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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.
When Mary Scholtz planned a trip to Las Vegas, she was not anticipating that her biggest gamble would be on her Airbnb rental. Unfortunately, this thoroughly unsatisfactory illegal Airbnb rental was anything but a winner, and now Mary wants a complete refund. Can we help?
If a thief clobbers you and steals your passport, causing you to miss your cruise, shouldn’t insurance cover your loss?
An Airbnb hacker spent a month in Malaysia using Laura Ward’s name, account, and stored credit card. Now, after a failed chargeback, Laura wants to know how this happened and why she’s being held responsible.
What’s the worst nightmare that could happen if you land in Mexico with expired travel documents? Kush Kanna’s wife recently found out in a most unpleasant way. She thought she was heading for a relaxing tropical vacation in Costa Rica with her family. Instead, she ended up detained in Mexico after authorities rejected her expired green card and Indian passport.
Now Kush wants to know who will pay for this awful travel nightmare.
Hint: He isn’t going to like the answer.
If you’re about to travel internationally, take heed. Customs and immigration agents abroad will not overlook expiration dates on your travel documents, so you shouldn’t either.
Ted Kelly says his wife made a simple passport mistake last year that snowballed into a $17,766 travel disaster.
The couple had never heard of the Schengen area or its passport requirements for U.S. citizens. But when they tried to check in for their business class flight to Italy, a Lufthansa representative quickly explained the facts. Ted’s wife’s passport didn’t have the required 90-days validity from their return date, and the airline denied boarding to the couple.
Sevil Macmot found the view from her guaranteed oceanview cabin aboard Costa Cruises Mediterranea stunningly terrible. She says her dream vacation was ruined when the cruise line assigned her to the cabin with the worst view.
Now Sevil wants to know who selected her for this disappointing cabin with the worst view — and why.
Oh, and she wants a refund, too. But is that a reasonable request?
Hertz customer Aaron Baird made a costly mistake during his last car rental. Because he returned the vehicle to the wrong location, the car rental giant slapped him with a $780 upcharge. Ultimately, in the spirit of positive customer relations, Hertz offered Aaron a goodwill gesture and erased the debt.
Lesson learned, and all was well – or so Aaron thought.
A few weeks after Hertz offered the goodwill gesture, a different department within the company resurrected the invoice. That Hertz team sent Aaron’s account to collections and put him on the Do Not Rent (DNR) list.
It’s ok for United Airlines to sell a family a flight to Morocco and then leave them stranded there when the return flight is canceled. Right?
Wrong. But the airline seems to think so.
Could a cruise ship passenger be denied boarding even if they have all of the required documents for sailing?
Lee Bolland says he knows the answer to that question is “Yes” because it happened to him.
Last fall, he and his wife planned to cruise through the Mediterranean on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Epic. The couple flew to Spain to begin their adventure, and all was going well — until it suddenly wasn’t. At the port, NCL employees shockingly denied Lee boarding and abandoned the couple there.
Mary Shaw was confident that she had done everything right while planning her trip to Paris. She had carefully selected what she thought was the perfect apartment for her family. But when Mary arrived in the French capital, she hated the Airbnb vacation rental so much that she knew they couldn’t stay.
Now Mary wants to know how she can get a refund from the unwilling Airbnb host.
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