The ultimate holiday stuff: The Australian’s Eastern European holiday surprise for his friend goes awry due to similar cities – and they realize it far too late
- Aussie man booked wrong flights for surprise trip
- He bought tickets to Bucharest instead of Budapest
- Traveler decided to make light of the travel accident
An Australian man who planned a surprise holiday with a girlfriend has been humiliated online after mistakenly booking a flight to the wrong country.
Sophie Alice was elated when Ben Kennedy flew halfway around the world to visit her and then announced that he had booked them a bonus trip last weekend.
Ben planned to take Sophie to the Hungarian capital of Budapest, but accidentally bought tickets to the eponymous Romanian capital of Bucharest – nearly 900 km away.
The pair decided to make the best of the situation and produced a TikTok video captioned, “When you thought you booked flights to Budapest.”
In the video, which has been viewed more than four million times, Sophie is standing on the tarmac about to board a RyanAir plane to Romania.
Aussie man Ben Kennedy (left) planned to buy flights to Budapest, Hungary, but accidentally bought tickets to the namesake Bucharest, Romania – nearly 900km away
The camera zooms in on a boarding sign depicting their alternate destination as the pair repeatedly say the word s*** in the voiceover.
When asked repeatedly online if they went ahead with the trip, Sophie replied: ‘Yes, we went, of course we went, it was great.’
“It was great, I have a lot of videos to show from Romania, so follow along and you’ll see. But yes, absolutely brilliant, loved it.’
The pair decided to make light of the situation with a TikTok video captioned, “When you thought you booked flights to Budapest”
Some of the highlights Sophie shared online included a trip to Bran Castle – often referred to as Dracula’s Castle – in Transylvania, where they ate delicious food and attended a concert.
Many commentators said it was a good mistake to accidentally go to Bucharest instead of Budapest.
“To be honest, Bucharest is nicer than Budapest,” said one.
‘Budapest is overrated and no one speaks English’, another agrees.
“Bucharest is one of the wildest party places that is totally underrated,” said a third.
Others said they knew people who had made similar travel mistakes with sounding destinations.
‘My friend and I went to Budapest last year, he flew a day before me and lost his flight for the same reason. He was in line for Bucharest,” she wrote.
“My mom almost did this. I tried to buy flights to San Diego, California and almost ended up in Santiago, Chile,” wrote another.
Sophie shared special moments from the holiday, including a trip to Bran Castle in Transylvania (pictured), where she ate delicious food and even attended a concert
‘That happened to us on Valentine’s Day, we were waiting for Budapest in the queue for Bucharest. We never got away,” said a third.
‘Lol… my husband thought he had booked a flight to the Bahamas and found out after two hours that he was going to Bermuda instead! You are not alone!’ a fourth wrote.
The accident comes just weeks after a New York man made the mistake of booking a flight to Sidney, Montana instead of Sydney, Australia.
Kingsley Burnett had chosen to fly to the airport with code SDY instead of SYD.
“I saw the little plane with like 9 passengers and wondered ‘how is that going to get me to Australia,'” he told The New York Post.
“Then I discovered the mistake I made.”