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Comment by Hamuko | Hacker News Reader

Same thing happens with Frankfurt. If I order something from Amazon.de, my package usually goes through Frankfurt. When I checked my package tracker app on my iPhone, I was surprised to find out that Frankfurt is actually on the Germany-Poland border.

Turns out that if I enter "Frankfurt, Germany" into Apple Maps (which I assume is what the package tracker app does), it takes me to "Frankfurt (Oder), Germany" instead of "Frankfurt am Main, Germany".

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My company (based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) had an online business travel reservation system which helpfully pre-filled the starting point of all new trips to Frankfurt, Kentucky (which is not even the right spelling of the city).

I filed a request to NOT pre-fill the starting city to a place in Kentucky and got a polite but firm reply that this was the default list provided by the 3rd party online booking engine and cannot be customized. Sigh.

You might need to politely but firmly ask them to escalate this with the 3rd party provider, especially depending on your footing and monthly spends

According to Wikipedia Frankfort, KY doesn't even have an airport so this is a double whammy of stupid on the part of the 3rd party

I had forgotten about this until just now but it wasn't so long ago that the Virgin Atlantic (a London, England-based airline) would autocomplete "London" (vs LHR) to "East London, South Africa" in the origin field despite them not flying there. That annoyed me around once a week when I used to fly a lot more.

If you ever cross the border from Frankfurt/Oder, the first thing you see in Poland is a giant Amazon building. Despite that building being there, Polish people still can't order at Amazon.

> Polish people still can't order at Amazon.

That is not true. Amazon.de is even available in Polish, with free shipping for €39+ orders.

We can order from amazon.de, it even offers localized UI and (poorly auto-translated) product descriptions.

But yes, I think it's likely that an order from amazon.de goes trough Frankfurt am Oder, as it probably originated from one of many Amazon warehouses in Poland.

Polish people (in fact, people all over the world) can order on Amazon.de, they just can't get the same shipping rates that German customers get.

Ah yes, this is funny, because shipment from a warehouse in Poland to a customer in Germany, placing an order on amazon.de is considered "local", while shipment from this same warehouse to a customer in Poland is "international".

Before COVID there were rumors that Amazon may officially enter Polish market this year with state-owned Polish Post as the local shipping partner.

Fun etymology fact: Both Frankfurts get their name from a simple description of the same thing, which they both are instances of: settlements adjacent to a Frankish river ford (place where the river is shallow enough to cross without a bridge). The English "ford" and German "Furt" come from the same root; hence Francoford / Franken-Furt / Frankfurt. The "an der Oder" (at the Oder) and "am Main" (at the Main) suffixes are clarifications to describe which river is involved.

A similar thing happened with some football fans that made it to "Frankfurt (Oder)" instead of "Frankfurt am Main" for the Europa League's semifinals.

Judging from the published pictures [0], it looks like Google Maps may lead to the same result as Apple Maps for "Frankfurt".

[0] https://talksport.com/football/529808/benfica-fan-wrong-fran...

Searching for "Frankfurt, Germany" in Google Maps shows me Frankfurt am Main now at least. Hard to say if that's been changed at some point.

I remember Deutsche Bahn's website used to do the same with Freiburg and Freiburg im Breisgau. Almost made that mistake once.

It's a massive difference. Frankfurt am Main is one of the largest cities in Germany. Frankfurt (Oder) has a population of 50000. You seldom refer to Frankfurt (Oder).

Haha! I actually flew into the wrong airport because of this. The two airports are about two hours apart by car.

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