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.
I’m sorry to hear about your brother-in-law, and glad he made it. Like other airlines, American rarely makes exceptions to its rules on nonrefundable tickets. The only time it consistently does so, in my experience, is when a passenger dies.
Let me state my bias up front: Smoking should not be allowed in a hotel room. Ever. Unfortunately, at the time you stayed in your hotel, Florida state law permitted smoking. But a look at the Days Inn site also showed that the room type you booked also said your room would be “nonsmoking,” which led you to conclude you wouldn’t have to inhale trace amounts of carcinogens as you slept.
I’m glad you’re feeling better. Carnival was correct to take you off the ship and seek medical treatment. Trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to take your chances in a Mexican hospital, which may — or may not — have the same level of care as an American medical facility.
I’m so sorry for your loss. Airlines routinely refund even nonrefundable tickets when passengers die. But your request came during the last part of the merger between Continental Airlines and United Airlines, and it involved switching to a different reservation system for the company. So, while the representatives you repeatedly contacted may have wanted to transfer the name on your deceased husband’s ticket to yours, it may have been difficult, if not impossible.
Your travel agency was both wrong — and right.
I’m sorry to hear things aren’t working out with your travel agent. A destination wedding is probably one of the most important vacations of your life, so you want everything to be perfect. That’s why you use a travel agent to make arrangements.
Well, you had me with the employee and the flashlight. That’s too much. Unless part of the undercarriage somehow came loose and was dragging on the floor — and after reading the bill, I can tell you it wasn’t — then this would have made my scam alert go off. Big time.
If Hotels.com said taxes on your rental car were included, then they should have been included, of course. You sent me a copy of your confirmation, and sure enough — they were.
If Expedia sold you an oceanview room, then you should have received an oceanview room or a refund of the difference between an oceanview and a standard room.
What a mess. United shouldn’t have charged your mother another $869, but after reviewing your itinerary, it shouldn’t have billed you for a $150 change fee, either.
You should have received a full refund, as promised. The fact that you had booked your ticket though an online travel agency shouldn’t matter. That just adds one extra layer, with the airline refunding your agency, and then your agency sending the money back to you.
Some of the most hotly debated cases I mediate are pricing errors — a fare or rate where a decimal point went astray — but I’d never come across a complaint where a discount had been withdrawn after a trip.
I’m sorry to hear about your circumstances. When you called US Airways, it should have shown more compassion toward your situation and considered extending the life of your award miles.
AutoEurope’s voucher should have worked. But instead of taking the next rental, you should have contacted AutoEurope immediately and asked it to fix the problem with Hertz. That way, this misunderstanding could have been avoided.
Your credit should still be good. But how can you know if it is?
If you booked your vacation directly through the cruise line, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t offer a full credit.
You’re right, Hotwire’s terms are restrictive. But there’s a tradeoff: In exchange for not knowing the exact name and location of the hotel, and giving up your right to a refund, you’re supposed to get a deep discount at a brand-name hotel.
Wow, that’s two Dollar cases in two weeks. Are we going for a record here? This one was mishandled from start to finish.
Dollar should have notified you of any cleaning charges when you returned the car, not as a surprise on your credit card bill almost three weeks later. Even if Dollar suspected that you’d smoked a pipe next to your Great Pyrenees after a long day of hiking in the desert, it should have notified you promptly of the cleaning fee and offered evidence of your allegedly messy ways.
Your refund should have been processed promptly. Not in six to eight week or six to eight months. The process should have taken about as long as it took Palace to remove the money from your credit card — that would be roughly six to eight seconds.
Expedia should have sent you a $50 gas card that worked, as promised. But the online travel agency did you no favors by telling you it would send you a gas card without also informing you of the terms.
You’re right, there’s something fundamentally unfair about airline change fees. If an airline can resell the ticket, why should you have to pay for the change?
Something wasn’t right with your tickets. If your reservations had been connected, then you would have been able to continue your flight without being charged more by Air France.
You shouldn’t have been charged 200 euros for your checked bag. That may have been the Air France policy, but you were flying on KLM, and as you say, its rules were different.
I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s condition. At a time like this, United should show some compassion — or, at the very least, be consistent in its responses to you.
National shouldn’t have charged you for damage if it agreed to drop the matter. But you could have ensured that the matter would stay dropped with a few simple precautions.
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