Author ∣ Advocate ∣ Journalist
Smart Consumer is a weekly syndicated column that offers smart, actionable advice to customers. If you’re interested in publishing this feature, please contact Elliott directly at chris@elliott.org or (202) 370-7934.
More than one-third of online hotel reviews are phony, new research from fraud detection company Fakespot suggests. The troubling study of fake hotel reviews also shows that you’re more likely to be fooled in some American cities than others.
Fakespot, which analyzes and detects suspicious online reviews, says 36% of the ratings on TripAdvisor are “fake and unreliable.”
Read more “These cities have the most fake hotel reviews”
If you’re flying somewhere with young kids this summer, you deserve a medal. Few things seem to irk fellow passengers like babies, toddlers and their parents. According to surveys done by Expedia.com, seat kickers and inattentive parents rank up there with aromatic passengers (those who lack in hygiene or overindulge in perfume) as the most annoying kind of airline traveler.
I sympathize. I have three kids, now 12, 14 and 17, and I’ve broken every rule flying with them. When he was 1, my eldest son mistook the tray table on a Spirit Airlines flight for a drum set. I fell asleep on a Virgin Atlantic flight while my 2-year-old son roamed the aisles. And I’m still recovering from the tongue-lashing delivered by an American Airlines flight attendant when I tried to change my daughter’s diaper on her seat. (I know what you’re thinking, and it was just a wet one.)
Read more “Answers to frequently asked questions about flying with babies and toddlers”
If you’ve ever wondered which states have the most unfriendly customers, you’ve probably just had to offer your best guess. But who is number one, when it comes to rude customers?
After all, certain states have reputations for having the most unfriendly customers. You might assume, for example, that the Midwestern United States would have the friendliest customers and that the East Coast would have the rudest customers. But, according to a new study by Stella Connect, you’d be wrong.
Read more “Here are the states with the rudest customers”
Finding the best vacation rental is a lot harder than it looks — unless you use a new feature called a Trip Board.
Decisions about vacation rentals are usually complex and collaborative. It’s you and your significant other, kids, grandparents, maybe even a travel agent. And in the past, that meant emailing or texting a lot of property descriptions to a group that, if it’s like my family, never agrees about much of anything.
Read more “A new trick for finding the best vacation rental”
There’s no place like home, according to a survey by Virtuoso, a network of travel agencies specializing in luxury and experiential travel. A new analysis by the company of the best vacation spots in the world found that the United States ranked first.
The Virtuoso study is one of several lists released just as the busy summer travel season gets underway. The surveys suggest that when it comes to the hottest travel destinations, closer is better. But beyond a few always-popular places, there’s not much agreement among the experts.
Read more “These are the best vacation spots in the world”
