Christopher Elliott writes the Travel Troubleshooter column for The Miami Herald; he also writes about the travel industry for MSNBC.com and for National Geographic Traveler.
If you don't find the information you need here in his past columns, you can reach Elliott via his website at www.elliott.org.
Q: I am frustrated over how Orbitz misled me and now will not even admit to its obvious mistake. I recently booked a vacation through Orbitz at Barcelo Maya Palace in Cancun . When we arrived, we were told that we didn't have reservations. After much confusion, they told us we were supposed to be at the Barcelo Maya Beach Hotel, the oldest and lowest-rated hotel in this complex.
Q: I'm trying to get a refund for lost train tickets, and I need your help. I bought two Amtrak tickets for my sister and me to travel from Osceola, Iowa, to Denver, recently. Then I discovered that my husband, thinking that the envelope contained old information from a recent Amtrak trip I'd taken to Colorado, threw the tickets away.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
``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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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