I’ve never heard a pet ask to go on vacation, and unless you’ve been taking hallucinogenic drugs, neither have you.
To be sure, some animals must travel, such as guide dogs or pets that are moving with their owners.
But taking Fifi on vacation with you? That’s a terrible idea.
In this week’s Elliott Confidential podcast, we revisit our most spectacular failures — we call them the F-Files — and talk about our pet cases with wild endings. (Warning: This episode contains gratuitous references to cats, small dogs eating deadly Mexican street food, and pets overdosing on drugs. Listen discretion is strongly advised.)
One of our readers wanted $11,000 after something terrible happened to his cat. Another demanded all her money back for an all-inclusive vacation in Cancun after feeding her doggie Mexican street food. You can probably guess what happened next.
My perspective won’t make me popular at the dog park. But here goes, anyway: Pets don’t travel well. The travel industry isn’t built for animals, no matter what its marketing says. If you think your pet can’t survive a week without you, maybe the problem is you.
It keeps happening
The latest case to make headlines happened last month. Last month, a large dog named Bubble flew in the cargo hold of Korean Air Flight 868 from Guangzhou, China, to Incheon, South Korea.
She arrived dead in her crate.
Her owner, identified only as Jennifer, says a panel inside the crate had flipped up onto her. Korean Air says its environmental control systems worked normally throughout the flight and that the other pets on board arrived safely. Jennifer says the airline has refused to give her its footage or records.
“Korean Air, I handed you my little girl alive,” she says. “You returned her body to me.”
In February 2024, Michael Contillo paid an extra $100 per dog to keep his two French bulldogs with him in first class on an Alaska Airlines flight from New York to San Francisco. Right before takeoff, the crew moved him and his father to the main cabin “for safety purposes,” according to the lawsuit he later filed. Ash, who was almost 4, started breathing fast and hard. By the time the plane landed, the dog was in rigor mortis.
Contillo sued Alaska in October 2024. He dropped the case in January 2025.
The case most people remember happened in March 2018. A flight attendant on a United Airlines flight from Houston to New York insisted that a family put a pet carrier in the overhead bin. Inside was Kokito, a French bulldog puppy. He didn’t make it.
A necropsy later found that he suffocated. United says the attendant didn’t know a dog was in the bag. It settled with the family on undisclosed terms. That May, it banned more than 20 short-nosed and strong-jawed breeds from its cargo hold.
The federal numbers look small. U.S. airlines reported eight animal incidents to the Department of Transportation in 2025, including three deaths, four injuries and one lost animal. Alaska accounted for two of the deaths. One was Meli, a 3-year-old golden retriever flying from Honolulu to Charleston, S.C., with an overnight stop in Seattle. On Dec. 5, ramp workers found her unresponsive in her kennel before loading. The cause of death was never determined. Alaska reported no corrective action. Those figures only cover what carriers are required to report. A dog that lands alive but dehydrated and panicked doesn’t count.
Other passengers pay a price too. On Memorial Day 2025, Delta Air Lines Flight 694 from Detroit to Los Angeles diverted to Minneapolis because a dog got sick in the cabin. Its 181 passengers landed 2½ hours late. The captain told them the dog would be fine.
Your dog is luggage
If something goes wrong on an international flight, the law won’t do much for you. In 2019, a passenger’s dog escaped while workers carried it to an Iberia plane in Buenos Aires bound for Barcelona. Nobody ever found it. The passenger asked for 5,000 euros.
Iberia accepted liability but offered only the limit for checked baggage. In October 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union sided with the airline. It ruled that pets count as “baggage” under the Montreal Convention, which caps what an airline owes you for a lost bag. The only way around the cap is a special declaration of interest at check-in. Most travelers have never heard of it.
What’s in our files
Our advocacy team hears from pet owners regularly. Take the two cases from the podcast. A reader we’ll call Walt took his cat, Rajah, on a string of RV trips to see the national parks. At Zion National Park, Rajah ate something off the ground and needed a vet. A year later, he hurt his leg in a fall on a hike. A few months after that, he got sick on the drive to the Grand Canyon and needed emergency surgery. In the podcast, I’ll reveal the tragic reason Walt wanted $11,000.
A reader we’ll call Daisy flew Frontier Airlines to Cancun with her Chihuahua, which she says was her emotional support animal. The dog showed signs of a respiratory infection on the flight to Mexico but appeared fine once they landed. She kept it by her side at her all-inclusive resort and on the streets of Cancun, where she shared her street food with it. On the trip home, the dog began convulsing and vomiting. I’ll explain why Daisy wanted a full refund for her vacation in this week’s podcast.
Hotels don’t come off much better. In August, we published Terry Reilly’s story about the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa. Reilly’s wife is allergic to dogs. The resort’s website says it welcomes pets up to 40 pounds, with a limit of two per room.
Reilly found German shepherds and collies well over that limit. He saw a 100-pound Doberman in the hallway at 3 a.m. One pet soiled the carpet. The mess stayed there for 24 hours. The general manager never answered his letter. After we got involved, Westin admitted it had failed to enforce its own pet policy and refunded his $525.
Our unpublished files tell the same story.
- A family that booked a month long Airbnb in Guthrie, Okla., in July says the rental was infested with fleas. Family members came away with welts. Their pet needed $149 in veterinary care, plus $484 for a hotel quarantine during treatment. The host admitted in writing that a previous guest brought the fleas.
- A traveler from Taiwan with severe allergies and asthma booked two business-class seats on Korean Air for herself and her daughter. After an aircraft swap, the airline split them up and seated her next to a designated pet area. Korean Air’s solution was to seat them together “in the pet section.” It refused to issue a full refund.
- Cunard denied boarding to one couple because UPS lost their dog’s veterinary certificate. They put their losses at $14,000.
None of these animals should have taken a vacation. Not a one.
The industry tolerates pets and collects your money
Look at how travel companies treat animals. An airline charges you to bring a pet into the cabin. Those fees are climbing. In April 2025, Delta raised its in-cabin pet fee on U.S. flights from $95 to $150 each way, a 58% increase. American also charges $150 per kennel each way. After that, your animal is cargo to the airline and baggage to the courts.
A hotel calls itself “pet friendly,” but in practice, it often just collects a nightly fee. The Westin Hilton Head, where Reilly stayed, charges $50 a night per pet, and that fee is nonrefundable. An analysis of 1,000 pet-friendly hotels by Roch Dog, a company that certifies dog-friendly hotels, found that more than 80% charge extra for dogs. Fees ran from $50 a night to $250 a stay. Nearly a third of the hotels that charge offered two or fewer basic amenities, such as a bed or a water bowl.
Airbnb lets hosts add a pet fee as high as the nightly rate.
Allowing pets also pays. KeyData, which tracks vacation rental performance, found that pet-friendly rentals earned 24% more revenue per available night than other rentals in 2022. Then the next guest inherits the fleas.
A dog doesn’t know it’s on vacation. The animal gets a cramped carrier and hours without a bathroom. You get a photo for Instagram.
When it makes sense to bring your pet
I see two legitimate exceptions. If you’re moving, the animal has to come with you, so plan carefully. Book nonstop flights when you can and ask about that special declaration. If you rely on a trained service dog, federal law protects your right to fly with it. In 2021, the Department of Transportation stopped treating emotional support animals as service animals. That rule ended a lot of abuse.
Everyone else should leave the pet at home.
If your pet can’t live without you
Most dogs and cats do fine for a week with a good caregiver. If you can’t leave yours behind, ask who the trip is for. Usually, it’s for you. The animal pays for your vacation in stress and risk. So does the passenger in the next seat whose allergy medication wears off over the Atlantic.
The travel industry won’t take care of your pet. It’ll charge you a fee, then classify your dog as luggage. Rajah saw some of the most spectacular scenery in America. I suspect he would have traded all of it for the couch.
Sadly, that’s not possible. We’ll explain why in the podcast.
(Note: For those of you offended by this story, don’t worry — I’m working on an article about why and when you should bring your pet on vacation. I have to give the pet owners their say, after all.)
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