Author ∣ Advocate ∣ Journalist
On Travel is a weekly column about being a smarter traveler. It covers practical travel advice for the readers of USA Today and the USA Today Network. If you’re interested in publishing this feature, please contact Elliott directly at chris@elliott.org or (202) 370-7934.
Honesty. Respect. And a little space. That’s all travelers want in 2019. Are they asking for too much?
How did I arrive at this 2019 wish list for travelers? I asked. You said you’d like the industry to tell you the truth about its prices and fees. You want employees to treat you with respect, no matter how much you paid for your ticket or the color of your credit card. And you said you’re done with being cramped.
Read more “2019 wish list for travelers: Honesty, respect and a little space”
If you’re thinking of taking your travel complaint to the top, here’s a little good news: someone’s listening.
When I started advocating for consumers more than 20 years ago, executive email addresses often were dead ends. Managers would order an assistant to comb through their messages and forward the important ones — or they’d ignore them altogether. Now they are far more likely to read every message personally.
Read more “Got a travel complaint? Take it to the top.”
Getting into a timeshare is easy. Getting out isn’t.
Kathie Asaro knows that. She recently decided that her Rancho Mirage, California, timeshare, which she paid off years ago, wasn’t worth keeping.
Read more “How to get out of a timeshare you don’t want”
Michelle Carlen knows about roadblocks.
She started her job as president of Central Coast Tourism Council at about the same time an enormous landslide closed part of the California Central Coast’s main tourist attraction, the iconic stretch of U.S. Highway 1 that winds along the coastline from Ventura to Santa Cruz.
Read more “Crisis-management lessons learned from California’s Highway 1”
Travel fees are spreading faster than a cold virus as holiday travel heats up. It’s not just the big fees, like JetBlue Airways and United Airlines increasing luggage fees just before the busy holiday travel season. It’s the thousands of other nuisance charges that travel companies quietly add, and that you may only discover when you’re standing at the counter.
Read more “How to fight travel fees this holiday season”
