My Princess cruise sailed without us because of a tiny passport mistake
Don’t make the passport mistake these Princess cruise ship passengers made. You’re in the danger zone if your passport has less than six months left before it expires.
VACATION FIASCOS
Consumer Rescue’s tagline is Fiascos and Fixes, and that’s because we receive tons of requests for help solving mishaps that travelers have encountered during a vacation. These tales are the most dramatic of the bunch and contain tips and guidance so that you can avoid a similar vacation fiasco.
Help! American Airlines gave me travel credit instead of $5,075 in cash
American Airlines left Brooke Krukenberg and 24 family members stranded in North Carolina after canceling their flight home to Iowa. As the group scrambled to find alternative transportation, airline agents assured the displaced passengers their refunds were on the way.
Krukenberg calculated that American Airlines owed each family member $250 for the canceled flight – around $5,600. That refund factored into the group’s plans as they booked rental cars and hotels for the unexpected 18-hour road trip back home. Here’s what happened next.
Enterprise says Mickey Mouse damaged my rental car. Why should I pay?
Like every savvy traveler, Kathy Mason inspected her recent rental car very carefully before driving it off the lot. The vehicle had no visible damage, and she says she returned it in the same condition just two days later. So it was a surprise when Enterprise sent her a $775 repair bill – two months after the rental was over.
But even more surprising than the repair bill was who Enterprise believed was responsible for damaging “things” inside the rental car. In an official incident report, “Mickey Mouse” is named as the alleged suspect.
Help! Fake United Airlines customer service charged me a $1,750 service fee
Christian Forthomme made a critical, but common error while booking a round-trip business-class flight to Paris for his wife. After asking Google for United Airlines customer service, he called the first number that popped up in the search results. Instead of reaching the airline, he dialed right into a scam call center where a fake UA agent was waiting. That fraudster easily booked the ticket and charged the unaware Forthomme a whopping $1,750 service fee for her efforts.
Was this cruise ship passenger tricked into buying a lab grown diamond?
On the last night of her recent Royal Caribbean cruise, Amy G. bought a beautiful diamond ring on the ship. She was quite pleased with her purchase – especially because she snagged it during a flash 50-percent-off sale. But the pleasant feeling only lasted until she got home and had a good look at the Certificate of Authenticity.
Help! My Airbnb vacation rental has a surveillance camera aimed at my bed
What if you were gazing out the window of your Airbnb and found a surveillance camera “gazing” right back at you? That was the startling scene that confronted Susan Scott as she relaxed in bed at her recent Mexican vacation rental.
Can our Airbnb host really charge us to clean up his trash? Help!
If you find a pile of trash and other debris at a vacation rental when you arrive, report it immediately. If you don’t, you could easily find yourself stuck with excessive cleaning fees, as Airbnb guest Daniel Altschuler recently did.
These cruise ship passengers say they lost $30,000 to scammers in Nassau
A Carnival cruise ship passenger says a beauty shop in Nassau somehow extracted $30,000 from her and her husband during a port stop. They’re the latest victims of the free facial scam to contact me in recent months. But the story she has to tell is much more sinister than the others. She says these bad guys drugged her and then filmed her thanking them and praising their products.
Help! Hertz billed me $1,050 to repair a rental car I drove 7 months ago
Lori Gallant agrees that if a Hertz rental car was damaged while in her possession, she should pay the repair bill. Or at least her insurance company should. But the last time she rented from Hertz was in January. That makes the Vehicle Incident Report detailing her responsibility for repairing that car peculiar since Hertz created it in August.
A JetBlue flight delay made me miss my connection. Where’s my free hotel?
An extended flight delay stranded JetBlue customer Ellen LaPaglia overnight at New York City’s JFK International Airport. Airline employees instructed all the displaced passengers to wait in a long line to receive a free hotel voucher.
However, by the time LaPaglia got to the front of that queue no hotel vouchers remained.
