Stupid Travel Tricks

It's a wacky world out there, what with extra fees and nothing but peanuts to give out on some airplanes. But the owners of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal Nevada brothel near Carson City, is doing the honourable thing by reimbursing its fly-in customers for any baggage or extra fees they might incur.

"As long as the airlines keep sticking it to the consumer, we feel obligated to help," Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, told Travel Weekly.

It's that sort of spirt that made American brothels great, isn't it?

I SAID OAKLAND, NOT AUCKLAND

There's a famous story in aviation circles about a guy who departed Los Angeles for what he thought was Oakland, California and wondered why he was still looking at ocean after three hours in the air. Turns out he was winging his way west to Auckland, New Zealand, and for sure someone at the L.A. airport had some 'splaining to do about that one.

The San Francisco Chronicle the other day printed a series of similar incidents where passengers screwed up their tickets (oh, the joys of late-night Internet booking) and found themselves in unexpected places. One chap from Germany thought he was going to Sydney, Australia and ended up in Sidney, Montana. He had to wait three days in Billings, Montana to get a flight out, and their opera house apparently isn't all that hot.

Another traveller, a female sculptor from Argentina, thought she was headed to the Sydney down under but ended up in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Rather than head out, however, she spent a week enjoying the Maritimes, and I say good for her.

Wonder if others have made similar mistakes and ended up in Hamilton, Ontario instead of Hamilton, Bermuda. I don't think commercial airlines fly into Kingston, Ontario or else someone looking for a sun holiday in January in Jamaica surely would've screwed that up.