Orbitz canceled my flight by mistake. Am I stuck with the $3,400 bill?
What if Orbitz made a mistake and canceled your return flight home from vacation, leaving you stranded abroad?
Michelle Couch-Friedman
Consumer reporter and ombudsman columnist
Lufthansa lost all my luggage! Will Blue Ribbon Bags help me?
Before her recent Lufthansa flight to Hamburg, Kate Griffin purchased a Platinum lost luggage protection plan from Blue Ribbon Bags. That plan provides a $1,500 lump payment if an insured bag goes missing and can’t be located within 96 hours.
So when she landed in Germany but her two suitcases didn’t, Kate figured she was covered. She quickly filed a lost luggage report with Lufthansa and Blue Ribbon Bags and then waited.
Those 96 hours came and went, but Lufthansa failed to locate her lost luggage. So why did Blue Ribbon reject her $3,000 claim for the two missing bags?
Hertz made a big mistake and charged me $750 extra! I need help
Shannon Mikus says Hertz made a big mistake during her recent car rental. She says the company charged her nearly $750 extra, and she can prove it. So why won’t anyone at Hertz acknowledge this outrageous error and refund her cash?
Could you be convinced to buy a $19,800 diamond on your Caribbean cruise?
Kathy Hoffath says she was convinced to buy a $16,000 diamond at Diamonds International during her Royal Caribbean cruise. Unhappy with that diamond, she exchanged it for a larger, more expensive one in Cozumel. But when she got home, Kathy realized she didn’t want that bigger, more expensive diamond either.
In fact, she didn’t want any diamond at all.
Our travel agent canceled our NCL cruise by mistake and then quit! Now what?
What happens if your travel agent cancels your cruise by mistake and then quits his job? Unfortunately, NCL passenger Margaret Prendergast knows very well — you can quickly lose thousands of your hard-earned dollars.
Margaret had been patiently waiting for Norwegian Cruise Line to process a refund for a cruise it canceled. But because her agent erroneously canceled her cruise several days before the cruise line, it’s a $5,587 refund NCL never intended to send.
If Air Canada sent you an extra $4,282 refund, would you keep it?
Scoring an Air Canada refund during the pandemic was nearly impossible. Which makes this story particularly improbable. But it’s true.
Renette Frank was one of the lucky ones who actually received her Air Canada refund early last year. So imagine her surprise when the airline sent her an extra refund of $4,282. Even more surprising: When she tried to return the extra money, the airline made that impossible, too.
Why did a worried Airbnb host ask me to pretend not to be a guest?
If your Airbnb host asks you to pretend not to be a guest during your stay, would you?
That’s the odd situation that confronted Josephine Avina last July when her family planned a short trip. But pretending not to be guests wasn’t the only thing the Airbnb host wanted the Avinas to do. She also expected them to be OK with living in the remnants of a bachelorette party held the night before.
Kids need passports to fly internationally. Why didn’t this mom know?
Just like their parents, kids need passports to fly internationally too. But Kim Ross wasn’t aware of this requirement. She says the travel agent she used to book her family’s dream vacation never informed her. But when the family tried to check in for their flight to Turks and Caicos, Delta Air Lines quickly broke the bad news. Without passports, Kim’s children weren’t eligible to fly internationally, and the airline denied boarding to the family.
Kim blames her travel agent for their ruined vacation. But is that a fair place to put the blame for being unaware that her kids needed passports?
I was charged $750 for this embarrassing hotel experience. Can you help?
Elisa Boyd says her experience at a hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been the most embarrassing of her life. This story begins with two friends on a relaxing desert getaway. But it ends with a mortifying accusation by W Hotel employees and a giant post-stay credit card charge.
Now Elisa wants her name cleared and her money returned.
Elisa’s experience is one more to add to the file of hotel guests blindsided by unexpected and dubious post-stay fees. And it serves as a reminder to make sure to leave your room in the same condition you found it. Otherwise, you might find yourself with hefty and embarrassing charges on your hotel bill — and no way to defend yourself.
How did a gas station skimmer drain my prepaid debit card balance?
Danger could be lurking at the pumps of your local gas station in the form of a tiny card skimmer. These small, almost invisible devices quickly retrieve and store all of your card’s information as you make your payment. Then the “owner” of this illegal apparatus uses that data to extract whatever funds he can from your account.
Sylvia Powers wishes someone had warned her about gas station skimmers before she swiped her prepaid American Express Bluebird debit card at the pumps. Unfortunately, her education on the topic came in the most unpleasant way – after a skimming device drained all her money from her Bluebird card. But she assumed that American Express would protect her against this fraud.
She assumed wrong.
