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Fiascos and Fixes
Michelle Couch-Friedman is an author and consumer advocate. She is the founder of Consumer Rescue. Michelle has successfully mediated thousands of problems for troubled travelers and other consumers during her career as an advocate.
James Parker just got hit with the most excessive cleaning fee I’ve ever seen as a consumer advocate. Soon after checking out of his recent Airbnb rental, the owner sent him a $1,470 bill to clean up the mess she says his family made.
But what mess was she really cleaning up?
If the balcony of your cabin is super dirty — covered in soot, should you be able to leave the cruise ship and get a refund?
Rafael Rottiers and his wife believe so. They insist the heavy black soot on the railings and floor of the balcony of their cabin aboard Costa’s neoRiviera endangered their health. So they left the cruise ship days before the scheduled journey ended.
Now that the couple is back home, they want Costa to send a refund for the cruise they abandoned. But what exactly was that document the two signed before they left the ship?
Should you receive a refund if you hate your cruise so much that you get off the ship early? What if you leave the cruise before it even sets sail?
Lori Rutt and her husband maintain that if intolerable conditions push you to leave a cruise ship, a refund is owed. She says only hours after they boarded their first cruise ever, they chose to disembark — never to return.
Over two years ago, All Nippon Airways (ANA) canceled Jurian Yee’s flight to Japan. ANA promised that it would soon send a $1,296 refund through Expedia. But it never did materialize.
Now a frustrated Jurian (via his dad) is asking the Consumer Rescue team for help. He’s hoping we can nudge ANA to send that refund so he can finally take his long-awaited trip to Japan.Â
But after so much time, is this a lost cause? Let’s find out.Â
Thinking about skipping parts of your next flight? Charlie Williams can tell you from experience — it’s a very bad idea.
Here’s why.
Airline passengers can sometimes save money by booking two one-way tickets instead of a round-trip flight. But Sharon Sanborn found out the hard way that there’s a downside to this practice.
Now she wants to know if our advocacy team can do anything to help her out of the financial headache in which she’s landed.
Linda Ralston has been fighting an expensive hotel billing error for months. Several weeks after her 3-night stay at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson, Arizona, she discovered an extra night’s charge on her credit card. Now her battle seems to have ended in a lost chargeback, with the resort coming out the winner.
But with all the evidence on her side, how did she lose?
Can American Airlines make wild changes to your flight schedule and, if you object, refuse to issue a refund?Â
With $8,171 on the line, that’s what Michael Spanel wants to know after his recent experience with American Airlines.Â
Now Michael is asking the Consumer Rescue team for help. He wants American Airlines to give his money back, and he’s hoping we can make that happen.Â
So what is a passenger really owed when American Airlines changes their flight schedule? Let’s find out.
Yes, your baby needs a passport to fly internationally, just like you do. Otherwise, your little tot will be denied boarding their flight just like any other passenger who doesn’t have the required documents for international travel.
Aly Meyer wishes someone had given her this critical information before her family arrived at the airport ready for their tropical vacation. That’s when an airline employee broke the bad news that without a passport, the baby was being denied boarding the international flight. As a result, instead of flying to Mexico, the family headed right back home.
Tom Suminski intended to redeem his stockpile of $7,762 American Airlines flight credit for a Hawaiian vacation. But he says an airline representative gave him faulty redemption instructions that led the vouchers to expire right under his nose.
The entire $7,762.
That put the family’s tropical dreams in jeopardy. Tom hopes we can convince American Airlines to reinstate his flight credit. But is this just a lost cause?
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