Granada roots tour routed to Grenada
American dentist who wanted to connect with his Sephardic heritage seeks $34,000 damages from British Airways over botched vacation due to transposed letter
Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.
A spelling error can really ruin an entire vacation. Just ask Edward Gamson, an American dentist of Sephardic ancestry who is suing British Airways for flying him to the Caribbean island nation of Grenada instead of to Granada, Spain.
Gamson received apologies from British Airways and promises to fly him and his partner right back to London and on to Spain. But in the end, the couple endured a three-day ordeal and never actually did make it to the city that was once a great center of Jewish learning and culture, and which the Moors referred to as “Granada of the Jews.”
“I have a lifelong interest in Islamic art. I’m also of Spanish Jewish heritage so it was something I had always wanted to do to visit Granada and the Alhambra. I made it absolutely clear to the booking agent I wanted to go to Granada in Spain,” the Maryland dentist told The Independent.
“Why on earth would I want to go to Grenada in the Caribbean if I was flying back to America from Lisbon?”
‘Why on earth would I want to go to Grenada in the Caribbean if I was flying back to America from Lisbon?’
Gamson is suing the airline in a US court for $34,000 in damages, after it refused to refund the $4,508 cost of the couple’s first-class tickets.
He alleges a British Airways booking agent in Miami made the mistake. According to his legal complaint, the tickets he was issued said only “Grenada”—without destination code, country, or flight duration. A mention of the 9-hour flying time (from London to Grenada) would have presumably tipped Gamson off to the mix up before boarding the flight.
It seems British Airways has replaced an ‘a’ with an ‘e’ before. While the airline is fighting Gamson’s claims, it did offer a refund to a British woman who had wanted to visit Granada, but also found herself in Grenada instead.
