Warning: Don't carry $158,000 in jewelry on your JetBlue flight. Here's why.

If you take $158,000 in jewelry on a flight and it goes missing, who pays?

Traveling with $158,000 worth of anything is a risky endeavor. Rose Cohen found out just how risky when all her high-value jewelry went missing during her recent JetBlue flight.

She believes an organized crime ring targeted her, ultimately forcing her to gate-check the bag that contained the jewelry. Her theory? This move allowed the thieves to help themselves to her gems before the flight even took off.

Now she wants to know who is going to pay for her loss.

These college students encountered a gross vacation rental with rats in NYC. Can the Consumer Rescue team help?

This vacation rental has rats! Can the Vrbo host keep my $8,865?

After a 12-hour flight from Israel to the U.S., college students Nadav and Odelia were eager to get settled. They grabbed their luggage and headed to the cute Vrbo in Queens, scheduled to be their home base for three months. But those plans quickly changed when they arrived at the vacation rental and shockingly found rats already settled there.

Then things went from bad to worse for the tired and bewildered United Nations interns. The Vrbo host refused to release them from the nearly $9,000 rental contract. Instead, he told the young ladies to go to a youth hostel while he evicted the rats from his vacation rental property.

Now, after several weeks of trying to reason with this Vrbo host, they’re asking for our team’s help. The college interns do not want to return to the basement-level apartment where the rats have been residing. But the owner claims they are in breach of contract, and he says he gets to keep the $9,000.

That definitely doesn’t sound right to the Consumer Rescue team. So can we fix this vacation rental fiasco? 

Will Jetblue let this old cat fly home from the Dominican Republic?

Can JetBlue really refuse to let my cat fly home from vacation?!

Flying with your cat internationally can be complicated — especially when an airline changes its pet policy mid-trip. Yekis Fortunato found out just how complicated after flying JetBlue to the Dominican Republic with her 19-year-old cat, Foxxy.

Shockingly, soon after arrival, the airline summarily canceled the feline’s return flight. The reason? JetBlue updated its policy prohibiting any pets from flying to or from the island on its aircraft.

The name on your passport must match the name on your ticket. This is why.

What happens if the name on your passport doesn’t match your ticket?

Can you fly off to an international destination if the name on your ticket does not match the name on your passport?

The answer to that question is “No.”

Ralph Lantz found this out in a devastating way. He booked his friend, Jackie, a ticket to meet him on a dream vacation to Greece. But his generous gesture went all wrong at the check-in counter. That’s where Jackie’s Mediterranean plans came to an abrupt end when a Virgin Atlantic agent pointed out that the name on her ticket was not the same as the one on her passport.

Why did Travelocity send this customer to a closed hotel in a remote area of Mexico?

Why did Travelocity make me pay for a permanently closed hotel?

Rosalva Paulino recently used Travelocity to book a pleasant-looking historic property in a remote area of Mexico. However, upon arrival at the location, she was confronted by a permanently closed hotel. Complete with blocked entrances and overgrown vegetation, it was clear the hotel had been shuttered for some time. Bewildered, she scrambled to find alternative accommodations on her own.

Rosalva assumed Travelocity would apologize and quickly refund her prepaid reservation for the permanently closed hotel.

She was wrong. Her shock turned to anger when Travelocity rejected the refund request, claiming the hotel refused to approve it.

Vrbo does not allow shared space rentals. So why won't this host leave?

Vrbo doesn’t allow shared space vacation rentals. So why won’t this host leave?

Franklin Wu had a most unusual experience with Vrbo after he prepaid $9,000 for a four-month apartment rental in Switzerland. Although Vrbo doesn’t allow shared vacation rentals, suddenly, in the middle of the night, the host made it clear she wasn’t leaving. So he did.

But then Vrbo gave him another shock —  the host could keep all his money.

United Airlines canceled a passengers flight and then sent his refund to a closed credit card account. Where did the money go? And can our advocacy team help?

Help! United Airlines sent my refund to a closed credit card account.

United Airlines canceled Eric Noderer’s flight to India and sent his refund to a closed credit card account. Since then, he’s been in an endless battle between the airline and Chase to locate the missing $2,217.

Now he’s hoping our advocacy team can provide the backup assistance he needs to find and retrieve his money.

Can we do it?

It’s never a good idea to close a credit card when you’ve used it to pay for upcoming flight or cruise. There are many reasons this is so, but Noderer’s struggle highlights the primary one. Here’s his frustrating tale.

This Budget customer says she returned her rental car as scheduled. So why doesn't the car rental agency know that?

I left my rental car at the airport, but now it’s missing!

Maureen Heller recently received a shocking message from Budget Security about a missing rental car. The letter accused Maureen of failing to return a Nissan Sentra that she had left at the Detroit airport weeks earlier.

But with no receipt to prove she returned it, will Maureen be on the hook for this missing rental car?

Is this the worst booking mistake ever? This traveler wanted a beach, family vacation and ended up in the mountains of Kingston, Jamaica in a business hotel.

Here it is: The worst booking mistake I’ve ever seen

What if you made the worst booking mistake ever — and realized it just moments too late?

Lori Korosek did just that. This novice traveler intended to book a relaxing all-inclusive beachfront hotel in Jamaica for her son and herself. But she accidentally ended up with a nonrefundable, landlocked business hotel that forbids children — located one hour from the beach.

Now Lori is asking our advocacy team if we can do anything about her $1,500 vacation planning gaffe.

Lori’s colossal booking mistake underscores the fact that not everyone should attempt to book their own travel. In this case, a professional trip advisor could have provided critical guidance to this rookie traveler. And although we don’t typically mediate self-created fiascos, Lori has an extenuating circumstance that I found difficult to disregard.