When Molly Todd tried to secure seat assignments for a recent US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Cancun, Mexico, she made a disappointing discovery.
reservation
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?
Christianna Kreiss thought she would be flying to India with her family a few weeks ago. Instead, she spent hours in Pittsburgh, trying to sort out a messy airline reservation that involved Air Canada, Lufthansa and Orbitz.
Meryl Lee Seewald thought she was booking just one night at the Holiday Inn Miami International Airport. Instead, she booked eight.
John Koehn planned his cross-country trip from Washington to Medford, Ore., with his wife and three-month-old daughter carefully. He booked their flight a year in advance to make sure they could sit together.
The email from the Hotel Solamar in San Diego came as a “complete shock” to Barb Staigerwald on a recent Saturday morning. Her reservations for a convention in July had suddenly been canceled without explanation.
Refund cases are in a class by themselves, when it comes to frustration, but this one probably deserves its own category. It comes to us by way of Ann Vaninetti, who recently took a cruise with her husband, Dave, in Brazil.
A few weeks ago, Bob Johnson got an email from a US Airways employee that began, “They’re at it again.”
Mary is an in-house reservation agent for an upscale, full-service hotel in a major American city. I’m not using her last name for reasons that will become obvious in a moment. Mary has a lot on her mind. People who call her hotel to reserve a room are getting ripped off, and she wants to [...]
Nancy Schmuhl thought she’d paid for her American Airlines tickets. But the airline had one last bill for her: A $20,000 invoice for “certain fraudulent bookings” she is alleged to have made.
Jim Stewart’s trip was a disaster before he even left for the airport. When he tried to reserve a package vacation through Expedia, the price mysteriously went up. He made another reservation, tried to cancel it, rebooked another one and — you guessed it — ended up with two reservations for the same trip.
And now, a follow-up to yesterday’s post about reservation change fees. Passengers are upset about these surcharges, which often reduce the value of their ticket credit to just a few dollars. Airline apologists call the fees a “proven revenue model” that will continue for as long as people fly.
Technology can be a helpful tool for the traveler, or it can be the tool of the devil. In Cindy Lammert’s case, it’s definitely the latter. Her recent online booking at the Sofitel Munich Bayerpost through the Accor site got so screwed up that no phone calls or emails could fix it.
Sarah Steffen thought she was making a routine call to Dollar to add a child seat to her confirmed car rental. But the company had some bad news for her: it didn’t have a seat for her — or a car.

Elliott is consumer advocate
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