Kerry Drake’s mother was dying. She’d suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for decades and the drugs used to treat her condition had decimated her immune system. One morning his brother called him to say her time had come. Drake caught the next United Airlines flight from San Francisco, where he works for the federal government, to Lubbock, Texas, via Houston.
Here’s a question that’s crossed every airline passenger’s mind at least once: Why is it so hard to get the airline seat assignment you want?
Beth Shadur wants to know. She doesn’t like the aisle seat. So when she flew from Chicago to New York recently, her husband, an elite-level frequent flier, tried to find her a window seat.
Rob Katz is always on the move. When I met him, he seemed to be in perpetual motion. “Hi, nice to meet you — see you later,” he said in a single breath. I hardly had a chance to respond.
After Hurricane Harvey ripped through Texas and Louisiana last August, inflicting a record $125 billion in damages, residents braced for a second storm: a wave of disaster insurance scams.
Temecula may be one of California’s best-known wine regions, but I’ll always remember it for something else: the fresh fruit we harvested on a recent visit to this out-of-the-way Southern California destination. That’s right, we saw the horde of tourists go one way, and we went in the other direction.
Just in case you’re wondering, you can’t negotiate your Hotwire discount after you click confirm.
Eden Benbow found that out the hard way when she recently booked a Hotwire “blind” deal. Once Hotwire revealed the name of her hotel and the rate, she discovered she hadn’t gotten such a good deal. And she asked Hotwire to do better.
Sunita Gupta’s husband makes a detour to the ER shortly before his Virgin Atlantic flight. She cancels their tickets but must pay $850 to reschedule a future flight to a random date. What are the chances of a refund?
And now, as they say, for something completely different. Since we’ve been talking about travel and manners recently, one reader has brought up one of the most controversial subjects in the travel industry: diapers in pools.
Jay Makda has a blacklisted Samsung phone. What does that mean, and why won’t Samsung give him a refund?
Did a United Airlines flight attendant kill a passenger’s dog? After the latest airline animal incident, which involved a puppy thoughtlessly stuffed into an overhead compartment, that’s what our readers are asking.
