For most travelers the middle seat is a contact sport, and winter coats make the squeeze worse. One pilot says your brain reads it as confinement and flips on fight-or-flight for the whole flight. There are ways to win anyway.
Minutes after Howard Gross picked up his Alamo rental in Nice, a tire warning light came on. An agent checked the tires and called it a false alarm. A week later a tire went flat. Alamo charged his card $752.
Vacationing in a French château is a cliché, so when the Château de Candes became a wellness resort, its owners set out to be nothing like everyone else. The spa sits in caves once used to dry prunes for market.
Tony Rogozinski called StubHub to cancel his concert ticket listing before selling the tickets to someone else. The agent said no further action was needed. The listing stayed live, the tickets sold on StubHub, and the site billed him $864.
Cindy Woodring booked a 10-day cruise at $479 a person, applied a credit, and paid in full. Her confirmation said paid. Three days later, Holland America said the fare was an error and wanted $1,530 more, or she could cancel.
Jerry Auer checked StubHub’s seating map, saw his section next to the stage, and paid $506 for concert tickets. The map was flipped. He had bought seats behind the stage. He reported it, and a representative hung up on him.
At baggage claim in Melbourne, Virgin Australia delivered everything but my son’s purple rollaboard. Its system showed the bag scanned at origin and destination, then it vanished. That is when I learned tracking a bag and delivering it are different.
Remember the 2025 rule that was supposed to kill resort fees? A year on, the first number you see for a US hotel is mostly the number you pay. Readers still find them on folios, and abroad they never left.
You can negotiate a room rate, skip the minibar, maybe talk your way out of a resort fee. But you cannot negotiate a tax. It is the one charge on your bill with no say, and no one explains it.
Omer Malik always books a low floor, for safety, not the view. His confirmation said king, low floor. He arrived late to be told he was on a higher floor, in a twin. Elite members get a guaranteed room type.
