Couple Book The Wrong Airport In A Plan For A Dream Holiday to Las Vegas

Richella Heekin spent $2500 on the Las Vegas birthday surprise for boyfriend Ben Marlow.

A couple booked a trip of a lifetime to Las Vegas, only to discover at the check-in counter they had selected the wrong airport.

The couple showed up at Birmingham Airport in England and couldn't see their flight on the departure board.

They quickly realised their tickets were for Birmingham, Alabama in the US.

Richella Heekin had been saving for two years to pay for the surprise £1200 ($2500) holiday for boyfriend Ben Marlow's 30th birthday.

Richella's face has just gone red and she's in tears.

"I was like - we're not going to Vegas then. I was more gutted for Richella than myself because it was a surprise."

Heekin said the error occurred after "doing a lot of clicking" on booking site lastminute.com.

She did not realise the BHM code on her ticket was referring to Alabama's airport. BHX is the airport code for the English city.

The couple used a credit card to purchase two last-minute flights to Amsterdam in the Netherlands instead.

But since the pair attracted worldwide media attention for their blunder, Virgin Holidays has stepped in to provide the couple with free flights and a five-night stay in Vegas.

Airport mix-ups are not uncommon.

Last year Ghanaian man Emmanuel Akomanyi was attempting to travel to Guyana on South America's Caribbean coast, but when he got off at the other end he was in the Brazilian city of Goiania - almost 3000km away from where he needed to go.

In 2014, US dentist Edward Gamson sued British Airways after he booked first-class tickets to Granada in Spain, but ended up in Grenada, the Caribbean island.

- A woman who wanted to travel to Dakar, Senegal, ended up in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

- An 85-year-old woman ended up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after she booked a Southwest Airlines flight to Fort Myers, Florida because of an airline error.

- A VietJet airplane that took off from Hanoi landed at Da Lat airport, 140km away from Cam Ranh Airport, where it was supposed to be.

- A Southwest Airlines plane landed at a small airport in Taney County, Missouri, approximately 12km from where it was meant to land at Branson Airport. Taney County had a much shorter runway and the plane had to brake hard to stop before the end.

- A 21-year-old American student found himself on a plane to Auckland, when he just wanted to get to Oakland, California. He blamed it on the Kiwi accent: ""They didn't say Auckland. They said Oakland. They talk different."