What's the book corporate America doesn't want you to read? Find out now -- or you could get scammed.

February 2010

For the same reason people go to a car race (to see a fiery crash) or a hockey game (bare-knuckled fight) Shamu Stadium was packed to the gills for the 12:30 p.m. show Sunday, on Shamu’s second day on the job after the unfortunate incident in which he killed his trainer. Everyone wanted to see if something would happen.

28 comments

Accidents happen when you travel. The bad accidents — the fender-benders, the missed airline connections the unfortunate food-borne illnesses — are the ones that come to mind first, of course.

6 comments

Now you see it. Now you don’t. When you’re airfare shopping, attractive prices can vanish in a split second.

18 comments

When Stephanie Farrow books a nonrefundable hotel room through Priceline, she’s promised a four-star property. She ends up with a three-star and when she complains, she’s given the runaround. Is her lost star a lost cause?

11 comments

Everyone knows airline refunds can take a long time. But how long is too long? A month? Three months? Six months?

18 comments

How long should you wait for a refund? Plus, a failure to launch, and TSA cracks down on Good Samaritans.

Be the first to comment

Glenn Cox had planned a trip to Orlando to watch the next Space Shuttle launch, but when liftoff was postponed, he found himself holding a hotel reservation with some surprise restrictions. His room at Orlando Airport SpringHill Suites by Marriott was completely nonrefundable, to be exact.

45 comments

After my recent luggage standoff with an American Airlines gate agent in Orlando, which ended with her threatening to charge me $100 to check my regulation-size bags on my return flight, a lot of you have asked me how the journey home went.

55 comments

If you’re unlucky enough to have a medical emergency on a plane, your flight attendants are trained to help. Same thing goes for other public places, like restaurants and schools. But an internal memo circulated to employees at one airport suggests the TSA would rather you take your heart attack elsewhere.

44 comments

It happened in Beaver Creek

February 23, 2010

Two feet of fresh snow in 48 hours? Put it all together in a resort like Beaver Creek, Colo., and you have two of the best days of skiing I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve skied in a lot of places.

3 comments

Amazing Race for Regular People – Competitours is a team travel competition as your vacation! 17 teams accomplish fun, quirky challenges on a mystery European itinerary with $9,000 in prizes at stake. No auditions, no extreme stunts, no eliminations, so anyone can play! Check out Competitours now. Here’s the online version of Elliott’s E-Mail. If [...]

Be the first to comment

Looks like Palm Coast Travel has company. Florida regulators have filed charges against three more travel agencies as part of their expanding probe of unlicensed insurance offered through defunct Prime Travel Protection.

23 comments

Here’s a pick-me-up story for a Monday morning: Penny Parrish’s niece bought a roundtrip ticket to Florida to visit her ailing father late last year, but when he died and she asked to return home early, JetBlue Airways charged her a ticket change fee. Parrish’s niece is deaf, so she suspects there may have been [...]

26 comments

Got a travel problem? Just tweet about your troubles, and the airline, car rental company or hotel will fix it. At least that’s the conventional wisdom. And while it’s true that travel companies are spending a lot of time online listening to their customers, they’re not necessarily paying attention to all of us.

1 comment

As self-described “adventurous grandparents,” Trevor and Jean Broome had been looking forward to their upcoming trip to Costa Rica, which included diving, hiking, snorkeling and whitewater rafting.

34 comments