TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Charged for room I canceled

Q: My daughter and I had reservations at the Ramada St. Cloud last spring. We had a blizzard and no unnecessary travel was advised. The roads were almost impassable.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

A typo on my airline ticket

Q: I recently bought tickets to Italy by calling Expedia. I spelled my wife's first name to the agent. That afternoon we left town for a trip. When we returned the tickets were at the front door and a confirmation e-mail was waiting. My wife's first name was spelled Crista instead of Christa.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Help! My online travel agent is AWOL

Q: I've been having some problems with an airline reservation, and was wondering if you could help me. I recently had to cancel a reservation I had made through Travelocity. I spent eight hours on the phone with their incompetent customer service agents trying to use the credit I received to reschedule another flight on the same airline.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Half a room or twice the price

Q: I hope you can help me persuade Marriott to live up to its commitment. My wife and I are being relocated to the Washington area for her work. I found a room at the Residence Inn at Dulles Airport with a two-bedroom unit for $149 per night.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Half a room or twice the price

Q: I just returned from London, where I had a reservation at the Park Hotel. I had booked the room through Hotwire.com, and was very disappointed with the way things turned out.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Where's my travel insurance check?

Q: I'm having a problem with a travel insurance claim. We went on a Celebrity cruise to the Mediterranean more than a year ago. Luckily, we all paid premiums for hospitalization insurance, because I became deathly ill with bronchitis requiring trips to sick bay to see the doctors, who administered breathing treatments, antibiotics and a chest X-ray.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Still waiting for my refund

Q: I'm having some refund trouble with an airline, and need your help. Last year I had to cancel a Lufthansa flight I had booked through Expedia because of a death in my family. The ticket cost $303. When I told my travel agency the reason for canceling the trip, it gave me a list of documentation necessary for a refund.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

A not-so-magical Disney vacation

Q: I need your help with a Disney vacation that turned out to be a disaster. My family of four joined my sister's family and our mother at Walt Disney World recently. Even though we were on the same reservation -- called a ''Grand Gathering'' by Disney -- one of our rooms was far away from us, down the hall at the Wilderness Lodge.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Uh-oh! Optional car rental insurance isn't

Q: My husband and I rented a car in Croatia through AutoEurope and Hertz, but things didn't turn out like we planned. The price of the car was supposed to include all mandatory insurance, but when we arrived at the Hertz counter in Zagreb, an agent refused to give us the car unless I paid an extra $207 for insurance that was listed as ''optional'' on the rental agreement. We were told that if we did not purchase it, we would not get the car. I would have appealed to a manager, but she was the manager...

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Help! My rental company ran out of cars

Q: I have a car rental predicament and need your help. My friend and I recently reserved a car through Dollar Rent A Car in Austin, Texas using Hotwire.com. We were quoted a rate of $37 per day. We arrived a week after a hurricane had hit Texas, only to find that they'd given away all their cars.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

A canceled cruise, a missing refund

Q: We're having a problem with a travel insurance claim, and need some help sorting it out. We recently booked a European river cruise through Grand Circle Travel. Since my husband and I are both over 80 years old, we were interested in a trip cancellation policy, in case we couldn't make it. We called and spoke with a Grand Circle representative to clarify that their insurance would cover us. We were assured that we would receive a full refund if a cancellation were necessary. His exact words were...

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Charged twice for my Cayman Islands hotel

Q: We've been ripped off royally by an Internet travel agency, and need your help. My husband and I took a trip to Grand Cayman a few months ago for our fifth anniversary.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Now that's a change fee!

Q: We recently bought five tickets for a family vacation in Tanzania through Cheapoair.com, an online travel agency. A few months later, we found out our daughter would be starting a new job and couldn't make the trip with us. So we phoned Cheapoair to cancel our reservation.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Forced to buy another airline ticket

Q: I recently bought airline tickets to Europe on Expedia. The first leg of my flight was on US Airways, and the second leg was on Iberia.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Is my insurance claim lost in translation?

Q: I am having a difficult time collecting a claim for a trip insurance policy. My husband and I bought a policy through Access America for a trip to China. It covered trip interruption and medical expenses, among other things.

Downgraded without a refund

Q: I'm having a problem with an involuntary downgrade. I bought a ticket on Virgin Atlantic Airways last March to fly from New York to London in premium economy class. When I arrived at the airport, Virgin canceled my flight but rebooked me on the next flight out on British Airways. When I was issued my new ticket, it was in economy class. I tried to explain I should've been booked in the same class -- in this case, World Traveller Plus -- but British Airways wanted to charge me extra for it.

Hotel alternatives that could save you big bucks

There's probably no better way of pinching your vacation pennies than sleeping on a friend's sofa or camping out. But you don't have to rough it to afford your next getaway.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

My valet got a parking ticket -- now what?

Q: I'm having a problem with a hotel's valet parking service, and could use a little help. We recently stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in San Francisco. We valet parked our rental car and didn't pick it up until the next day.

Airfare Absurdity: 6 tips for navigating the new world of airline tickets

The round-trip airfare from Madison, Wis., to London is a reasonable $305 on American Airlines -- until you add taxes, fees and fuel surcharges. Then it's $691.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Deconstructing my honeymoon in Aruba

Q: My fiance and I booked our honeymoon at the Westin Aruba through a travel agent. At the time we made our reservations, we knew the hotel was undergoing some renovations in its lobby.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Is my cruise refund really sunk?

Q: I'm looking for help with what should be an easy refund. A few years ago we gave Princess Cruises a $200 deposit. The credit was valid for four years from the date of issue and the payment was made on a Capitol One credit card.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

A few points short of a ticket

Q: I recently found an American Express Business Gold Rewards credit card deal that promised that if I applied and spent $1,000 by a certain date, I would have enough points for a domestic airline ticket.

Microblogging madness: Changing travel one tweet at a time

``There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people.'' Those words, hastily typed on Janis Krums' iPhone just after US Airways flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River last month, marked yet another milestone in the microblogging revolution. Krums, a Sarasota, Fla., entrepreneur, posted his observations and a compelling photo (http://twitpic.com/135xa) of a half-submerged aircraft to Twitter (www.twitter.com), where it was seen by hundreds of people before any other media...

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Caught in the opt-out trap

Q: I have a question about travel insurance that I bought online when I booked airline tickets. Actually, I didn't mean to buy the insurance. I was on the Frontier Airlines website, and there was a little box that was automatically checked that indicated I wanted to pay an extra $10.95 for travel insurance.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

Paid for a permit that's no good

Q: I paid $15 for an International Driving Permit from AAA for a recent trip to Grenada. According to the travel agency, it should have been recognized as a valid document for driving. Unfortunately, when I arrived in Grenada, I was required to purchase a Grenadian driving permit because they wouldn't honor the AAA document.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

A stalled rental and a refund denied

Q: Can you help me get my money back for a rental car? I recently prepaid for a car in Vancouver through Priceline using my debit card. But when I checked in at the Avis counter, I was told that I couldn't get a car because I didn't have a credit card. I had notified Priceline that I didn't have a card when I made my reservation.

Verboten Vacations: 9 reasons forbidden is ''in'' this year

When it comes to travel, forbidden is in. Cuba, Iran and North Korea -- long off-limits to most American visitors -- might be added to the ''allowed'' list under an Obama administration. Other destinations that were considered too dangerous or hostile to Americans are becoming fashionable again, as travelers jettison boring ''staycations'' for something more exotic.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

My room rate just tripled!

Q: I recently booked two rooms at the Best Eastern Sovietsky Hotel in Moscow for three nights by phone through Expedia. The total price per room was confirmed at $839, or about $279 a night.

9 Essential travel strategies for 2009

We're traveling down an uncertain road next year. Buckle up. ''This kind of reminds me of the old sea maps from the 1300s that showed a coastline with the caption which read, `Here be Monsters,''' says Patrick Douglas, the chief executive of Shark Diver, a tour operator in San Diego, Calif. ``Trying to forecast this thing using any models from the past 20 years will be useless.''