It isn’t shaping up to be a good summer for air travelers who are trying to stick to a budget. And let’s be honest: Who isn’t watching their bottom line?
A few weeks before the traditional start of the busy travel season, United Airlines quietly raised its change fees on most discount fares from $150 to $200,...
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. You can read more travel tips on his blog,
elliott.org or e-mail him at
celliott@ngs.org
more Travel Troubleshooter
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If you fly, chances are you have a story to tell about an uncomfortable airline seat.
Vicki Morwitz does. Hers involves a long-haul plane trip, a minuscule economy-class enclosure and a circuitous routing that deposited her at her destination feeling exhausted and irritated.
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When heavy rain grounded Amy Li’s recent flight from San Francisco to Cancun, Mexico, she hoped her resort would allow her to cancel her prepaid room. But it didn’t.
Instead, she received an apologetic email from the Excellence Playa Mujeres, saying that while the hotel was “truly very sorry” about her canceled...
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The temperature outside the Des Moines, Iowa, Greyhound bus terminal on a February morning fell to a dangerously frigid 17 degrees below zero. But the bus driver who dropped off Ankur Singh and 10 other passengers so they could wait for a connecting motorcoach, knowing that it would be an hour before the terminal would open, didn’t seem to...
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The Transportation Security Administration’s surprise announcement that it will allow small knives and previously banned sporting equipment on planes next month was met with concern and confusion from airline passengers and drew strong criticism from airline crew members and law-enforcement representatives.
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If you don’t like some of the recent changes to your airline loyalty program, talk to Mike Croswell. He’s a United Airlines “Million Miler” who assumed that his three decades of devotion to the airline would be reciprocated after he stopped being a frequent flier.
He assumed wrong.
