A dream holiday turned into a travel nightmare when two best friends mistakenly booked flights to the wrong country – and they claim they didn’t realise until they landed.
Lynne Mazouz and Kira Smith couldn’t wait to spend a week relaxing in Costa Rica.
But the excitement turned to panic when they asked a flight attendant for directions – only to realise they were nowhere near their destination.
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Despite booking their flights separately, both women say they somehow accidentally bought tickets to San Jose in California.
The clueless pair say there were several moments when they could have caught their mistake earlier – but didn’t.
Their story has over 5.8 million views on TikTok.
“We were flying from a domestic airport,” 25-year-old Lynne told What’s The Jam.
“We landed in North Carolina; it was a connecting flight.
“At this point, our boarding passes did say San Jose, California, but we both missed it.
“We got on the flight, and I’m talking to the guy next to me, and he’s telling me that he lives in San Jose and his family lives in North Carolina.
“And I’m like, ‘Oh, I bet you don’t get to see them that often, what made you want to move to San Jose?’
“And he was like, ‘Oh, well it’s the tech startup capital of the world,’ or something.
“And in my head, because I don’t say this out loud, I go, ‘Oh, Costa Rica? You don’t say that’s crazy.”
The friends claim they only realised their mix-up after landing in California.
Lynne, who lives in Williamsburg in New York and documented the disaster on her TikTok, said: “We got off the flight, I’m still clueless.
“I turned off my data roaming because I didn’t want to get charged and my friend was still not coming off the plane.
“It had been like 11 minutes at this point – turns out she was talking to the flight attendant trying to get directions to Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, from where we are.
“She was zooming into Costa Rica, like San Jose, and [the flight attendant] brought the map up to California.
“I turned on my data roaming because I don’t know where she is and my phone started blowing up.
“She was like, ‘Lynne, oh my God, Lynne, check your map’.
“As soon as she said Check your map, I knew what happened.”
Scrambling for options, the friends debated going to Hawaii but didn’t want to fork out more money on additional Airbnbs and hostels.
Instead, they booked a motel and made the most of their detour with a fun night out in San Francisco – treating it as an impromptu layover.
The next morning, determined to get to Costa Rica, the friends paid for new flights.
To save money, they chose a flight with a connection in Houston and slept in the airport overnight to save money.
Lynne had so much fun in the actual Costa Rica that she even extended her trip by another week.
She said: “They greeted us with two rounds of shots each.
“Just for our troubles.
“Honestly, it was the best vacation of my life. I extended it by another week – I don’t regret a single thing.”
One TikTok viewer commented: “How does that even happen?”
“How do you plan an entire trip & book everything & still not realize wtf?” another baffled user wrote.
Someone else said: “If it makes you feel better, there is a whole help desk counter in Vienna for people who were planning to go to Australia and end up in Austria.”
“Did the fact that you didn’t go through customs or passport control not raise any concerns?” another user asked.
Someone else commented: “I’m a flight attendant & I picked up a trip thinking I was going to Costa Rica but ended up in Cali & was devastated.”
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