Enjoy the government’s new airfare rule. It might not last.
BILL
Chris Benzinger has a problem with National Car Rental. The company sent him a surprise repair bill, but it isn’t telling him what he did to deserve it.
It’s not your imagination. Congress seems to be paying closer attention to travelers’ welfare.
The Halloween weekend stranding of more than 1,000 airline passengers at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, Conn., brought the tarmac delay activists out in full force again, pushing for new laws that they claim would prevent lengthy ground delays.
Jeffrey Grim can’t make a connection in Brussels because of an error made by his online travel agency. In order to fix the problem, he racks up $378 in phone bills. Should the company cover his expenses?
Months after Dan Anthony’s truck rental, he gets a repair bill for $750. But he didn’t do it, and now the car rental company is threatening to refer his case to a collections agency if he doesn’t pay up. What are his options?
It’s been a while since the last missing hotel reservation case, and here’s one with an interesting twist: The booking was made through an airline website.
The Copacabana Palace Hotel and Spa has a reputation as one of the finest resorts in the southern hemisphere. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced through its Art Deco halls and the Rolling Stones tuned up in its grand salon before their concert on the beach, according to the hotel.
Carla Dorsey didn’t order the optional insurance on her Avis rental car in Tampa. But her car rental company charged her for it, anyway. Now it won’t refund the money, insisting she signed a contract. Is Avis right?
Nancy Westcott’s rental through Enterprise does not go well. She’s handed the keys to a junky car and then she’s accused of damaging it when she returns it. Now the company wants $775 from her. What can she do?
Resort fees. Mandatory tips. Concierge surcharges. If you’ve stayed at a hotel in the last few years, you’ve become accustomed — if not anesthetized — to these annoying extras. You expect them. You’re indifferent to them when they appear on your bill. You shouldn’t be.
Here’s a problem that would seem easy to fix on paper, but is much more difficult in practice: Last summer, Anthony Buono began getting bills from Enterprise for toll violations. Bills he didn’t recognize. And for good reason — they weren’t his.
When Best Western bills Angela Williams-McGill twice for the same night, she incurs a bank overdraft fee and then waits months for a refund. But the hotel never pays her back, and all she has to show for her efforts is a claim number. Is there anything she could have done to prevent this? And what about the refund?
When it comes to “gotcha” fees, the cellular phone industry makes travel companies look like rank amateurs.
Sonalika Rungta’s recent Bermuda cruise on the Norwegian Gem was hardly a treasured memory. At the end of her vacation, NCL presented her with two bills: one for the cabin she’d bought through a travel agency and another for the stateroom she accidentally bought through the cruise line’s Web site. Does she have to pay both?
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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