What to do when you need more than travel insurance
If you’ve shopped around for travel insurance, maybe you’ve stumbled across something that looks a lot like insurance, works a lot like insurance, but isn’t quite insurance.
Commentary
Elliott Advocacy is a nonprofit organization that mediates cases between consumers and businesses. These are commentary articles that detail our efforts and provide educational information for consumers.
Hotels offer perks if you book direct. But should you?
Skip your travel agent and those comparison booking sites. That’s what more hotels want you to do, and they’re pulling out all the stops to persuade you to do it.
But should you?
Check out these sites for objective travel insurance information
Elaine Karlson is planning a vacation to Cooperstown, N.Y., to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and to watch her grandson compete in a baseball game. And she’s worried.
First, there’s the price difference between the refundable airline tickets and the nonrefundable ones — the refundable ones are three times as expensive. There’s also the question of what to do if she and her husband have to cancel.
Instead of paying extra for the less restricted ticket, she’s considering travel insurance.
Treated badly by the TSA? Get in line
TSA agents are getting ruder, and it’s time to do something about it. So say an increasing number of air travelers, citing their own experiences of being harassed and harangued by the screeners who are supposed to be helping them.
Kicked off my cruise for peeing near the pool
When Karen Del Zoppo’s husband suffered a heart attack two years ago, he sustained severe anoxic brain damage, which left him with the mental state and motor skills of a two-year-old.
Del Zoppo didn’t want that to stop the family from enjoying a vacation. As a registered nurse, she’s more than capable of caring for her mentally handicapped husband. So she recently booked a getaway for the couple and her brother and sister-in-law — a western Mediterranean cruise that left from Venice, Italy.
Review this! Travelers fed up with solicitations
Is it my imagination, or are travel companies getting pushier?
The come-ons include repeated invitations to return to a hotel or restaurant, high-pressure pitches to “like” a company’s Facebook account and urgent requests for positive online reviews. As summer vacations fade into memory, the aggressiveness has never been more obvious.
Excuse me, your vacation rental is missing some amenities
If you rented a vacation home this summer, you probably have a story like Michelle Lawson’s. She has lost count of the times she has checked into an apartment, only to find that it’s lacking something important, such as towels, soap, a working dishwasher or an Internet connection.
Here are the best travel insurance policies
What are the best travel insurance companies? That’s easy: I list them in my annual Readers’ Choice Awards.
The best policies? That’s not easy.
When you hear these words, run!
You can always cancel.
Those are the four most dangerous words a consumer can hear.
They’re often preceded by: “Don’t worry!”
Why do these gift cards keep disappearing?
Did you hear about the guy who ordered a gift card that didn’t work? When he tried to exchange it, the company told him to get lost.
True story. How do I know? Because it’s my story.