“We got there with the boarding passes, with Jet2 on the top and Cumbria Travel at the bottom. There was a reference number and everything,” the pal said.
“We handed it in at the check-in desk but there was no record of us. We then phoned the hotel in Ibiza and they’d never heard of us.”
A Jet2 spokeswoman was sympathetic, but she said there was nothing the airline could do.
“No booking was made, so unfortunately the group were unable to travel with us as the flight was full,” she told The Sun.
A relative of one the men in Chris’s party eventually reached Rachel by phone.
“We contacted Rachel and she was adamant it was genuine. Then she offered to pay for flights there and then. After that we couldn’t get hold of her. She just vanished.”
Rachel fled with over $17,000 USD she stole from Chris’s friends, but not before she was cornered in the home she shared with Chris in North West England by the mom of one of Chris’s pals.
“My mum confronted Rachel in the home she shares with Chris across the road. She said sorry and was told she had better leave.”
Chris and his buddies posted memes mocking Rachel on Facebook.com, including a meme of a ‘Runaway Bride’ movie poster featuring Rachel’s face over Julia Roberts’.
Rachel’s grandmother Monica McKee, 81, said she washed her hands of Rachel.
“Her parents are just devastated, embarrassed and disgusted — they won’t even come out the house. We’ve all done everything for her and all she’s done is throw it back in our faces,” McKee told The Sun newspaper.
“You give her money and you don’t get it back. She even put in for a loan under my name for [$13,200 USD].
Rachel’s brother Ryan wrote on Facebook.com, “She will get what’s coming to her! She’s got no f****r now! How a person can do something like that is beyond me! Evil cow!”
Chris’s mother wrote in a Facebook post: “Thank you to his friends for being there for my son. Hopefully he will get back to that good old lad he used to be.”
Chris, who works in a nuclear plant, and Rachel, a factory worker, began dating three years ago.
He apologized profusely to his friends in a post on Facebook.
Friends say the jilted bride-to-be wanted revenge on Chris for allegedly cheating on her. But he denies cheating.
The wedding, which was to be held over the Christmas holiday in their hometown of Cleator Moor, is now canceled.
