Wowcher has issued a tongue-in-cheek offer code to apologise to the city of Cardiff after a person received a fake text saying that their holiday in Thailand had been relocated to the Welsh capital. In a now-deleted Tweet, a Twitter user shared screenshots of a text with the caption "mates had a shocker."
The screenshot appeared to show a text in which her friend was initially offered a holiday to Thailand on Wowcher's Mystery Holiday deal, where punters can try their luck on a hotel stay for £99 or £129, finding out the location after they book. However, a subsequent text said: "Please discard the previous message. There has been an error in processing the Draw. Your destination is Cardiff. Please expect details in the following 24 hours."
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It looked like this holidaymaker's plans had been turned on their head - instead of exploring the colourful markets of Bangkok, they'd be doing their holiday shopping in St David's Centre. Of course there's actually plenty to do in Cardiff, but it's not quite as exotic a holiday as they were first promised.
Other Twitter users were quick to share their thoughts - with one pointing out that the Twitter user's friend should be happy at the chance to pay Chippy Lane a visit, while another just said: "Upgrades, people. Upgrades."
However, others pointed out that it looked like a fake, citing some grammar errors and a visible mobile phone number in the message. Soon after, the Tweet was taken down.
It never became clear whether the person in the screenshots was being scammed, or just playing the rest of Twitter for fools with a cleverly crafted fake message. However, Wowcher did respond to try to regain any love lost with the city of Cardiff.
A spokesperson said: "While these texts are fake (we actually contact customers via email with their destination, and also sadly Cardiff is not on our list of destinations which you can see here), we are now offering shoppers 10% off our Mystery Holiday till the end of today with code SORRYCARDIFF!"
Wowcher's real list of locations includes some glamorous getaways in Barbados, Dubai and New York - but there's just a six in 1,000 chance of landing them. The more commonly offered locations tend to be city breaks in mainland Europe including Paris, Sofia, Seville and Hamburg. Booking is currently open for breaks between September 2022 and July 2023, and bookings include flights. The SORRYCARDIFF code works until the end of Thursday, August 11.
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