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Fiascos and Fixes
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!
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.
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.
During a flight across the country, Jetblue forced Samuel Cristol to share his seat. That’s correct. Cristol had a partial seatmate on his flight — a man who did not quite fit in his own space. And, although the guy … Read More
Brak Moczygemba got the shock of her life after a recent one-night stay in a budget hotel. The manager of that Quality Inn accused her of pillow theft… remarkably pricey pillows for such an establishment. To make matters worse, that same manager then informed a stunned Moczygemba that she was permanently banned from the two-star hotel.
If your child is under 24 months old, United Airlines will allow you to fly with the baby on your lap free of charge. But what happens if your offspring celebrates a birthday mid-trip?
For one family, the answer was unbelievably expensive. Here’s their story.
Could you get sent to collections over a $1,638 repair bill for a rental car you never drove? It happened to this Hertz customer.
If you arrive in a foreign country without a valid passport in your hand, you’re going back home. That’s guaranteed. But sometimes, that’s not all that happens, unfortunately. Here’s how a simple passport mistake landed one female solo traveler with vacation dreams in a Mexican jail nightmare.
Here’s her story.
What happens when an unruly airline passenger refuses to follow the instructions of the cabin crew? This unaware and belligerent United Airlines customer and his family found out on their last flight with the carrier.
And I do mean last.
If you don’t smoke, I’m pretty sure you don’t pack cigarettes, marijuana, or a crack pipe when you go on vacation. Life-long nonsmoker Jason Gladden certainly didn’t bring any of that when he recently took his family to a baseball tournament. However, that didn’t stop his vacation rental host from charging the stunned dad a $250 smoking fee.
But the surprises didn’t stop there.
The Beijing Tea House Scam is one of the most well-known tourist traps around the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, Lawrence Andrews had never heard of it. That is until after he was already a victim of the con game during a business trip to China.
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