When heavy rain grounded Amy Li’s recent flight from San Francisco to Cancun, Mexico, she hoped that her resort would allow her to cancel her prepaid room. But it didn’t. Instead, she received an apologetic e-mail from the Excellence Playa Mujeres, saying that while the hotel was “truly very sorry” about her canceled flight, it would be keeping her money.
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Superstorm Sandy stranded countless travelers in the northeastern area of the US, which points to the need for all travelers to have an emergency kit. Ned Levi has information for you to create an emergency kit for travelers with his list of his top 15 traveler emergency kit basics.
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Hotwire sent me emails about “lower hotel rates” in Rosemont. So I found one I liked and booked it. When I received the hotel conformation it was in Elk Grove, Ill., not Rosemont. Now what? Can I get it changed?
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Now the airlines can change flights without even notifying customers. Could it possibly get worse? Christopher Elliott takes a look.
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This latest bout with the weather on the East Coast has highlighted the problems of running airlines at capacity without factoring in weather as an element. It has also shined a spotlight on airlines’ telephone support operations that were overwhelmed first, with requests for cancellations and changes to avoid the mess, then with passengers stuck at airports looking for a way home.
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Airlines should reveal all airfares and all ancillary fees at the same time and allow passengers to know the total cost of travel up-front so that they can compare prices between different airlines. Pricing information is the grease that makes the free market system work.
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A lot of hungry people read and commented on my recent 3-star Parisian dining experiences at Le Meurice and Guy Savoy. In case you’re ready to shell out the dough yourself for a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience, I asked Michelin for a few tips on how to score a hard-to-get reservation at a top restaurant.
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When you’re airfare shopping, attractive prices can vanish in a split second. Just ask Jim Doll, a systems engineer in Atlanta, who recently tried to buy a ticket to San Francisco on AirTran Airways’ Web site. He found a one-way fare for just $130, but by the time he’d toggled over to Orbitz.com to see if he could do better there and then clicked back, the price had changed.
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By now I’m accustomed to all sorts of things that can go wrong in booking a room. The room with a view … of the office building next door. The ‘non-smoking room’ with the tell-tale smoky staleness that my asthmatic husband can sniff out, even if no one else can. (PSSST! Hotels, the non-smoking thing is mainly a benefit for folks more sensitive to such things than managers and maids, so a quick re-labeling won’t work). I’ve encountered mix-ups on how many beds are needed, or what floor or amenities a disabled guest requires.
I recently faced a new problem — no heat. My experience in the Land of Lakes was not just a matter of a missing ‘amenity,’ (heat) but also a matter of the near total indifference with which it was addressed.
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It’s always fun when I discover something really clever tucked away in a nuts-and-bolts website. Fairmont Hotels, not known as a hotbed of humor, but rather a place where many of the sultans, sheikhs and excellencies of the world choose to stay, has a simple drop-down menu in their reservation form that brought a smile to my face.
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