Frankfurt, Germany, Frankfurt to Venice,” Oakley says, adding it will be the same five flights and a 4.5 hour drive home.
Oakley tells Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa at Work with Patricia Boal they told the travel company they were travelling from Ottawa, Ont., but the agent booked them to travel out of Ontario, California. When Oakley said her husband told the company the couple was travelling from Canada, they were told by the travel company to get to California for the trip.
“They said, ‘your problem.’ We said, ‘no you need to fix this. Like, you can go from Montreal to Venice no problem,'” Oakley said.
“I wasn’t happy with three flights, but now I have five.”
“We’ve given up; we’re just going to try to get there and enjoy our trip and look at it as an adventure, maybe look at it like we’re on the Amazing Race.”
Oakley says the travel agent did not provide any compensation for the additional flights, adding this is their first experience booking with a vacation club.