The Navigator

The Navigator is a weekly column that focuses on being a smarter and more informed traveler, with a special emphasis on transportation policy. It appears every Sunday in the Washington Post. If you’re interested in publishing this feature, please contact Elliott directly at [email protected] or (202) 370-7934.

If your vacation is canceled, what are your rights? For Ann O’Sullivan, that’s not a theoretical question. Her late-summer cruise from Athens to Barcelona became a casualty of covid-19 in May.

Did she get a quick refund, as promised? Of course not.

Princess Cruises offered her a refund or a credit. She chose the former, but almost three months later, she’s still waiting for her money.

She and her husband also put a deposit on a tour to Spain scheduled for late May. The tour operator canceled the couple’s trip in April and offered only a credit.
Read more “❌ Canceled vacation? Here’s what you absolutely must know”

Travel loyalty programs are desperate to keep you at a time when no one is traveling. Whether they are successful or not depends on people like Karen Kinnane and Mitchell Telsey.

Both frequent travelers have made one of the most difficult decisions of 2020, at least when it comes to their travel spending: whether to stay loyal to a preferred airline, hotel or points-earning credit card.

They know travel loyalty programs are desperate, but these are desperate times.
Read more “Travel loyalty programs are desperate now. Here’s what they’re doing”

Kevin Garvey wants to know if he’s required to wear a mask on a plane. So does just about everyone else who has to fly this summer.

Here’s the situation that prompted his question: On a recent flight from Fort Myers, Fla., to Chicago, two women seated in front of him dropped their face coverings. In an age of social distancing, he assumed that a flight attendant would quickly remedy the situation.

It didn’t happen. A crew member didn’t even seem to notice that they were unmasked, he says.

“At no time did they wear their masks while talking to the flight attendant, nor did she remind them to put on their masks,” says Garvey, a retired lawyer from Chicago. “The flight attendants did nothing to enforce their own directives.”
Read more “Are you required to wear a mask on a plane?”