A thief stole my passport, and I missed my cruise! Will insurance cover this?
If a thief clobbers you and steals your passport, causing you to miss your cruise, shouldn’t insurance cover your loss?
Travel Troubles
Here’s what happens when things go wrong for travelers on the road, in the air, at hotels, and in vacation rentals.
The Travel Troubles category at Consumer Rescue is a collection of real-life stories about travelers who’ve encountered unexpected issues during their adventures. Each tale is dramatic but is a cautionary example, offering valuable lessons and practical advice.
The Travel Troubles section is meant to educate and empower travelers, helping them avoid similar issues and know what to do when things go wrong.
Travelers who encounter a problem they can’t resolve on their own should ask for help from our advocacy team. Our direct mediation service is fast, friendly, and always free!
An Airbnb hacker took a vacation using my money! Can you help me?
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.
This is how an expired green card created her worst travel nightmare
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.
This simple passport mistake ended in a $17,766 travel disaster. Here’s how
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. However, when they attempted 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-day validity from their return date, and the airline denied boarding to the couple.
Can Hertz give a goodwill gesture and still send you to collections?
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.
United Airlines stranded us in Morocco! How will we get home now?
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.
If you hate your vacation rental, can you leave and get a refund?
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.
Hurt on vacation? Don’t make this travel insurance mistake
After she was seriously hurt on vacation, Molly Brooks made a giant, but not uncommon, travel insurance mistake. She left the rural Mexican hospital where she received pricey emergency services and flew home without any documentation of treatment. Her only evidence of hospitalization was a non-itemized $6,000 credit card receipt. As could be expected, this lack of documentation presented an insurmountable problem when she filed her travel insurance claim.
What happened to his lost luggage? Blue Ribbon Bags knows
Blue Ribbon Bags, a lost luggage tracking service, offers a $1,000 guarantee. If the company fails to find your lost luggage within 96 hours, you get the cash. That deal sounded pretty sweet to Vamsi Kosaraju, especially when his mother-in-law lost her bag on a recent flight.
The family patiently waited out the four days and then requested the $1,000 reward — which Blue Ribbon Bags swiftly rejected. Now Vamsi wants our advocacy team to investigate. So what’s going on here?
This tale is a bit hard to believe. But it points to Vamsi’s inherent misunderstanding of what this lost luggage tracking service can and can’t do. It should go without saying that if you don’t report your bag missing, it can’t be found. However, Vamsi insists that no one explained that basic premise to him. And he says Blue Ribbon Bags owes him $1,000 for the missing bag.
If you don’t feel safe in your Airbnb rental, can you get a refund?
What if you don’t feel safe after you check into your next Airbnb rental? That’s the frightening situation that confronted Ericka Wilson and her sister during a short vacation to Puerto Rico. They didn’t expect luxury, but they did expect to be able to lock the front door. When that wasn’t possible, they wanted to hit the eject button and get a refund.
So why was the refund request for their three-hour stay rejected? That’s what the sisters want our advocacy team to find out.
