How to kiss a giraffe and save a baby elephant
Editor’s note: After Thursday’s story about being delayed on our way from Nairobi to Orlando, several readers asked about our trip. Here’s my report.
Commentary
Elliott Advocacy is a nonprofit organization that mediates cases between consumers and businesses. These are commentary articles that detail our efforts and provide educational information for consumers.
Driving along the Trans-Canada Highway isn’t a road trip. It’s a family culinary tour
The Trans-Canada Highway stretches nearly 5,000 miles and crosses six time zones. If you’re in a rush, you can probably drive it in a week. But add a temperamental SUV, two working parents and three school-age kids, and it turns into a month-long adventure.
The TSA’s new pat-downs get too personal for some
When Barbara Leary went through the full-body scanner at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport recently, her hip replacements set off the alarm. She was directed to another line, where she underwent a physical search by a Transportation Security Administration agent.
How early should you arrive at the airport for your flight?
Want to start an argument? Tell your travel companion you won’t be arriving two hours before your flight. Go on, try it. I’ll be right here.
Will the long airport lines of spring break 2016 be back again this year?
If you’re already bracing for a long airport security line during the spring break travel season, then you must remember last year.
You do, don’t you? That’s when Transportation Security Administration screening wait times doubled under the weight of tighter security and swelling crowds. On just one day in mid-March, 6,800 American Airlines customers reportedly missed their flights, thanks to the lengthy TSA lines.
How failure can make you a better customer
When people say you learn more from your failures than your successes, William Seavey is the first to agree. He bought a Samsung top-loader washing machine, recommended by Consumer Reports, at Sears. “It turned out to be a lemon,” says Seavey, a consultant based in Cambria, Calif.
The real reason everyone complains about credit reporting agencies
The most complained-about financial institutions aren’t banks or credit card companies. They’re credit reporting agencies — and by a wide margin.
Why airline codesharing must die
Although Shelley Jones’ complaint is common, I’ve never heard it from someone like her. Her problem: She’s done with airline “codesharing” — a marketing arrangement in which an airline places its designator code on a flight operated by another airline, and sells tickets for that flight. She’s seen too many passengers pull up to the wrong terminal because they thought they were flying on one carrier when, in fact, they were booked on another.
I love a good mystery. You will too.
Have you noticed the recent string of stories about cases that ended in a big question mark? Neither the consumer nor the company responded to repeated requests for an update or a resolution, so we were left to guess the outcome.