American Airlines says Charles Shearer and his son voluntarily gave up their seats on a recent flight from Cleveland to New York.

Sherer says that’s a lie. He was on his way to Japan for his mother-in-law’s funeral, and his wife, who was accompanying them, ended up staying on the flight.

What’s at stake? Well, American gave him a $500 voucher, and it says that’s all it will give him since he voluntarily gave up his seats. Sherer says he’s owed more — a lot more — under federal law. 

“American Airlines is claiming that, the day after my wife’s mother died in Japan, while we were en route, I decided to voluntarily let my grieving wife go on without us,” says. “And that now, I’m lying about it.”

Someone is lying, that’s for sure — and I have a pretty good idea who.

Welcome to the Orwellian world of airline bumping, where “involuntary” can magically transform into “voluntary” with a few keystrokes in an airline’s computer system. It’s a neat trick that saves airlines thousands of dollars per incident. And as Shearer discovered, it’s nearly impossible to prove otherwise after the fact.

This case raises several important questions about airline bumping practices and passenger rights:

• What’s the difference between voluntary and involuntary denied boarding, and why does it matter?
• How can passengers protect themselves when airlines mischaracterize an involuntary bumping as voluntary?
• What compensation are passengers legally entitled to when they’re bumped from an oversold flight?

When volunteering isn’t voluntary

Shearer, his wife, and son arrived at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport with plenty of time before their flight to New York. From there, they’d connect to Japan for his mother-in-law’s funeral. They checked in at the gate and received paper boarding passes.

Then they waited.

When their boarding group was called, they got in line behind Shearer’s wife. But when they reached the gate agent, something went wrong.

“The gate agent said that we didn’t have assigned seats,” Shearer recalls. “So they pulled us out of line.”

What happened next is where American Airlines’ version of events diverges sharply from the Shearer family’s experience. 

According to Shearer, the gate agents told them only one seat remained available. They protested. The agents insisted finding two more seats was impossible. Shearer’s wife boarded alone, leaving her husband and young son behind as the gate door closed.

“Some time after the gate door had closed, one of the agents said something like ‘We can give you $500 for giving up your seat,'” Shearer recalls. “I know it wasn’t voluntary, but we can give it to you.”

That last phrase is the smoking gun. The gate agent verbally acknowledged the bumping was involuntary — but offered the voucher anyway.

Shearer accepted the $500 vouchers. At that moment, he wasn’t thinking about compensation. He was thinking about how to get his distraught son to Japan for his grandmother’s funeral.

They finally arrived in Japan more than seven hours late. To make matters worse, American Airlines had left their luggage at JFK.

“At the time, I wasn’t concerned about compensation but about how to get to Japan,” Shearer says.

After the funeral, Shearer researched federal regulations and discovered something troubling. Under federal law, passengers who are involuntarily denied boarding and arrive more than two hours late are entitled to 400 percent of their one-way fare, up to $2,150 per passenger. For him and his son, that meant $4,300 in cash compensation — not $1,000 in vouchers with restrictions and expiration dates.

He wrote to American Airlines requesting cash compensation.

The airline’s response was a form letter dripping with sympathy but offering only an additional $100 travel credit for each passenger. When Shearer pushed back, citing the specific federal regulation, American Airlines’ tune changed completely.

According to the airline’s records, Shearer and his son had “volunteered” to give up their seats. Therefore, they weren’t entitled to the federally mandated compensation. 

Case closed.

“Our records indicate that you and Alan both volunteered to relinquish your seats for the Trip Credit compensation in the amount of $500 each prior to leaving the airport,” an American Airlines customer relations representative wrote.

But Shearer had evidence. He sent American Airlines screenshots of text messages he’d exchanged with his wife and father immediately after the incident. In one, his wife chided him for yelling at the gate agents. (“I was indeed furious,” Shearer admitted. “My wife was sobbing and my kid was panicking and confused.”)

Not exactly the behavior of someone who’d volunteered.

American Airlines didn’t budge.

The voluntary versus involuntary distinction

Understanding the difference between voluntary and involuntary denied boarding isn’t just semantic hairsplitting. It’s the difference between a few hundred dollars in restricted vouchers and thousands in cash.

When an airline oversells a flight — which is legal and happens regularly — it has to first ask for volunteers. The Department of Transportation defines volunteers as “passengers who respond to the carrier’s request to give up their seat willingly and accept the carrier’s compensation in exchange for relinquishing a confirmed reserved space.”

The key words: “request” and “willingly.”

If not enough passengers volunteer, the airline can bump passengers involuntarily. But that triggers strict federal compensation requirements that went into effect in early 2025.

For flights originating in the US that arrive at their destination more than two hours late. that’s 400 percent of the one-way fare, capped at $2,150 per passenger. The airline must pay this compensation immediately — at the airport, on the day of the flight. If the airline can offer substitute transportation that leaves before it can pay, it has 24 hours. Here’s more information on what your airline owes you when you get bumped.

The compensation for voluntary bumping? Whatever you negotiate. Could be $200. Could be $2,000. Could be a bag of peanuts. The government doesn’t regulate it because you’re supposedly entering into a voluntary agreement.

This creates a powerful incentive for airlines to characterize every bumping as voluntary, even when it clearly isn’t.

“When a flight is oversold, we ask for volunteers at the gate to relinquish their seats voluntarily in exchange for compensation,” an American Airlines representative wrote to Shearer. “If we do not get enough volunteers, it may become necessary to involuntarily deny boarding, which under federal regulations, requires that we provide compensation for those impacted.”

But here’s what the airline didn’t mention: Sometimes airlines pull passengers out of boarding lines, tell them there’s no room, offer them a token voucher, and then document the transaction as “voluntary” in their systems.

The practice exploits passengers’ ignorance of their rights and their emotional vulnerability. When you’re watching your crying wife board a plane to her mother’s funeral without you, you’re not thinking about federal regulations. You’re thinking about damage control. And when a gate agent offers you something — anything — you might accept it just to move forward with your life.

That acceptance becomes the airline’s get-out-of-jail-free card.

How to protect yourself from being bumped without compensation

Protecting yourself requires presence of mind that’s difficult to muster in crisis situations. But it’s possible.

1. If you’re pulled from a boarding line, don’t panic. Ask explicitly: “Am I being involuntarily denied boarding?” Make the gate agent say it. If possible, record the interaction on your phone.
   
2. Document everything immediately. Send yourself emails. Text family members describing what happened. Take video, if possible. The contemporaneous nature of these communications makes them powerful evidence later.
   
3. Don’t accept anything at the gate without understanding what you’re giving up. Ask: “If I accept this voucher, am I waiving my right to denied boarding compensation under federal law?” If the agent can’t or won’t answer clearly, don’t accept the offer.
   
4. Collect information. Your boarding pass. The gate information board. Any written offers from the airline. These documents can be crucial when the airline’s version of events contradicts yours weeks later.

Finally, know that accepting a voucher under duress doesn’t necessarily waive your rights to compensation. The regulation requires that passengers willingly accept the compensation. Being told “this is all we can offer” or “we can give you this since you got bumped” doesn’t constitute a voluntary, informed agreement.

But proving you didn’t volunteer? That’s the hard part.

What compensation passengers are really owed

For Shearer and his son, who arrived in Japan more than seven hours late after a domestic connection, the math was clear: $2,150 each, or $4,300 total was due them.

But there’s a catch. Well, several catches.

First, if you volunteer — truly volunteer, not “volunteer” in the way Shearer allegedly did — you’re entitled only to what you negotiate. That’s why gate agents love volunteers. They’re cheap.

Second, the regulations contain exceptions. Small aircraft with 60 or fewer seats are exempt for operational or safety reasons. If you don’t follow the airline’s contract of carriage requirements (missing check-in deadlines, being disruptive), you forfeit your rights. And if the airline denies you boarding for passport or documentation issues, even mistakenly, the rules get murky.

Third — and this is the biggest loophole — the airline gets to decide whether your bumping was voluntary or involuntary. Sure, you can file a DOT complaint and you can appeal to executives. But the airline’s contemporaneous records at the gate carry enormous weight.

“After a review of the flight information, it was revealed that the compensation you both were given for Denied Boarding was accurate,” American Airlines wrote. “We’ve reviewed our reports thoroughly, and we see you were both documented as volunteers.”

The DOT receives thousands of bumping complaints each year. In 2023, American Airlines involuntarily denied boarding to only 568 passengers out of millions transported — a rate so low it’s almost negligible. Either American has cracked the code on inventory management, or a lot of “involuntary” bumpings are being documented as “voluntary.”

Given the financial incentives, it’s not hard to guess which explanation is more likely.

Will they ever get their compensation?

After the DOT complaint went nowhere, Shearer reached out to our advocacy team. We reviewed his paper trail, including those damning text messages, and agreed to contact American Airlines on his behalf.

Our advocate, Dwayne Coward, sent a message to American’s executive customer service team, flagging the discrepancy between Shearer’s communications and the airline’s official records.

Then we waited.

And waited.

The airline initially confused Shearer’s case with another passenger’s issue. Then it promised to look into it. Then it went silent for two weeks while Shearer followed up, wondering if he’d ever see resolution.

Finally, two months after our team took the case, Shearer received an email from American Airlines that began with genuine contrition. After “further review” — interesting how these reviews keep finding new information — the airline acknowledged what should have been obvious from the start.

“As such, I’ve sent each of you a $2,150 check via postal mail to the address on file,” an airline representative wrote. 

The total: $4,300. Exactly what federal law required. Plus, the airline let Shearer keep the $1,200 in vouchers it had already issued.

Victory? Absolutely. But it took two months, a DOT complaint, and intervention by a consumer advocacy organization to get an airline to comply with federal law.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most passengers in Shearer’s situation don’t fight back. They accept the vouchers, internalize the airline’s version of events, and move on with their lives, thousands of dollars poorer than federal law intended.

The system works this way by design. Airlines have discovered that most involuntary bumpings can be converted to “voluntary” ones with the right combination of pressure, confusion, and nominal compensation. The odds of getting caught are low. The penalties for getting caught are negligible — they just pay what they should have paid in the first place.

It’s a risk-reward calculation that makes perfect business sense, even if it makes terrible ethical sense.

The DOT could fix this easily. Require gate agents to explicitly inform passengers whether they’re being involuntarily bumped and what compensation they’re entitled to before offering any vouchers. Require airlines to provide written notices at the gate, not just verbal offers in the chaotic moments before departure. Impose fines when airlines mischaracterize involuntary bumpings as voluntary.

Will it? Probably not.

Until then, you need to know your rights and stand firm. If an airline employee pulls you aside at the gate, or tells you there’s no seat available, you’re probably being involuntarily denied boarding — no matter what the gate agent calls it.

Don’t let them tell you otherwise. And definitely don’t let them compensate you otherwise.

If you want to understand why luggage is being abandoned at the airport, then join me on a recent flight from Kuala Lumpur to Johor Bahru. 

Just before I boarded the short domestic flight in Malaysia, a gate agent with a broad smile pulled me aside. My carry-on bag was too big, he cheerfully announced. 

The penalty? A $35 “extra baggage” fee.

As I reluctantly forked over my credit card, I glanced at my 24-year-old son, who was traveling with me. He’d already unzipped his slightly overpacked carry-on and was dumping items into a nearby garbage can to reduce the weight and size. Granola bars, apples, a half-eaten bag of cereal — gone before the agent could say a word.

The math was easy: pay $35 or trash $10 worth of food. He chose the trash can.

How many other travelers make this same calculation every day? In the United States, where the cost of flying a bag now can exceed the price of a ticket, it’s becoming more of an option. In Japan, they’re not simply lightening their load. They’re leaving the entire bag. 

Why are people abandoning luggage in Japan?

Walk into a hotel in Osaka or Tokyo and you’ll see warning signs that would’ve seemed absurd five years ago: “Abandon your luggage and you will be charged.” Luggage dumping has become so routine that hotels post warnings like “no smoking” signs.

“Travelers are treating luggage as disposable,” says Georgia Fowkes, a travel advisor for Altezza Travel who saw the problem firsthand on a recent visit to Japan. “And hotels are inheriting the mess.”

Narita Airport in Tokyo reportedly stores dozens of unclaimed bags daily. Kansai Airport in Osaka and Chubu Airport in Nagoya report similar pile-ups. Some hotels have started giving bags away or repurposing them as planters just to cope with the deluge of luggage.

The situation in Japan may be unique. Many people visit Japan to go shopping. They buy cheap rolling luggage to roll around the mall and then leave it at the hotel or train station before they fly home. 

But that’s not the only reason luggage is being left behind. Asian air carriers are notorious for charging extra fees for luggage, so part of the reason may also be that passengers are trying to avoid an additional charge.

There are fears that this luggage abandonment could spread.

The math behind luggage abandonment

Airlines have turned baggage into a profit center. Checked bag fees, carry-on charges, and overweight penalties all add up. When your beaten-up roller bag costs more to check than it’s worth, walking away becomes logical.

“The abandoned luggage issue isn’t just about saving a few bucks on a checked bag,” says Zackaria Saadioui, founder of Prked, a peer-to-peer airport parking marketplace. “It’s a sign of fee fatigue. Travelers are being nickel-and-dimed at every turn.”

Ernie Garcia, a frequent traveler who works for a marketing agency in New York, routinely abandons his belongings at the airport.

“Sometimes, I’ve abandoned so many clothes that I no longer need a checked bag,” he says. 

If a bag starts to get worn out, it also gets left behind.

“The last roller suitcase I abandoned had a wonky handle that was difficult to extend and retract,” he recalls. “I left it in the hotel in Croatia.”

Abandoned luggage is spreading

So far, the evidence of the abandoned luggage trend is mostly anecdotal. It’s an airport here, a hotel there — and plenty of travelers like Garcia or my son who are filling the garbage cans at the airport. 

There are no comprehensive surveys that show travelers are dropping their luggage en masse before departure. But experts say it could happen soon. Increasingly strict airline policies are pressuring passengers to make a difficult decision.

“Airlines have steadily pushed up checked and even carry-on fees,” says Lucinda Faucheux, co-founder of Travel Support Circle, a travel agency. “So you can imagine a traveler weighing up the cost of paying another fee versus just walking away from an old case.”

Some airports now warn travelers about disposal timelines for unclaimed items. They typically hold bags for 30 to 90 days before auctioning, donating, or destroying them. Hotels store items for a few weeks, but dispose of the items promptly if they can’t find the owner.

All of this because the airlines want to make more money.

“Hotels and airports are inheriting someone else’s profit-maximizing strategy,” says Jacob Elban, a marketing specialist who has watched this problem spiral. “It’s physical evidence of a broken pricing model.” 

Should you abandon your bag?

Seasoned travelers have developed strategies to avoid fees — and sometimes abandonment.

1. Think about your luggage before you leave. Pack only what’s necessary so that you don’t have to think about leaving something behind. “Choose your items wisely and select meaningful possessions,” says André Disselkamp, co-founder of the travel insurance site Insurancy. And remember, less is more.
   
2. Keep ’em separated. Know what’s valuable and what’s disposable. That’s Marcia Sherrill’s advice. She’s abandoned her bags twice. “Sometimes, it simply isn’t worth paying hundreds of dollars to send a no-name bag back to the U.S.,” says Sherrill, who publishes a shopping website in New York. “Of course we hang on for dear life to our Hartmann and Tumi bags.”
   
3. Have a contingency plan. Avoid a situation where you’re the last person to board and you have to simply walk away from your bag. Give yourself time to check in, and, if necessary, ask an airport employee where you can get rid of a bag quickly. And remember, you can always mail the items to your home address from the airport, if necessary.

Airlines are doing everything they can to put you on the spot at the gate. Pay us a luggage fee or you’ll lose your valuables. Traveling light and keeping your critical items with you ensures you can call their bluff.

Airlines created this problem by recklessly monetizing every inch of baggage space. Hotels and airports now have to manage the fallout. And so do you.

Surveillance pricing is getting a bad rap as an evil scheme to squeeze a few extra dollars from you. Maryland is weighing a first-of-its-kind ban on the practice for groceries. And JetBlue is facing a federal lawsuit accusing it of using passengers’ personal data to raise fares. 

But banning surveillance pricing is the wrong approach. Instead, why not fix it?

What surveillance pricing?

Surveillance pricing (sometimes called personalized pricing or dynamic pricing) is what happens when a company uses everything it knows about you to decide how much to charge you.

That includes your location, browsing history and income. It might also factor in how often you’ve shopped there and what device you’re using. All of it goes into a model that projects how much you’d be willing to pay. 

So, let’s say you searched for flights to Miami three times this week on JetBlue. Congratulations. You may have just told the airline you’ll pay more for that seat.

Live in a wealthy ZIP code? Your grocery store’s app may have adjusted the value of your digital coupon before you reach the checkout. 

The Federal Trade Commission released a report in early 2025 documenting how eight major companies, including retailers, financial services firms and a car rental company, were piloting or actively using surveillance pricing powered by third-party data brokers.

Here’s what’s wrong with surveillance pricing

The trouble with banning this practice is that it doesn’t fix anything. 

Airlines already charge different prices to different customers based on when they book, what loyalty tier they occupy, and which device they’re using. Hotels do it. Rental car companies do it. Online retailers have been doing it for years. 

If Maryland bans it at the grocery checkout, the algorithms will simply migrate to a place regulators can’t easily see, away from dynamic price displays at the store and to coupons or online purchases.

It’s like a game of whack-a-mole, and companies have all the resources, so they’ll always win.

It’s time for a pricing transparency principle

Surveillance pricing is enriching businesses at your expense because it’s invisible. Consumers can’t comparison-shop against a price tailored specifically to them unless they know it’s happening. 

So here’s what might work.

First, a company should always tell you if it’s using your personal data to create a “custom” or “just for you” price. And it should happen as soon as you start the shopping experience, not as a P.S. later in the process.

Second, a business must disclose exactly what data it used and how it affected your price, before you buy.

And finally, the company needs to disclose the exact type of data it used to determine the price. 

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Something like: “Based on your location, search history and purchase behavior, we’re offering you this price.”

These simple requirements would level the playing field. 

Give consumers a fighting chance

It comes down to fairness. If you’re allowed to use my data against me, shouldn’t I be able to do the same to your business?

It would be nice if companies revealed how they determine their custom prices, too. Are they considering your ZIP code? Device type? Search frequency? Loyalty status? Browsing behavior? 

With that information, a reasonably savvy consumer, or a consumer app, stands a fighting chance against these troublesome pricing practices. They can delete their cookies, switch to a browser that masks their device or use a virtual private network. 

This kind of disclosure has a precedent. It’s what we already demand of lenders under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which requires creditors to explain why they denied a loan. We should expect the same transparency from any company that uses a scoring model to set the price we pay.

Fixing surveillance pricing is dead simple: It’s disclosure, disclosure, and more disclosure. 

Any company using personal data to set consumer prices must tell you, in plain language, at the point of sale, what data it collected, what data it used to set your price.

If companies believe personalized pricing is efficient and fair, they should have no problem explaining themselves to you or to an appropriate federal regulatory body. 

And if they’re not willing to, well, maybe they shouldn’t be doing it.

If you have a Spirit Airlines ticket, the bad news has just landed: your flight is canceled, and you might spend the next few weeks fighting your credit card company for a refund.

Spirit Airlines announced that it has begun an orderly wind-down of its operations, effective immediately. Every flight has been canceled and the customer service lines are closed.

The shutdown comes after the Trump administration’s $500 million rescue plan, which would have given the federal government an unprecedented 90 percent stake in the carrier, fell apart over the weekend.

It’s a remarkable end to a remarkable week. After blocking Spirit’s merger with JetBlue on antitrust grounds in 2024, the federal government spent the past several days weighing whether to essentially own the airline instead.

Why Spirit Airlines failed

Spirit Airlines has struggled to find a path to profitability since the Iran war sent jet fuel prices skyrocketing. It filed for Chapter 11 twice in less than a year and lost tens of millions in early 2026 alone.

The proposed federal bailout would have been a first-in-priority loan, putting the government ahead of other creditors. Bondholders remained divided, and the deal collapsed. (Related: Budget airlines want a tax holiday—but where’s yours?)

In a statement on its restructuring website, Spirit said it was “proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years.” CEO Dave Davis said the airline had been working on restructuring its business, but a sustained rise in fuel prices, combined with broader financial pressures, made a turnaround impossible.

What this means if you have a Spirit ticket

Here’s what to do right now:

Save all your paperwork. Download your flight receipt that shows your payment, screenshot your confirmation, and keep your itinerary somewhere offline. Spirit’s website and app may stop working in the coming days. You’ll need that documentation for any chargeback or have to file a bankruptcy claim.

Book a replacement flight now, before fares spike. On early Saturday morning, several Spirit competitors announced plans to accommodate displaced Spirite passengers without raising fares. But that goodwill won’t last forever, and prices are bound to rise in some markets. (Here is our guide with the best travel advice.)

Forget about your Free Spirit points. The loyalty program is winding down with the airline. Points are not protected by bankruptcy court the way physical assets are. If you were sitting on a meaningful balance, that balance is now gone.

Refunds and credit card disputes

Spirit says it will automatically process refunds for guests who booked directly using a credit or debit card. Compensation for travelers who paid with vouchers, credits, or Free Spirit points is up in the air.

Remember, under the Fair Credit Billing Act, you can dispute a charge for services not rendered. Notify your card issuer no later than 60 days after the first statement showing the airfare charge. Credit card companies are typically more lenient on the 60-day requirement when you book your tickets months in advance.

Debit card holders have far weaker protections. The bank is not required to refund you, but it might.

Travel insurance probably won’t help. Because Spirit’s troubles were a “known event,” most policies treat it like a pre-existing condition and will not cover financial default on bookings made in recent weeks. A handful of policies from companies like Faye and Allianz offer financial-default coverage, but only if purchased before the carrier’s troubles became public.

For further questions, Spirit has appointed Epiq as its claims agent. You can reach Epiq at SpiritAirlinesInfo@epiqglobal.com or by phone at (855) 952-6606 in the U.S. and Canada, or (971) 715-2831 internationally.

Did the government do enough to help?

Now to our question.

And a follow-up question or two:

If you said yes, what do you think would have been appropriate? Should the government have owned 90 percent of the airline? Or maybe offered something else?

If you said no, under what circumstances would a bailout have met with your approval? Or was Spirit not worth saving under any circumstances?

My take: The U.S. government has spent decades deregulating the skies to let the market decide winners and losers. For a moment, it looked like Washington was going to nationalize an airline. In the end, the market got the last word. If Spirit’s business model could not survive a fuel spike, maybe it was a house of cards.

Your turn

What’s your opinion? Should Washington have saved Spirit with a $500 million check and a 90 percent stake, or did the market just do its job? Join the discussion in the comments.

The North Sea edges closer to an overgrown dike, sending an occasional spray of frigid, gray water toward Klaus Melbye.

It brings back memories of a massive storm that struck this area a quarter century ago. Melbye recalls that water levels crested more than 7 feet above sea level, almost overwhelming the clay barrier that prevents the ocean from flooding Denmark’s farmland.

“We got lucky that day,” says Melbye, director of the Wadden Sea Centre, a visitor center in Ribe, Denmark, that serves as a gateway to the Danish Wadden Sea National Park. The storm lasted only a few hours and subsided during a low tide.

But that luck may not hold. 

It isn’t a question of if the North Sea will flood this coastline, but when. This existential threat defines life in this Nordic country, where people have been pushing back against the water for centuries. For the residents of this UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is also Denmark’s largest national park outside of Greenland, sustainability is not a convenient catchphrase. It’s a matter of survival.

The Wadden Sea is also ground zero in a fight to preserve an entire ecosystem, which extends from the Netherlands to Germany and Denmark. This protected area is the central pit stop on the East Atlantic Flyway for up to 15 million migratory birds. 

Visitors can see this urgent adaptation unfolding in real time, observing the shift from stubborn resistance to radical collaboration.

The failure of the walls

The sea-facing side of a dike near Ribe. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

For generations, the solution to containing the sea has been massive engineering: building dikes to reclaim land. But recent experience suggests that method may no longer work.

While the last century saw sea levels rise by just 4 inches, Melbye estimates that the next 50 years will bring a terrifying acceleration. Sea levels could rise by as much as 1 ½ feet. (Related: Are the world’s most sustainable cities worth visiting?)

This dramatic forecast is forcing Europe to scramble. But traditional methods are already showing cracks. Germany and the Netherlands are building dikes up to 36 feet. 

“But the seawater is going under the dikes,” says Melbye. 

Jens Hansen points to a bird-watching building near a nature protection area in Wadden Sea National Park. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

Is collaboration a radical cure?

Faced with a devastating climate crisis, Denmark is considering a counterintuitive and profound response: strategic retreat. The leading scientific discussion in Denmark is now focused on working with the sea, not against it.

This kind of radical, adaptive thinking — giving land back to the sea — requires a unique governance structure. It demands consensus, not compulsion, according to officials. This is where Jens Laurits Hansen, who works at the National Park Office on the island of Rømø, defines Denmark’s fundamental conservation strategy.

Hansen’s office is tasked with safeguarding the future of the Wadden Sea, but it operates without the kind of authority granted to other national parks. 

Hansen explains that, unlike the much more top-down approach seen elsewhere, the Danish National Park model is built entirely on voluntary partnership. 

“We don’t have the authority to dictate anything,” he says. “We have to do all our projects on a voluntary basis.”

This collaborative philosophy is the key to local sustainability. Hansen notes that while the process of securing an agreement with landowners can be lengthy, the final solutions are far more long-lasting because people are a part of it. 

“When the community is involved, the conservation goals—like flood protection and ecosystem health—become inherently sustainable, ensuring they last long after the government funding runs out,” he explains.

You can see this strategy in action with the dike reinforcement on Rømø. Hansen’s team needed enormous amounts of clay, but they chose to dig it locally. This single decision saved them from hauling 13,500 truckloads of clay, dramatically cutting carbon dioxide emissions and simultaneously creating the Juvre Engsø bird refuge out of the excavated area. It plans the same approach when it comes to protecting the land against the ocean — and ultimately, how high to build the dikes.

Other projects include buying a 170-acre farm with plans to remove toxins and create wet areas to improve biodiversity. 

The most important part? 

“They will open the area to the public, so we can go and see the processes of nature restoration,” he says.

If you’re visiting the Wadden Sea, you might also get roped into being a conservationist for a day. Hansen’s office runs a program called BABINE, which recruits tourists to help clear open spaces to create more habitats for birds and butterflies. The goal is to promote sustainable conduct as the new normal. But it’s not the only program for visitors.

Pacific and Atlantic oyster shells, side by side at the Wadden Sea Centre. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

The gastronomic intervention

The most immediate way tourists can witness and participate in the survival mission is by joining the hunt for the invasive Pacific oyster.

These foreign oysters, originally imported from Japan and Southeast Asia, spread rapidly after escaping from ill-conceived aquaculture projects. They now form massive reefs, displacing the native blue mussels that are a vital food source for ducks and other wading birds. 

The solution is brilliant: The park encourages visitors to eat as many of the invaders as they can, for free. The national park offers oyster tours from October to March, when they are safe to consume. Visitors, equipped with buckets and knives, can walk out onto the seabed to forage for a free delicacy and also help the ecosystem.

This unusual blend of tourism and triage is key to the park’s function that extends to its buildings. For example, the Wadden Sea Centre, which acts as a key gate to the national park, was built using local, natural materials, relies on ground heat, and uses solar cells to maintain power.

What’s at stake in the Wadden Sea

Behind the dike are kilometers of farmland, towns, and urban areas, all on flat terrain. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

The Wadden Sea is under threat from all angles: an encroaching sea, invasive species and a shrinking ecosystem. 

Melbye shared grim new scientific evidence that climate change is actually shrinking the bodies of the migratory birds. Because Arctic summers are warming, the insects they rely on are hatching earlier. When the birds arrive, they miss the peak food supply, which means the chicks are smaller and the adults are getting smaller.

Officials hope that tourism will help make the area sustainable. Visitors can come here to harvest invasive oysters, help create habitats for the migratory birds, and spend their tourism dollars and kroner. 

The Wadden Sea is an irreplaceable larder. By turning tourists into active conservationists and daring to question centuries of engineering tradition, the Wadden Sea National Park is building the global blueprint for how humanity must adapt to the unforgiving pressures of a changed climate. Whether it succeeds remains an open question.

Lawrence Signori thought he’d fully paid for his rental car in Porto, Portugal. But not according to his rental company. Europcar charged him an extra $407 for insurance and other fees. Can he get this fixed?

Question

I booked a one-way car rental in Porto, Portugal, through Hotels.com. When I picked up the vehicle at the Europcar counter, the agent said I hadn’t paid the one-way fee, even though my reservation clearly showed it was one-way. She added $155 to my bill.

She also refused to accept the insurance I had purchased through my travel plan or my credit card, and forced me to buy Europcar’s “Premium Protection” for another $155. On top of that, she added a $97 “Premium Station Surcharge,” even though I had reserved the car at the Porto airport from the beginning.

Before I left the United States, I had already paid Hotels.com $338 on my Visa card. Europcar claimed that only $243 had been applied to my rental and insisted the rest went to Hotels.com as its commission. I contacted Hotels.com for help, but all I got were vague responses.

I’m asking for a refund of $407, which represents the unfair charges. Can you help? — Lawrence Signori, Jupiter, Fla.

Answer

You shouldn’t have been billed for any of these nuisance fees. Hotels.com says all those charges are included in the taxes and fees portion of your prepaid rental. Europcar should not have added them again at the counter.

As for the insurance and station surcharge, that’s a familiar script at car rental counters. Some agents will pressure you into buying their coverage or tack on extras that weren’t disclosed up front. Once you sign the rental agreement and drive away, it can be impossible to get those charges reversed. That’s why I always recommend reviewing the rental agreement carefully before leaving the lot, every fee, every option.

Hotels.com initially told you that Europcar hadn’t charged you twice, but when my advocacy team reviewed the paperwork, we discovered the math didn’t add up. You prepaid enough to cover both the base rental and the one-way fee. 

This is a bizarre case. Usually, our readers get hit with one, maybe two fees when they rent a car. But it looks like Europcar slammed you with three fees. Some of them may have been a result of crossed wires with Hotels.com. But still, three has to be a new record!

I think you might have gotten farther by appealing to someone higher up the food chain at Hotels.com. I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of the executives at Hotels.com (Expedia) and Europcar on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.

I contacted Expedia, which owns Hotels.com, and suggested that it take another look at your case. After a few rounds of back-and-forth, Expedia agreed. You received a full refund for the extras.

Next time you rent a vehicle anywhere, I recommend booking directly with a car rental company and carefully reviewing all charges before signing. And one more tip: if you’re picking up a car overseas, bring proof of insurance. It can help you avoid unwanted extra charges for mandatory insurance.

Daria Popova reserves an Airbnb in Ireland. But it turns out Airbnb has reservations about her. It disables her account, cancels her booking but keeps the $1000 she paid. What’s going on?

Question

I don’t understand why Airbnb deleted my account. I’ve been a responsible guest with excellent reviews. Airbnb says I violated its community standards, but I know I didn’t. The only explanation I can think of is my location.

I live in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, which is near the front line but remains under Ukrainian control. Airbnb will not do business in Russia. 

Some international services wrongly mark our entire region as “disputed,” which feels discriminatory and unfair. Airbnb asked me to confirm my address, and right after I did, it froze my account permanently.

I appealed and sent all the information they requested, including proof of residence. Still, they refused to restore my account and said I can’t create a new one. And even worse, I never received my refund of $1,000 for the cancellations.

Can you help me get my money back and, if possible, my account reinstated? Daria Popova, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Answer

Airbnb owes you both an explanation and a refund. The company is allowed to close an account if it believes a guest has violated its terms, but it should provide a valid reason and process your refund in a timely manner. None of that happened here.

You followed the right steps, appealing the decision, providing documentation, and contacting customer support. Unfortunately, it looks like you got stuck in a loop of automated replies from Airbnb. That left you without answers or access to your funds.

This isn’t the first case where Airbnb got its geography wrong. I mediated a case at the beginning of the Ukraine war where the platform banned a guest because she used to live in Russia and still had a Russian phone number.

When the normal resolution process doesn’t work, you can always appeal to an Airbnb executive. I list all of them on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.

I reached out to Airbnb on your behalf. A representative said the company would review your case. Shortly after, Airbnb asked you again for your address information. You provided it, but then received the same canned response that your account was permanently blocked. At that point, you still had no refund.

So I went back to Airbnb and asked for a second review. That finally broke the logjam. Airbnb refunded the full amount of your canceled reservations and reactivated your account

The takeaway: When a company ignores you, persistence matters. A paper trail, a clear record of promises made (like refund deadlines), and, if needed, an advocate, can make the difference between losing $1,000 and getting it back.

Premium doesn’t necessarily mean reliable. Just ask Alan Nathan, who paid Luggage Forward $1,400 to ship his baggage from Northern California to France.

Nathan thought the premium price and the on-time guarantee meant his four bags containing nearly all of his and his wife’s clothing, including critical medical equipment, would be there on time. 

It didn’t. 

Luggage Forward lost the bags. Instead of finding them, Nathan got a lesson in corporate finger-pointing and doublespeak, as his bags were simultaneously “delivered” and missing.

“I’m left with missing bags and no resolution,” he says.

This case raises several important questions that frequent travelers and luggage shippers need answered:

• What happens when premium luggage shipping services fail to deliver?
• How can customers hold both shipping brokers and carriers accountable?
• When are “on-time guarantees” actually enforceable?

But first, let’s see what went wrong with this luggage delivery.

The promise that became a problem

Nathan’s ordeal began with the best of intentions. Like many international travelers, he wanted to avoid airline baggage fees and the hassle of lugging multiple suitcases through airports. 

Luggage Forward’s premium service seemed like the perfect solution. It offered door-to-door delivery with an On-Time Guarantee that promised to refund double the shipping fee if delivery was late. The company outsources its services to FedEx, a shipping company with a strong record.

“The on-time guarantee was an important factor in why we chose Luggage Forward,” Nathan explains. “We packed only a bare minimum of things to carry with us, trusting that our luggage would follow promptly.”

The four bags, two Amazon duffles, one green REI cordura duffle, and one gray Atlantic roll-aboard, were picked up from Nathan’s home in Sonoma a few days before his flight. Everything seemed on track for the promised delivery date roughly a week later.

Then the trouble started.

A week later, Luggage Forward’s support team asked Nathan for travel documents showing his “arrival into Ireland and departure from Ireland.” 

There was just one problem: Nathan wasn’t in Ireland. He was in France, as clearly stated in his shipping address.

“I am in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, not Ireland,” Nathan replied, wondering how a company that specializes in international shipping could confuse the two countries.

The geographic mix-up was just the beginning. Despite Nathan providing his French phone number, his building’s concierge contact information, and even permission for the carrier to deliver without signature, the promised delivery date came and went. 

Except for this weird turn of events: On the day of delivery, he received a notification from FedEx that claimed his bags had been dropped off at his building. Someone named “Lou Ann” had signed for them.

Nathan’s building has no front desk, and the concierge confirmed she had received no contact from any delivery driver.

The bags had vanished.

When premium service becomes a premium problem

What happens when a premium luggage shipping service fails to deliver? Nathan’s experience suggests the answer involves a lot of apologetic emails but very little actual problem-solving.

Luggage Forward’s response to the phantom delivery was to launch what can generously be described as a “defer and delay” strategy. 

A Luggage Forward representative repeatedly assured Nathan that the company was investigating his missing luggage and pressing FedEx for urgent updates. But weeks passed without resolution.

The company’s standard playbook appeared to involve three key tactics: apologize profusely, blame the carrier, and promise updates that never come. 

Luggage Forward told Nathan that FedEx would update him directly, but FedEx never contacted him. The company also claimed FedEx had launched an internal investigation. No investigator ever called him, he says.

This blame-shifting dance between shipping brokers and carriers has become increasingly common. Companies like Luggage Forward market themselves as premium service providers, charging prices that reflect their supposed expertise and reliability. But when things go wrong, they retreat behind their role as intermediaries, claiming limited control over the actual delivery process.

Customers don’t pay premium prices for premium excuses. They pay for results. When Nathan chose Luggage Forward over cheaper alternatives, like checking the baggage when he flew, he wasn’t just buying shipping services. He was buying peace of mind, reliability, and accountability.

Instead, he got two weeks of corporate speak and missing luggage containing his wife’s medical equipment.

The luggage shipping industry operates in a regulatory gray area that allows companies to market premium services without standing by its guarantee of premium results. Unlike airlines, which face strict Department of Transportation regulations for lost baggage compensation, luggage shipping services largely self-regulate their guarantee policies.

This creates what consumer advocates call a promise versus performance gap. Companies can advertise generous guarantees, knowing that many customers won’t pursue claims, and those who do must navigate complex dispute processes that favor the company.

How to hold shipping brokers and carriers accountable

The dual-company problem that Nathan faced, where shipping brokers and carriers each claim the other is responsible, requires a strategic approach that treats both entities as jointly liable for the service failure.

Consumer protection law generally holds that when companies present themselves as a unified service to customers, they can’t later claim separate responsibility for different parts of that service. 

This principle, known as apparent authority, means Luggage Forward can’t market door-to-door delivery service and then disclaim responsibility when FedEx fails to complete the delivery.

Nathan’s case also shows the importance of documenting every interaction with both companies. His detailed email trail with Luggage Forward support, combined with FedEx’s false delivery confirmation, created a clear paper trail proving system failure at multiple levels.

The key to accountability in these situations is refusing to accept the blame-shifting game. When Luggage Forward claimed FedEx would contact Nathan directly, he should have insisted on a three-way communication that included all parties. When FedEx marked packages as delivered without actual delivery, he needed to demand specific proof including signature images, GPS coordinates, and delivery photos. He might have thrown in an AirTag, too.

Here is our ultimate guide to finding your lost luggage. I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of the Luggage Forward and FedEx customer service executives. Reaching out to both of them in writing might have been helpful.

Credit card dispute protection also becomes important in these scenarios. Nathan’s credit card company agreed there was “a clear basis” to dispute the delivery fee, providing financial leverage that often prompts faster resolution than customer service complaints alone.

The nuclear option for unresolved shipping disputes involves filing complaints with state attorneys general in both the shipper’s and recipient’s states. These offices often have specialized consumer protection units that can cut through corporate bureaucracy more effectively than individual customers.

When are on-time guarantees actually enforceable?

Luggage Forward’s on-time guarantee promised to refund double the shipping fee for late deliveries, but the company’s initial response to Nathan’s claim suggests many businesses don’t expect customers to actually pursue guaranteed refunds.

• Is it a selling point? The enforceability of shipping guarantees depends largely on how they’re presented to customers. When companies prominently advertise guarantees as selling points, as Luggage Forward does, they create legally binding commitments that go beyond typical shipping contract limitations.

• Is it supported by federal or state law? Federal Trade Commission guidelines require that advertising claims be substantiated and honored. There are penalties for false or deceptive advertising. A company can’t use guarantee promises to induce purchases and then claim those guarantees are unenforceable when customers try to collect.

• Was there a service failure? Nathan’s case meets every criteria for a valid guarantee claim: The service was late, the delay wasn’t because of a customer error, and the company’s own systems confirmed the delivery failure. Under basic contract law, Luggage Forward owes Nathan the promised double refund.

Smart consumers should treat shipping guarantees with healthy skepticism, recognizing that the real test isn’t what companies promise but how they respond when those promises are tested. Nathan’s experience is a reminder that even legitimate claims require persistence, documentation, and sometimes third-party advocacy to achieve resolution.

The resolution: double or nothing?

After weeks of stonewalling from both Luggage Forward and FedEx, his bags miraculously appeared just days after my team reached out to Luggage Forward.

Coincidence? Nathan doesn’t think so.

“This resolution came just a few days after you contacted Luggage Forward, and I am not a big believer in coincidences,” Nathan wrote, expressing what many consumers learn about corporate behavior: Companies often have more problem-solving capability than they initially demonstrate.

There was just one more thing. Would Luggage Forward double his compensation, as it suggested it would? 

I asked.

A representative called me and confirmed that, yes, he would be getting twice the payout payout, based on Luggage Forward’s Double Money Back guarantee.

“This whole experience has left me shaken and, I’ll admit, less confident in my ability to advocate effectively for myself,” Nathan confided. It’s an honest admission that reflects how corporate bureaucracy can intimidate even educated, articulate consumers.

But the truth is, my team and I couldn’t have done this without Nathan. He kept a great paper trail and he kept the pressure on Luggage Forward. His case serves as a template for other consumers facing similar shipping nightmares: keep detailed records, refuse to accept blame-shifting, and don’t hesitate to escalate when companies fail to honor their commitments.

Daniel Oppliger navigated foreign airports, dealt with language barriers, and made it to his hotel in Lushui, China, only to be stumped by the TV remote at the Hilton Garden Inn.

“I couldn’t figure out how to work the television,” he says. “I had to ask the concierge to help me.”

Welcome to the age of smart hotel room syndrome, when technology designed to simplify stays actually makes them more complicated. 

This isn’t a glitch: 52 percent of hotels now offer tech walk-throughs at check-in where an employee explains how to use all the gadgets, according to a recent survey by Hotels.com. In other words, more than half of hotels have basically admitted their rooms are so complicated that guests need a tutorial just to operate basic functions.

It’s not just inexperienced guests who need help. Oppliger is a frequent traveler, who runs a travel agency in El Paso. 

Or how about Mircea Dima, a frequent hotel guest and the CEO of an educational company that specializes in coding. He’s someone who knows his way around technology. But he recently found himself Googling how to switch off his hotel room lights.

“If you need instructions to turn off a bedside lamp,” he says, “the system has failed.”

Why are hotels installing complicated room technology?

Hotels are not installing complex room control systems because they love you. The motivation runs deeper, and a little darker, than enhanced experiences.

An iPad in your room can be convenient, yes. You might be able to order a meal or a movie through it without having to make a call to the front desk. But that’s also more convenient (and profitable) for the hotel.

The tech lets hotels cut corners in other ways.

“Hotels want to appeal to guests who live with connected homes, while also managing energy use and staffing more efficiently,” says Lauren Ringel, a travel advisor with Fora Travel. “Tablets, motion sensors, and smart thermostats can make service seamless and save resources at the same time.” (Related: AI anxiety: How technology is turning travel into a trap — and what you can do about it.)

That’s not all. 

“These new electronics collect data on you,” explains Andy Abramson, a communications consultant who specializes in technology. “What you use, how much you consume, how long you sleep, even how long you spend in the bathroom.”

Put differently, the new technology saves the hotel money, increases sales and allows it to spy on you. But it’s sometimes also impossible for guests to use.

What happens when hotel room technology fails?

Ringel has seen the frustration firsthand. One client, staying at a luxury casino in Singapore, texted her at midnight because they couldn’t figure out how to dim the neon bar lights. Another guest in London was stuck with frozen iPad-controlled window shades.

“It’s not a great experience for guests,” Ringel says.

This isn’t an isolated experience. Kevin Heimlich, the CEO of an advertising firm, spent 15 minutes in a hotel room navigating iPad menus just to turn off lights after a long day. 

“It felt like a user experience design fail,” he says. “Technology should be invisible, not a puzzle that detracts from experience.”

The problem affects everyone. Al Schilf, a retired federal worker from Columbia, Md., spent five days at an upscale hotel in Rome “playing whack-a-button trying to turn lights on and off.”

TVs are the worst. You’d think someone like Vicki Burton, a retired detective from St. Petersburg, would be able to figure out how to get her hotel TV to change the channel from SpongeBob SquarePants, where it was set to when she walked into the room. But no.

“The remote resembled the cockpit of a 747,” she laughs. “I kept trying to just turn the darn thing off. Even that seemed too difficult for me.”

It’s even affected me. At a beach hotel in Phuket, Thailand, the master switch on my iPad failed to turn off a closet light. The solution from the front desk? Just close the closet door or unscrew the lightbulb. 

Thanks, guys.

What are the hidden costs of smart hotel rooms?

The tech may be saving hotels money, but it could cost you. The complicated technology doesn’t just affect the quality of your vacation, but also the quality of your sleep. If you can’t turn off the TV or the lights in your rooms, you might have to go to bed with the TV or the lights still on. And you know someone’s gonna be cranky tomorrow. 

There’s a financial cost, too. Say your hotel alarm doesn’t go off because you couldn’t figure out how to use it, and you miss your flight home. Guess who’s buying a new ticket?

Chrissy Valdez, senior director of operations at Squaremouth, says you might be tempted to file a travel insurance claim. You should resist.

“Unfortunately, travel insurance won’t be able to help you in these situations,” Valdez says.

That leaves guests to fend for themselves when systems crash or freeze, which happens more often than hotels admit.

Which hotel brands handle in-room technology best?

The good news: Some properties have found a balance. According to guests, high-end brands like Four Seasons and Rosewood typically offer clear bedside touch panels with simple backup switches. And hotel chains like Holiday Inn usually offer a more no-frills experience when it comes to gadgets. (In other words, there are actual switches to turn the lights on and off.)

But too many hotels treat technology like a status symbol. Boutique properties force every basic function through laggy touch screens. The apps sometimes crash during software updates, rendering the entire room’s systems inoperable. 

“When technology eliminates bad friction, like waiting in line to check in, everyone wins,” says Richard Valtr, founder of hotel tech company Mews. “When it eliminates ‘good friction’, meaningful human interactions, hotels become soulless.”

How can hotels fix smart room frustration?

The best hotel technology follows what industry experts call the invisibility principle: Guests shouldn’t notice they’re using it.

“The best technology in hotel rooms is often when the guest doesn’t realize they’re using it,” says David Orr, CEO of British boutique hotel chain Resident Hotels. His newest property, The Resident Edinburgh, uses energy-saving systems that automatically adjust as guests enter or leave, paired with familiar touches like simple Nespresso machines. TVs and light switches are intuitive. (Here’s everything you need to know about planning your next trip.)

Nichlas Linderborg, chief customer officer at the hospitality software company Sirvoy, agrees: “The best technology in hotels is the kind guests barely notice, because it just works.”

The smartest hotels offer both high-tech convenience and analog backups. Touch panels with physical switches. Voice controls with manual overrides. Innovation with escape hatches.

How should hotels rethink in-room technology?

Hotel technology isn’t inherently bad. When it works, smart room controls can feel magical. Motion sensors that softly light pathways to the bathroom at night. Thermostats that learn preferences. Apps that unlock room doors.

But too often, hotels put profit over function. They disable the manual light switches and offer TV remotes via touchpads that freeze. They try to focus the guest’s attention on a tablet that’s always trying to upsell them to order room service but never quite manages to do the basics, like turn off the lights or lower the volume on their TV.

That’s too bad. The hospitality industry should use technology to actually improve the guest experience, not frustrate customers. It’s not too late to fix it.

Spirit Airlines needs your help. Again.

The airline that charges you to print your boarding pass, to bring a carry-on bag on board, the one that has the audacity to sell a “bare” fare so stripped-down it barely includes the seat. Yes, that Spirit Airlines.

The troubled carrier has reportedly asked the Trump Administration for $360 million in emergency funding. Jet fuel prices have roughly doubled since the conflict in Iran began, pushing the already embattled discount airline closer to liquidation.

The government should say yes, but not without getting something in return.

We’ve been here before

This isn’t the airline industry’s first trip to the federal ATM. After Sept. 11, 2001, Congress handed carriers $5 billion in direct grants and $10 billion in loan guarantees. After COVID-19 grounded most air travel, the Payroll Support Program pushed more than $50 billion to U.S. airlines.

In exchange for that pandemic bailout, airlines agreed to maintain service levels, restrict buybacks, cap executive pay, and, crucially, eliminated most change and cancellation fees on most tickets. Air travelers benefited from it for years.

That’s the template: You want taxpayer money? Elliott’s Airline Bailout Principle says you give taxpayers something tangible.

The one concession Washington should require

Government aid to private companies should come with a public good attached, not some vague promise of preserving competition. It has to be real.

For Spirit, I’d like to propose that something: Bags should fly free.

If Spirit takes federal money, it should include the cost of one checked bag in every fare. No exceptions, no asterisks, and no “qualifying members only.” If you bought a ticket, your bag comes with it.

This may sound radical. But until last year, this was true of Southwest Airlines.

What Southwest changed

Southwest held out while every other major carrier charged for bags going back to 2008. Then, under pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management (no relation), it began charging for checked bags a year ago.

That decision left a gap in the market. No major U.S. carrier now includes a checked bag in its base fare. Spirit’s typical bag fee runs from $35 to $65 per checked item, depending on when you pay it. On a $70 fare to Fort Lauderdale, that doesn’t feel like a fee anymore. It’s more like a hidden fare.

Spirit could be the carrier that fills this gap. And here’s the competitive logic: In a market where every legacy carrier and every budget carrier charges separately for bags, a Spirit that doesn’t would be genuinely distinctive. It would have a reason to exist beyond being the cheapest result on Google Flights.

Should we let Spirit fail?

Yes, I know what the free-market faithful are saying. Let it fail. Let the market’s invisible hand steer it off the runway. 

Maybe. But the airline industry is not a free market. It’s a heavily regulated oligopoly running on federally funded airports, federal air traffic control, and, when things go really wrong, federal rescue packages. The free market in aviation is largely a rhetorical device deployed selectively, usually by people who’ve already collected their government subsidies.

It’s no surprise that Spirit, along with Frontier, Allegiant, Sun Country, and Avelo, recently wrote to Congress asking lawmakers to suspend the federal excise taxes on tickets, a move that would hand them a subsidy covering about one-third of the incremental cost of their higher jet fuel.

Letting Spirit disappear will just hand market share to the surviving discount airlines and the legacy carriers, who will raise prices accordingly. The passengers who actually need cheap fares—the ones Spirit was built to serve—will lose.

Spirit has already burned through one bankruptcy and is navigating a second one. Liquidation is a real possibility now. Losing Spirit, with fuel prices at these levels, would be a gift to every airline that’s still charging $45 to put a bag in the overhead bin.

What a real deal looks like

So here’s my proposal: Spirit gets a low-interest emergency loan. It repays it with interest, the way airlines did after 9/11. The government takes warrants in return, so taxpayers share the upside if Spirit recovers. And Spirit commits to including one checked bag in every fare for a minimum of five years.

Five years is long enough to matter and long enough to reshape customer expectations. And it’s long enough to make other carriers nervous.

Other airlines would protest. Good. Competition is supposed to be uncomfortable.

And the next time a carrier comes to Washington with its hat in hand, maybe lawmakers should ask the big question raised by Elliott’s Airline Bailout Principle: What are passengers going to get out of this?

If we’re carrying Spirit’s debt, Spirit can carry our bags.

The “base” fare you see on a travel site has always been a half-truth, at best. By the time you reach the final payment screen, government taxes and fees have bloated the price by 10 percent or more, and that’s not including all those baggage fees and other optional charges. 

Now, the airlines that pride themselves on being “low-cost” are heading to Washington with their hands out, asking for a break from some of those extras.

Why budget airlines want a tax holiday

The Association of Value Airlines, which represents Spirit, Frontier, and Allegiant, claim the current jet fuel crisis is a threat to their business model. This week, they met with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to plead for a temporary tax holiday. 

The discount airlines are spooked by surging energy costs. Oil prices doubled after the outbreak of the Iran war. For an airline like Spirit, which is already struggling to stay out of bankruptcy, these could be the closing credits.

The airlines are asking Congress to suspend two major taxes:

• The 7.5 percent federal excise tax on all domestic airline tickets.
• The $5.30 per-segment tax that hits travelers every time they take off.

The Association of Value Airlines argues that waiving these fees would offset about one-third of the extra costs it’s eating because of fuel prices. Without relief, it warns that travelers will face even higher fares and more baggage fees. (Here is everything you need to know before booking your next airline ticket.)

Fuel is the biggest single cost in an airline’s operation, and for discount carriers built on razor-thin margins, a prolonged price shock hits them differently than it does a legacy carrier, which has more pricing flexibility and hedging programs. Exempting them from jet fuel taxes for some defined period isn’t unprecedented. Plenty of industries have gotten targeted relief during supply disruptions.

But here’s where it gets interesting: If Congress hands the airlines a tax break, should any of those savings flow to passengers? Because right now, every time you buy a domestic ticket, you’re paying a pile of federal and state fees that have nothing to do with the seat price.

Maybe travelers need a tax break, too

Take a closer look at the taxes on a typical domestic ticket. On a $369 roundtrip fare (that’s the current U.S. average), roughly $47 goes to mandatory taxes and fees, and that’s before you’ve bought a bag or picked a seat. It inflates the cost of your ticket by about 13 percent over the advertised price.

(The federal jet fuel tax of $0.219 per gallon goes to the airline’s bottom line. Passengers do not see that line on their receipt. But the 7.5 percent excise tax does show up in your fare, and any airline lobbying for fuel relief would be collecting that from you, potentially without passing any savings down to you.)

Why airlines say they need tax relief

Airlines argue they need every dollar of relief to stay solvent. They say targeted relief during supply disruptions is not unprecedented and is necessary to prevent route cuts and price spikes. By suspending these taxes, the government could help preserve competition in a market dominated by legacy carriers. (Related: So long, Spirit Airlines. Should the government have saved you?)

Travelers could use some tax relief, too. Imagine getting rid of that pesky 9/11 Security Fee? Or the Passenger Facility Charge? Unfortunately, passenger rights groups are not lining up in front of the DOT office in Washington to ask for a tax holiday. But maybe they should. Lower airline ticket prices would go a long way to help during the jet fuel crisis.

Do airlines deserve a tax break?

If you voted “Yes”:

• Should the tax savings be passed directly to you in the form of lower fares?
• Are you worried that if these budget airlines don’t get help, they’ll simply disappear?
• Is a temporary bailout better than losing competition in the skies?

If you voted “No”:

• Do you think it’s fair to bail out the airlines while passengers continue to pay record-high fees?
• Should airlines be forced to use their own hedging programs instead of asking for government help?
• Do you believe the savings would just go to shareholders instead of travelers?

If Congress suspends fuel-related taxes for carriers, should it require a corresponding passenger fare reduction, or at least a temporary suspension of the 7.5 percent excise tax on tickets? 

Airlines will argue they need every dollar of relief to stay solvent. Passengers would push back that the whole premise of discount carriers is cheap fares, and passing fuel savings to shareholders while charging passengers $119 for a $89 seat undercuts that argument entirely.

My take: When times are good, airlines pocket the profits and invent new fees. When fuel prices spike, they run to the government for a handout. If the government waives the 7.5 percent excise tax, it shouldn’t be a gift to Spirit or Frontier. It should be a permanent discount for the person actually paying the bill: you. Anything else is just a corporate subsidy disguised as traveler relief.

Your turn

What’s your move? Are you willing to let the airlines keep the tax money if it means they stay in business, or is it time for the government to stop playing favorites? Join the discussion in the comments.

Southwestern Germany’s Palatinate region is dotted with over 130 castles, many now ruins. Perched on sandstone cliffs, they’ve borne witness to centuries of history. 

One, Hambach Castle, played a pivotal role in Germany’s democratic movement in 1832, while another, Trifels, housed medieval emperors and even imprisoned Richard the Lionheart. 

But don’t let the fairytale landscape fool you. Palatinate also has one foot in the future, and if you visit this part of Germany, you get to be a part of it. It’s a vision of tomorrow that combines a rich and complex history with a meticulous pursuit of sustainability.

An orchard along the “New Shepherds’ Trails,” a project that reintroduces traditional grazing with sheep and goats to prevent old orchards and valleys from being swallowed by forest. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

History and sustainability meet here

Palatinate is home to Germany’s largest contiguous forest, covering about 80 percent of its surface. This expansive woodland, part of the Palatinate Forest–Northern Vosges Biosphere Reserve, is more than a natural wonder. It’s also Germany’s only cross-border UNESCO biosphere reserve, and a model project for sustainability. 

Here, the goal is clear: balance the needs of mankind with the health of the environment, teaching people to “act and react more sustainably,” according to local guide Ute Seitz.

“Sustainability,” she explained, using the German word Nachhaltigkeit, “comes from their thinking and from their planning for the future.” 

Foresters developed this concept over 150 years ago, establishing the principle that you aren’t allowed to take more wood out of a forest per year than the forest can produce.  It’s a simple, profound idea, and perhaps one the world needs today more than ever. Don’t consume more than you produce.

Ripening grapes on a vineyard in Germany’s Palatinate region. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

A Mediterranean microclimate responds to global warming

Palatinate’s unique microclimate, often compared to the Mediterranean, means you’ll spot fig trees, kiwi, and even bananas growing and thriving outdoors, a sight that surprises many visitors. But this pleasant warmth also brings challenges. 

Seitz says temperatures here are rising quickly, leading to a series of problems. One of them is overpopulation of wild boars. Warmer winters reduce the natural mortality rate for the boars. These animals, which are clever and can’t be hunted in the protected core zones, emerge at night to devour roots and almost anything else they can find to eat. The boars disrupt a delicate balance that the reserve strives to maintain.

The biosphere reserve is structured into core, maintenance, and development zones, each with specific rules to safeguard biodiversity and promote sustainable practices. (Related: How the Sydney Opera House became a symbol of sustainability.)

One fascinating initiative is the “New Shepherds’ Trails,” a project that reintroduces traditional grazing with sheep and goats to prevent old orchards and valleys from being swallowed by forest. 

“The cattle don’t eat everything,” Seitz says, “especially not the blackberries. So, that’s why the goats are here.” 

It’s not just for aesthetics. It’s about maintaining cold air corridors that flow from the mountains to the valley, crucial for cooling down areas like Landau and the Rhine Valley that overheat during the summer.

Even the region’s renowned viticulture, a source of famous Riesling and Pinot Noir grape varieties, is evolving. Vintners are now being encouraged to plant fungus-resistant grapevine varieties, which can reduce the use of pesticides, especially fungicides, by up to 80 percent. It’s a significant step, even if consumer preference for traditional varieties means adoption isn’t as fast as some would hope.

But the pursuit of sustainability here isn’t just about grand ecological projects. It seeps into the local economy, inspiring entrepreneurs to reconnect with the land and its resources in profound ways.

Timo Keller, owner of the Wasgau Ölmühle in Hauenstein, Germany. (Photo by Aren Elliott.)

Wasgau Ölmühle: crafting purity, one cold press at a time

In the nearby village of Hauenstein, small businesses are also writing the next chapter in Palatinate’s sustainability story. At the Wasgau Ölmühle (oil mill) in Hauenstein, owner Timo Keller is refining the art of cold-pressed oils.

Keller, an engineer by training, says refined oils are chemically extracted and then cleaned, a process that strips them of some healing qualities. His method, by contrast, involves applying high pressure on the seed to squeeze the oil in a more natural process. 

“You have to use the best raw material if you want to get the best oil,” he explained.

Keller says 80 percent of the oil used in Germany is refined. He sees it as his mission to educate people about the profound difference between “oil and oil.” Or, to put it differently, not all oils are created the same.

That, they definitely aren’t. The öhlmühle produces a range of oils, from common rapeseed and sunflower to specialty linseed and walnut oils. But the undisputed star (a true “miracle oil,” according to Keller) is its black cumin seed oil (Nigella sativa). Among its claimed health benefits: combating diabetes, inflammation, and allergies, and even supporting liver and kidney health, he says.

Keller shared a story of a customer who was hospitalized four times with high inflammation and fever, receiving antibiotics without a clear diagnosis. After hearing about black cumin seed oil, he began taking it daily. 

“One day later, the fever was gone,” Keller recounted. “And he never had problems again.”

One of Keller’s innovations was adjusting the strong, bitter taste of black cumin seed oil. His daughter discovered that cherry juice improved the taste, and he later found that by pressing orange rind together with the black seeds, he could create an oil with a harmonious, slightly citrusy flavor.

Whether or not you believe the health claims, one thing you can be certain of is that the oils are being processed in a sustainable way. Keller tries to source the seeds as locally as possible. While some seeds, like black cumin, are currently imported from Egypt, he’s diligently working to motivate farmers to cultivate the imported seeds in Germany. He anticipates that German-grown seeds will soon account for 10 to 20 percent of their production.

And nothing goes to waste at the mill. The leftover press cake that remains after the oil has been extracted isn’t discarded. Press cake from nuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds, and linseed gets repurposed into food because it’s high in proteins and low in carbs. This by-product becomes a valuable ingredient for those on low-carb or keto diets. It’s a remarkable example of the circular economy in action, turning what might be waste into a healthy resource.

As more travelers look for wellness on their vacations, places like the mill are becoming increasingly attractive destinations.

Sustainability as a way of life

The Palatinate, with its ancient ruins looming over a landscape shaped by nature and human ingenuity, is a destination where sustainability is more than a buzzword. From the biosphere reserve’s efforts to preserve overgrown orchards with grazing animals and introduce fungus-resistant grapevines, to the Wasgau Ölmühle’s dedication to producing cold-pressed oils and educating consumers, this part of Germany is relentlessly pursuing all things green.

But the destination is the journey here. And it’s an adventure fraught with challenges like climate change and the complexities of land management. The commitment is unmistakable. It’s in the quiet work of Seitz, explaining the nuances of ecological balance, and in Keller’s passionate advocacy for oils. The Palatinate may not be synonymous with sustainability yet, but it’s definitely on its way.

When you pay nearly $1,000 for concert tickets, you expect a perfect view, not a VIP tent blocking one-third of the stage. But that’s exactly what happens to Vincent Manierre when he buys tickets to an Oasis show at the Rose Bowl. Ticketmaster sold him “premium” seats without marking them as obstructed. Can he get a refund?

Question

I bought two second-row tickets for the Oasis concert at the Rose Bowl. They were $475 each, and I paid that much because I wanted a great view. When I got there, a VIP tent blocked one-third of the stage. The tickets weren’t labeled “obstructed view.”

I contacted Ticketmaster for a refund, but they said the event organizer controls refunds and won’t allow one. They won’t even tell me who the organizer is. Ticketmaster’s own policy says obstructed seats should be labeled, but they won’t admit any wrongdoing. 

All I wanted was an acknowledgment and a small refund. Now I think I deserve all my money back. Can you help? —Vincent Manierre, Los Angeles

Answer

If you pay nearly $1,000 for concert seats, you should expect a clear view of the stage. Ticketmaster’s stated policy is that obstructed seats are flagged during the purchase process. That didn’t happen here.

Your email correspondence with Ticketmaster shows that you pressed them repeatedly on this point, but each time the response was the same: The organizer calls the shots. Ticketmaster told you it simply passed along the information they’re given, and if a stage setup changed after tickets were sold, it’s not responsible for updating the listings. That leaves you paying for premium seats that aren’t premium at all. And that’s unacceptable.

Under U.S. federal law, consumer protection statutes, especially rules enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), ban companies from engaging in “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” in commerce. If a company sells tickets without disclosing obstructed views, and its own policy promises labeling of obstructed-view seats, nondisclosure can be a deceptive practice. (Related: StubHub FanProtect guarantee failed. Here’s how one buyer fought back.)

California’s consumer protection and false advertising laws also forbid misrepresenting goods or services. Some states have gone further with so-called “Taylor Swift bills,” requiring ticket sellers to clearly disclose all fees and restrictions. Ticketmaster’s failure to disclose the obstruction may well cross into deceptive trade practices.

Your case is an important reminder to always look carefully for any “limited” or “obstructed view” warnings before buying tickets. Also, take screenshots of the seat listing for your records. If the view is obstructed at the show, document it with photos immediately and report it to a supervisor at the venue. That creates a paper trail you can use in your refund claim later.

Ticketmaster should do better at disclosing obstructions and taking responsibility when seats don’t match the listing. At the very least, it could have provided a contact for the organizer so you could argue your case with the people responsible for placing the VIP tent between you and the stage. (I’m tempted to call the tent a wonderwall, but I’ve promised to avoid quoting song titles in these ticket stories.)

In your case, persistence paid off. I reached out to Ticketmaster on your behalf and it agreed to refund you $191, the amount of its service fees. It wasn’t the full refund you wanted, but it was a partial acknowledgment that something went wrong.

When Bill Chellis’s wife falls seriously ill on the morning of a hotel stay, he does what most of us would do. He calls the Hampton Inn in Great Falls, Mont., to cancel. But instead of compassion, he gets a bill for the full stay.

Question

My wife and I were booked into the Hampton Inn in Great Falls, Mont. On the morning of our trip, she woke up with a 102-degree fever and a severe cough. She was later diagnosed with pneumonia and had to be admitted to the hospital.

I called the hotel to cancel the reservation, but the desk clerk told me we’d still be charged the full $173 because it was a late cancellation. He said there was nothing he could do.

I called Hilton’s customer service line, and a representative said the property would have to handle it. I asked for the hotel manager, but she was in a meeting. I left my number but never heard back.

I later wrote to Hilton’s corporate offices and even sent a certified letter to Hilton corporate, but no one responded. I just want a refund or a credit for a future stay.

Can you help me? —Bill Chellis, Camano Island, Wash.

Answer

I’m sorry to hear about your wife’s illness and I hope she’s feeling better. Hotels typically have strict cancellation policies. Most major chains require 24 hours’ notice or more to avoid penalties. In your case, Hilton was within its rights to charge for the night. But in the hospitality business, having the right to do something and doing the right thing are often not the same.

Your paper trail shows you did everything you could to get help. You called, you asked for a manager, you appealed to corporate, and you followed up in writing. (By the way, you can find the names, numbers and email addresses of the Hilton executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org,) That’s exactly what consumers should do when they have a legitimate request for an exception to policy.

Washington State has a Consumer Protection Act that broadly prohibits “unfair or deceptive” practices. While it doesn’t specifically cover hotel cancellations, it does give consumers a legal avenue if a company refuses to act in good faith. On a federal level, there’s no blanket law requiring hotels to waive penalties for medical emergencies, but the Federal Trade Commission does monitor businesses for misleading practices. The “may incur charges” wording in Hilton’s own cancellation notice arguably left the door open for some discretion.

When I contacted Hilton, it reviewed your case again. A representative said its front desk agent had correctly followed policy but confirmed that it overlooked your follow-up requests. Hilton refunded your $173.

Your case is a good reminder that policies are not always the final word. If you have a valid reason, backed up by documentation, and you politely persist, companies can often bend a rule. And when they don’t? Well, you know how to find me.

For their 50th anniversary trip to Europe, Jack and Leslie Hamann splurged on business class tickets on Aer Lingus. They got business class treatment. Their luggage? Not so much, and their Aer Lingus lost luggage compensation fight was just beginning.

Their Aer Lingus itinerary from Redmond, Ore., to Brussels via San Francisco and Dublin was supposed to be the beginning of a three-week European getaway. Instead, it became a six-month odyssey through customer service purgatory.

The Hamanns’ story is about more than just lost luggage. It’s about an airline that made promise after promise, then systematically broke every one. It’s about a company that admitted liability, agreed to pay compensation, then vanished when payment came due. 

This case raises several important questions:

• What happens when an airline repeatedly fails to load your tracked baggage onto flights?
• Can airlines ignore their own written promises to compensate passengers?
• How long should customers wait before seeking outside help with unresolved claims?

But first, let me tell you how this nightmare began, and why it took a consumer advocate to finally wake up a sleeping airline.

Inside the Aer Lingus lost luggage disaster

When the Hamanns checked their bags in Redmond, they had every reason to expect smooth sailing. After all, they’d paid extra for business class, so their luggage got priority tags. They’d purchased comprehensive travel insurance. They’d even tucked AirTags into their luggage, a decision that would prove more prescient than they knew.

But their bags never made it onto their flight.

Their bags contained cold-weather clothing for the European winter and daily prescription medications. (Note: You should never pack prescription medication in checked luggage.)

This wasn’t a case of truly lost luggage. For four consecutive days, Aer Lingus simply failed to load the Hamanns’ luggage onto the next available flight: three times in San Francisco, once in Brussels. The bags were sitting right there in the baggage area, clearly visible to anyone who bothered to look.

The Hamanns had photographic evidence, too. They’d shared screenshots of their AirTag locations with Aer Lingus baggage services. The couple reminded them that the bags had priority tags on them. Yet day after day, the luggage remained at the airport.

“Every day, Aer Lingus called, emailed or texted to say that the luggage had been located and was on its way,” Hamann explained. “That was mostly untrue.”

The delay was more than an inconvenience.

“Relying on the airline’s false assurances was extremely stressful,” he says. “We were forced to make daily changes and calculations about our schedule and whether to make replacement purchases.”

The Hamanns finally received their luggage five full days into what was supposed to be the vacation of a lifetime. But their ordeal was just beginning.

What airlines must do when your baggage is delayed

When an airline mishandles your luggage, a delayed baggage claim triggers obligations under international treaties and the carrier’s own policies to reimburse reasonable expenses. (Here’s my complete guide to dealing with lost luggage.) 

The Montreal Convention, which governs international flights, makes carriers liable for damage caused by baggage delays.

But here’s what most passengers don’t understand: Airlines have significant discretionary power in determining what constitutes “reasonable” expenses. They can refuse to cover charges they consider excessive. They can question the necessity of purchases. And they can drag out the reimbursement process through bureaucratic inertia.

The Hamanns did everything right. They filed their claim immediately. They submitted receipts for replacement clothing, medications, and toiletries. They provided detailed bank transfer information when Aer Lingus requested it. They followed every protocol in the airline’s compensation playbook.

Aer Lingus responded with what seemed like good news shortly after the Hamanns filed their claim.

“After thoroughly reviewing your case and the documentation you provided, I am pleased to inform you that a payment of $265 will be processed to cover the expenses you have submitted,” an Aer Lingus representative wrote. “Please allow 30 days for this to be processed.”

The email contained multiple errors: incorrect flight dates, wrong flight numbers, wrong departure airports. But the message seemed clear: Aer Lingus acknowledged liability and promised payment within 30 days.

Four months later, the Hamanns still hadn’t received their money.

They’d been ghosted.

Baggage compensation cases can be infuriating. Some passengers report receiving generous goodwill gestures that exceed their actual expenses at the time of their loss. Others, like the Hamanns, have to fight for reimbursement that the airline has already agreed to pay.

The key is documentation and persistence. Keep every receipt. Screenshot every promise. Save every email. Airlines count on passenger fatigue: the hope that you’ll eventually give up rather than continue pursuing a relatively small claim.

But $265 isn’t a small amount when it represents the principle that companies should honor their written commitments. The Hamanns understood this, and they were not about to let go.

Can airlines ignore a written reimbursement promise?

Legally, no. A written airline reimbursement promise creates a contractual obligation, even if the carrier later tries to walk it back. Aer Lingus’s email wasn’t just customer service politeness. It was a binding commitment.

But practically speaking, airlines ignore their promises all the time. They bet that most customers will eventually give up, write off the loss, and move on with their lives. It’s a calculated gamble based on customer service fatigue.

The Hamanns refused to play that game.

After Aer Lingus missed its self-imposed deadline, the couple continued to blaze a paper trail. They sent follow-up emails. They reached out to executives. (Here are the Aer Lingus executive contacts.) They documented every non-response and logged every broken promise.

Finally, Aer Lingus sent the couple a terse email informing them that it had “closed” their case.

Ah, the old “case closed” gambit. That’s a customer service technique designed to shut down further communication. The airline simply declares the matter resolved and stops reading emails. It’s corporate gaslighting at its finest.

But the Hamanns had kept their own detailed records. When they finally contacted my advocacy team, they provided a complete email chain spanning 64 messages. They had documentation of every promise, every missed deadline, and every non-response.

This is why I tell every consumer filing a delayed baggage claim to keep their own paper trail. Don’t rely on the company’s records or their assurance that your case is being “escalated” or “reviewed.” Keep your own copies of everything.

Airlines have become masters of customer service theater. It’s lots of activity that creates the appearance of progress without actually resolving anything. They shuffle cases between departments, assign new reference numbers, and schedule follow-up calls that never come.

The only defense is meticulous record-keeping and the willingness to escalate when companies fail to honor their commitments.

How Elliott Advocacy resolved the baggage claim

When the Hamanns contacted Elliott Advocacy, we did what we always do: After carefully reviewing their damning paper trail, we reached out to Aer Lingus. We explained the situation, provided the documentation, and asked for a response.

The effect was immediate.

Aer Lingus discovered it had failed to properly complete the payment transfer paperwork. When the airline finally completed the forms correctly a few weeks later, the money transferred immediately.

“Six months after Aer Lingus temporarily lost, and then badly mismanaged, our two bags, we finally received the bare minimum in reimbursement,” Hamann reported.

The resolution was both satisfying and maddening. It was satisfying because the Hamanns finally got their money. And it was maddening because it shouldn’t have taken six months and our intervention to get an airline to honor its written promise.

But that’s the reality of modern customer service. Companies have discovered that stonewalling works with most customers most of the time. They’ve calculated that the cost of ignoring complaints is lower than the cost of promptly resolving them.

This cynical approach only changes when companies face public scrutiny or media attention. Suddenly, the “impossible” becomes possible. Database errors are corrected overnight. Supervisors who were “unavailable” materialize instantly. Payments that were “processing” for months appear in customer accounts within days.

It’s a frustrating system, but it’s the one we’re stuck with. The best defense is knowing how to work within it, and knowing when to call in reinforcements.

As for the Hamanns, they finally got their reimbursement, but they also got a hard lesson in airline customer service. 

“We travel a lot and have never experienced such a consistent string of what appears to be intentionally poor customer service,” they told me.

It’s a sentiment I hear far too often. Airlines have systematically degraded their customer service to cut costs, betting that blind brand loyalty and market consolidation will keep passengers coming back regardless of treatment.

Sometimes that bet pays off. But sometimes, just sometimes, passengers fight back. And when they do, with the right documentation and dogged persistence, they can still win.

The Hamanns proved that airline reimbursement promises still matter. They just shouldn’t have had to fight six months to collect.

When Yesim Saydan flew from New York to Amsterdam recently, she was shocked when a ticket agent weighed her carry-on backpack.

At first, she thought it was a joke. But then the agent assured her it wasn’t, and that even though her luggage was the correct size, they would add the weight of her checked bag to her backpack to see if she was exceeding the airline’s restrictions.

“It was the first time ever that I had an airline weigh my personal bag,” she says.

Saydan’s bags were a few pounds overweight and she had to pay an extra $30.

Gotcha!

The junk fee spigot is on

“Junk fees are like a spigot that can be turned higher at any moment,” says Bill McGee, a senior fellow for aviation at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Many travelers are unaware of their full cost until their reservations are already made.”

And it’s becoming a bigger problem. As the Middle East conflict drags on and fuel prices continue to rise, travel companies are adding more “gotcha” fees like the one Saydan encountered on her flight to Europe. 

The latest strain of fees is tricky. There are no major announcements like the one Southwest Airlines made when it ended its popular “Bags Fly Free” policy; often it’s just an internal directive to reinterpret a rule in a way that’s more profitable for the company. 

This kind of nonsense isn’t new, but the innovations have taken even me by surprise. On a recent domestic flight in Malaysia, Air Asia dinged me for an overweight backpack just like Saydan. I had to pay an extra $30 to carry it on the plane.

“Introducing new junk fees and raising the existing ones are key ways that travel companies increase their revenue streams during downturns,” explains McGee.

Saydan, a communications consultant from New York, reluctantly paid the fee, hoping it was an anomaly. But it wasn’t. On her connecting flight, her airline tried to charge her for drinking water. 

“Their card processor wasn’t working so you had to pay in cash,” she remembers. “And I didn’t have any euros on me.”

Charging for water? That’s a thing too, and it’s even spreading to legacy carriers.

Gotcha!

What are the new “gotcha” fees?

Experts are struggling to keep up with the newest junk fees because of the clever way they’re being implemented. 

• A hotel might have a late checkout fee and simply direct its employees to enforce it strictly: “no waivers, no favors.” 

• An airline might have weight limits for luggage, and in challenging economic times, will tell its gate agents to strictly enforce the limits and charge passengers for any excess weight. 

• Travel companies can also quietly move the goalposts on loyalty programs by adjusting their rates for redeeming a “free” room or seat, or adding a nondescript “carrier-imposed fee.”

Travel companies disclose these extras, but just barely.

Consider what happened to Madeline Miller when she rented a car. 

“I used the pre-installed toll pass, which resulted in an additional ‘convenience’ fee,” says Miller, an academic writer from Toms River, N.J. “The kicker? Although I only used the toll once during my rental period they charged me the full daily fee for the entire time I rented the car. The rental company showed me the fine print deep within the contract when I tried to argue about the charges afterward.”

When profits are good, a car rental company is likely to zero out a renter’s bill when they complain. Now? Not so much.

Customers never asked for these “gotchas”

I talk to travelers every day, and the evidence that junk fees are proliferating is overwhelming. They’re harder than ever to spot, and customers definitely don’t want to pay them.

“We’re seeing more ‘gotcha’ fees and restrictions than ever, from airlines and hotels to car rentals and cruises,” says Mike Hallman, CEO of Medjet, a medical evacuation membership program for travelers. 

He says the watershed moment came earlier this year, when Southwest Airlines started charging most passengers for checked luggage.

“I think a lot of families were surprised by that,” he says.

Here’s the maddening thing about the new fees. Customers never asked for them. (True, they consistently book the lowest-priced car rental rates, hotel rooms and airfares, but that doesn’t mean they are asking for more fees. It’s the opposite, actually.)

“Travelers today are encountering more unexpected fees because airlines are increasingly shifting toward an unbundled pricing model, offering lower base fares while charging extra for services that were once included,” says Mario Matulich, president of CMP, a customer service consultancy.

He says “gotchas” are dishonest.

“By hiding mandatory fees and taxes, you are misleading your customers, plain and simple,” he adds. “And once that trust is lost, good luck getting it back.”

How to avoid gotcha fees this fall

Good thing there are specific actions you can take to avoid gotcha fees:

Do your research carefully. A quick online search isn’t enough, says Mitch Krayton, a travel advisor from Denver.  “Reviews won’t always help,” he says. That’s because cruise lines, hotels and other businesses have found ways of manipulating search engine results to hide important information. These unscrupulous businesses will often reveal their fees at the end of your booking transaction. “Reject misrepresented properties,” he says. You can also book through an advisor like Krayton Travel, who will sort through the junk fees for you.

If you have a question, don’t be shy. The latest twist, as I’ve already mentioned, is a creative reinterpretation of an established rule. The confusion benefits the travel company. “Ask the right questions,” says Medjet’s Hallman. “Otherwise you could end up with a surprise.” 

Know your rights. “When you experience a gotcha moment (whether it involves your seat, luggage, or pricing) you can always refer to the Department of Transportation’s passenger rights,” says Danny Karon, a consumer lawyer based in Cleveland and author of “Your Lovable Lawyer’s Guide to Legal Wellness: Fighting Back Against a World That’s Out to Cheat You.” He says you can find the guide while you’re standing at the gate and quote chapter and verse of the rules if your airline violates them.

Above all, don’t reward a travel company with your business when it slams you with a “gotcha” fee. That sends a message that it’s OK to charge you a low price and then ambush you with a surprise fee. And that leads to even more fees. 

Believe me, I’ve seen this before. If you put up with “gotcha” fees, this won’t end well.

Airlines sure have a funny way of saying thank you. 

After you spend years obsessively funneling every purchase through their co-branded credit cards and sitting in its cramped economy class seats, you finally go to redeem your “free” flight—only to find a $1,400 bill waiting for you at checkout.

Since the recent conflict in the Middle East began, it’s only gotten worse. Airlines are using the chaos as a smokescreen to hike their amorphous carrier-imposed fees. 

British Airways just raised surcharges on economy tickets from the U.S. to London by 50 percent. A business class award now carries a one-way surcharge of up to $800—a 36 percent jump in a single week. 

Not to be outdone, the Lufthansa Group has pushed its business class surcharges to North America as high as $1,400 round-trip. Air France-KLM also joined the frenzy, raising its award fees by up to 40 percent without a word of warning to its members.

You’re welcome.

How did this happen?

The airline industry loves to complain about oil. Whenever prices spike, it’s a convenient excuse to jack up fees. Now the geniuses running these airlines think you’ll happily pay twice for a ticket: once with your loyalty, and again with cash. 

But here’s the secret: Many of these airlines aren’t even paying the market price for fuel.

Major international carriers engage in a practice called hedging, which uses complex financial tools to lock in fuel prices months or years in advance. The Lufthansa Group is reportedly 77 percent hedged for all of 2026. British Airways’ parent company, IAG, has similarly locked in its costs.

U.S. carriers hedge their fuel purchases, too. For example, Delta Air Lines is expecting a $300 million benefit in the latest quarter from a wholly owned subsidiary, Monroe Energy, which operates a refinery in Pennsylvania to hedge against volatile jet fuel costs.

When fuel prices jump on the evening news, these airlines aren’t necessarily paying more for their jet fuel. Yet, they still ask you to pay a fuel surcharge based on a price hike they aren’t feeling. 

And when fuel prices drop? The fuel surcharges remain and get rebranded as “carrier-imposed fees.” 

The great loyalty default

It’s time to stop calling these programs rewards. They are really just an unsecured, high-interest loan you’ve given the airline.

Think about it. You offer your business and your data up front. In exchange, the airline gives you a promissory note in the form of miles. 

Now that you’re trying to collect, the airline is effectively defaulting on that loan. By collecting a surcharge, it is telling you that its own currency is worthless and that you have to pay for your ticket again.

And the worst part is that we’re letting it happen. Like lemmings in a nature documentary, travelers are being pushed into a frenzy of mile-collecting with relentless ads, in-flight come-ons and sweet nothings whispered by loyalty program fan blogs. People are so afraid of losing their status that they mindlessly follow the herd of other point collectors. They’ve become addicts who pay for the privilege of being ignored—and overcharged.

How to fight back

We need a government policy that requires honesty in advertising. If an airline offers you an award ticket, it shouldn’t be allowed to tack on hundreds of dollars in arbitrary fees. 

But until the Department of Transportation steps in, you have to vote with your wallet.

My radical proposal: Stop being the bank. Shred the co-branded credit cards and stop chasing status that costs more than it saves. Treat every flight as a commodity, not a relationship. If you use a credit card, get one that gives you straight cash back—a currency the airline can’t devalue with the stroke of a pen.

The airline industry is betting that you’re too addicted to your gold status to notice you’re being fleeced. Prove it wrong. In a world where a “free” ticket costs $1,400, maybe the best way to win the loyalty game is not to play at all.

The United Airlines–American Airlines merger everyone feared may actually be happening.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby reportedly met with administration officials at the White House in February to float an audacious proposal: a combination with American Airlines.

Kirby, who has been quietly laying the groundwork for this since late last year, is pitching the deal as a way for a U.S. megacarrier to compete with foreign-flagged airlines on long-haul routes. But those of us who have watched this industry for decades suspect that this is more of a marriage of convenience that prioritizes corporate scale over passenger satisfaction.

(I noted in the last Consumer Alert that some carriers are increasingly likely to face bankruptcy, which might push regulators to be more open to these kinds of deals. I predicted two major airline mergers would hit the headlines this year. I hate it when I’m right.)

The United Airlines–American Airlines merger by the numbers

If this deal goes through, it will create a colossus controlling roughly 40 percent of the U.S. market. It would also combine the two largest sources of passenger friction in the country into one massive, unmanageable entity.

Here is how United Airlines and American Airlines compared on key performance metrics in 2025, including DOT complaint rates:

*Rankings based on the 10 largest reporting carriers. 1 is best, 10 is worst.

United will probably argue that a larger, more efficient network will provide better connectivity for international travelers and more stability for the domestic airline industry. By combining resources, it could claim to offer a more robust schedule that helps it stay viable against global competitors, which often receive government subsidies.

From a passenger rights perspective, the picture looks different. A combined entity would generate nearly 50,000 government complaints last year.

When airlines merge, they don’t adopt the best customer service practices. Instead, they almost always embrace the most restrictive policies and worst customer-service practices from each handbook to “synergize” costs.

History isn’t on the airlines’ side here. After the United–Continental merger in 2010, the combined airline was responsible for 43 percent of U.S. airline consumer complaints filed with the DOT by 2012. United even took out ads in newspapers admitting it “hadn’t lived up to expectations” of the merger. The American-US Airways deal didn’t go much better. Post-merger American saw a 5 percent increase in what passengers paid per mile—and that was after the DOJ had already forced the airlines to sell off slots at Reagan National and LaGuardia to protect competition. Clearly, mergers don’t produce better airlines. 

Here’s the American Airlines–United Airlines merger timeline

While Kirby is talking now, a merger of this size doesn’t happen overnight. If a formal agreement is reached later this year, the timeline would likely look like this:

Late Friday, American Airlines appeared to pour cold water on the merger talk, issuing a statement that it was “not engaged with or interested in any discussions” regarding a merger with United Airlines.

“While changes in the broader airline marketplace may be necessary, a combination with United would be negative for competition and for consumers, and therefore inconsistent with our understanding of the Administration’s philosophy toward the industry and principles of antitrust law,” it added.

Don’t believe it for a second. If American’s shareholders can get better deal by playing hard to get, they will. I’ve seen it before.

How to protect yourself before an airline merger

Passengers shouldn’t wait for the first “United-American” livery to appear to protect themselves.

• Don’t consolidate your loyalty programs—yet. While it’s tempting to move everything into one basket, keep your options open. Mergers often lead to points devaluations—where your miles suddenly buy much less than they used to.
  
• Consider a “third-way” airline. If you live in a hub like Chicago, Dallas, or Los Angeles, start looking at Delta, Southwest or even JetBlue. Competition is the only thing that keeps fares down, and this merger would effectively eliminate it on many routes.
  
• Manage your expectations. Would having United in control improve things? While United had a slightly lower complaint rate than American last year (8.55 per 100k complaints vs. 14.12), a lower rate of “bad” is still not “good.” History shows that the massive technical hurdles of merging two reservation systems almost always lead to a spike in lost bags and canceled flights.

Is the American Airlines–United Airlines merger good for passengers?

That brings us to this week’s question.

And a few follow-up questions:

• If you answered yes, why? Do you think a megacarrier is necessary to compete globally? Or do you think United’s management could fix American’s service issues?
• If you said no, what’s your biggest concern? Is it the inevitable fare hikes, the loss of competition in major hubs, or the technical nightmare of merging two reservation systems?

My take: From a consumer advocacy point of view, a United Airlines–American Airlines merger is exactly the kind of consolidation that hurts the average traveler. It eliminates choice, raises fares, and leaves you with fewer places to turn when things go wrong. Combining two airlines with poor on-time records and high complaint rates won’t create a better airline. It’ll just create a bigger problem.

Share your take on the American Airlines–United Airlines merger

What do you think? Is a United-American merger something that helps the U.S. stay competitive, or is it just a way to squeeze more money out of travelers? Join the discussion.

If you thought your new credit card and a fancy RFID-blocking wallet will protect you from credit card scams when you travel, I’ve got some bad news for you. 

Despite billions spent on EMV chip-based payment cards and contactless systems, nearly 2 in 3 credit card holders have experienced credit card cloning or fraud, according to Security.org. Even more alarming: a new “white card” scam is spreading across Europe, costing victims an average of $300 per incident, and it’s targeting travelers who thought their chip-and-PIN cards were secure.

I should know — my family recently became a victim of this scam. (More on that in a moment.)

Recent law enforcement busts across Europe have exposed international crime rings stealing millions through sophisticated skimming operations at ATMs and point-of-sale terminals. The criminals have adapted to modern security measures, exploiting vulnerabilities that allow them to bypass chip protections entirely. 

Meanwhile, travelers continue buying expensive RFID wallets that protect against threats that barely exist while ignoring the real dangers lurking at every payment terminal.

The uncomfortable truth? Most “security” products marketed to travelers offer more of a false sense of security than actual protection. And even the most cautious visitors are discovering fraudulent charges on their statements days after using systems they believed were secure.

“Security upgrades don’t mean security guarantees,” says Eric Cole, a former CIA hacker and cybersecurity expert. “EMV chips and contactless payments made card fraud harder, but criminals adapt fast. Cloning scams show that technology alone doesn’t solve the problem — it just changes the battlefield.”

The new face of card cloning

Forget the outdated image of a criminal sliding a bulky skimmer over an ATM slot. Today’s card cloning operates at a level of sophistication that would make spy novelists jealous.

“Card cloning today isn’t about breaking in through the chip,” explains Debtosh Banerjee, president of Seen, a credit card company. “That technology is extremely hard to duplicate. Instead, fraudsters tend to target the weakest link.”

Modern criminals use “shimming” devices for credit card cloning — ultra-thin electronics inserted inside card readers that capture data from EMV chips. These devices are nearly impossible to spot with the naked eye, sometimes measuring just millimeters thick.

The criminals have three main attack vectors:

• Overlay skimmers at ATMs or terminals that capture card data, often paired with hidden cameras to record PINs. These devices can collect data for weeks before anyone notices.

• “White card” cloning, recently flagged in Italy, which bypasses EMV protections by transferring data to blank magnetic stripe cards used in regions with weaker security.

• Point-of-sale terminal tampering, where criminals compromise the machines themselves, installing malware that captures chip and contactless transaction details in real time.

“The mechanics of cloning scams have diversified,” says Carnegie Mellon cybersecurity researcher Harshvardhan Chunawala. 

But he says the most common tactic — and unfortunately, the most difficult to detect — is point-of-sale tampering. So you may be using a compromised payment system without even knowing it. 

It happened to me

The statistics don’t lie. My family was a victim of a compromised payment system when we lived in Paris a few months ago. 

My 20-year-old son used his U.S. credit card to buy a soda at a convenience store in Paris. A few days later, a $30 charge appeared for the Louvre. A few days later, another charge popped up for the Musée d’Orsay, and then another for Champs-Élysées. These were not businesses; they were accounts set up by scammers to look legitimate.

How could that have happened? My son used an RFID wallet, a carbon fiber case that blocks unauthorized radio frequency scans. 

He promptly disputed the charges, hoping for a refund. But I wanted answers: How did they get his credit card information despite the RFID wallet?

Why RFID wallets don’t prevent credit card cloning

Walk into any travel store and you’ll find dozens of RFID-blocking wallets promising to prevent credit card fraud. But do they actually work against card cloning threats? The marketing is pretty compelling. Invisible criminals scanning your cards through your pocket at airports and cafes. These  will stop it.

The reality is far different.

“RFID wallets sound good in ads, but most fraud today doesn’t come from wireless theft,” Cole explains. “It comes from compromised ATMs, point-of-sale terminals, and data breaches. Travelers may feel safe, but the risk has simply shifted.”

Multiple experts interviewed for this story echoed the same theme. RFID protection is designed to resolve a threat that’s largely theoretical while ignoring the actual dangers travelers face.

“RFID-blocking wallets may help against older, passive skimming methods, but they won’t stop active cloning at a tampered terminal,” says Uri Abramson, founder of the finance site Datasonic. “Most modern scams rely on compromised point-of-sale terminals or ATM skimmers that capture data from the chip and PIN process itself.”

Lakeidra Smith, author of “Cyber Curiosity: A Beginner’s Guide to Cybersecurity,” says the scary stories about someone scanning your pocket from afar make headlines.

“But they’re rare,” she says. “The real danger comes from compromised machines.”

How EMV chip cards can still be cloned

EMV chip technology was supposed to solve the cloning problem. In many ways, it has — but criminals have found workarounds that exploit both technical vulnerabilities and human psychology.

The most common exploit involves “fallback fraud,” where criminals tamper with a chip reader and force it to fail, which makes the card fall back to a magnetic stripe. That allows fraudsters to use cloned magnetic stripe cards even at chip-enabled terminals.

“Even though chips are secure, if a machine is rigged or falls back to the old magnetic stripe system, criminals can still clone your card,” explains Gyan Chawdhary, CEO of cybersecurity firm Kontra.

For criminals, these scams are the easiest way to get to your credit card. 

“Criminals rarely bother with RFID pickpocketing anymore,” says Stephen Arndt, president of Silver Linings Technology and a healthcare IT consultant. “Instead, they compromise the payment infrastructure itself.”

What actually works?

Security experts say some strategies can make a difference when you’re paying with a credit card while traveling.

Mobile wallets: the real game changer. Nearly every cybersecurity expert interviewed agreed: mobile payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay are the most effective credit card fraud prevention tools available today. “Use mobile wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay whenever possible,” advises Smith, the cybersecurity expert. “They create one-time codes that can’t be cloned.”

Choose secure ATM locations to prevent fraud

The unanimous advice from security experts: where you use your card matters more than what’s in your wallet. If you’re using a debit or credit card at an ATM, go to a bank or an airport. Avoid using an ATM on the street. 

“Any ATM can become compromised,” explains Darius Kingsley, head of consumer banking practices at Chase. “But those in well-lit, highly monitored environments are less likely to be tampered with. When possible, it’s better to use an ATM located inside a bank branch.

Real-time monitoring is your best defense. Perhaps the most important protection isn’t preventing fraud but detecting it quickly. Enable transaction alerts on your phone. The faster you catch fraudulent activity, the better your chances of keeping your money. Monique Lewis, a communications consultant who’s experienced fraud multiple times, explains her strategy: “I constantly check my accounts multiple times a day. I also make sure to let my institution know immediately.”

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, never travel with just one card. If your bank discovers a fraudulent transaction, it will probably try to cancel your account, potentially leaving you with no way to pay.

Bailey Foster, vice president of trip insurance at Trawick International, says the advice for travelers is simple. 

“The best protection is to use mobile wallets with tokenization, choose secure ATMs inside banks or airports, set up real-time alerts, and carry a backup card,” she says.

How to protect your credit card from cloning when traveling

You don’t have to be a victim. Here’s how to protect yourself when you’re on the road.

Before you go: Set up real-time transaction alerts for every card you’ll carry. This is your early warning system and the single most important protection you can enable. Load your cards into mobile wallets and practice using them. Also, turn on two-factor authentication for your banking apps. Notify your bank of your travel plans if possible, but also ask about transaction limits and how to quickly freeze cards if needed.

While you’re traveling: Taking a moment to inspect card readers before inserting your card could help you identify fake ATM machine parts and signs of tampering.They’re difficult to spot, but not impossible.

One more thing: Cover the keypad every time you enter a PIN. Even if nobody is around, use your other hand to cover the keypad. Hidden cameras often record your PIN number.

If you see a suspicious transaction, take advantage of the “lock card” function, which many financial service providers offer.

“When truly in doubt, lock out,” says Frank Harrison, regional security director for the Americas at World Travel Protection. “Confirm the transaction is yours before unlocking.”

How banks and payment processors fight card cloning

Banks and payment processors are fighting back, and  it’s a constant battle. The credit card industry has invested billions in EMV technology and fraud detection systems, but criminals continue to outsmart them.

One promising development is a company called iProov, which uses facial biometrics and liveness detection to verify that the person making a transaction is physically present and genuine, not a remote fraudster with stolen data.

“The modern threat to travelers isn’t about physical card cloning,” says Dominic Forrest, chief technology officer of iProov. “It’s about the theft and remote use of their digital identity.”

Travel insurance companies are adapting their policies to address modern fraud, too.

“While credit card cloning itself is not covered by travel insurance, most comprehensive travel insurance policies provide 24/7 emergency assistance support,” notes Bailey of Trawick. “They offer to help with things like ID recovery and emergency travel funds.”

But the fundamental problem remains: Security measures often lag behind criminal innovation.

Now what? 

Credit card cloning isn’t going away. As EMV chip technology and payment systems become more sophisticated, criminals adapt their fraud tactics. The good news is that travelers who understand the real threats — and ignore the marketing hype around gadgets — can significantly reduce their risk.

The pattern is clear from every expert interview and fraud victim account: Behavioral changes can make a big difference. Using mobile wallets, choosing secure payment locations, enabling real-time monitoring, and acting quickly when something goes wrong are the strategies that actually work.

Don’t forget that under the Fair Credit Billing Act, you have the right to dispute a fraudulent purchase and receive a full refund. That’s what my son did for his soda purchase in Paris, and it worked.

Your best protection against credit card fraud may not be in your wallet. It’s in your vigilance, and your willingness to embrace technologies that actually address the threats you face.

When Jeff Balesh buys tickets to see Eric Clapton in Philadelphia, he counts on StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee to protect his purchase. It fails. Now, with travel booked and a 24th anniversary on the line, he needs StubHub to honor its promise.

Question

I bought two tickets to an Eric Clapton concert in Philadelphia through StubHub a few months ago. The seats were in Section 114, and I paid $780, including over $100 in service fees, because I wanted the protection of StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee. That guarantee promises buyers the exact tickets they ordered — or comparable or better replacement seats.

But the seller backed out of the deal. StubHub canceled my purchase and offered replacement seats in Section 108 or 207 — dramatically inferior to what I paid for. 

I wrote to StubHub’s customer service team and even copied several executives, but I was told “the system” had given me what it could offer and nothing more.

This was supposed to be a special anniversary gift for my wife, and we’ve already booked travel and a hotel in Philadelphia. A refund is not acceptable. I just want StubHub to honor its promise and provide tickets in Section 114, 124, or floor sections. Can you help? — Jeff Balesh, Towson, Md.

Answer

StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee is clear: If your seller cancels, the company promises replacement tickets that are the same or comparable to those you originally booked. But there’s a significant asterisk buried in that guarantee, and I’ll get to it in a moment.

Your paper trail shows you did everything right. You contacted customer service, asked for help on social media, and escalated your complaint to the executive level. (I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of the StubHub executive contacts on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott Advocacy.)

StubHub still wouldn’t budge. Instead, it told you that its system dictated the replacement tickets, even though you could see better seats available on its own site. That’s the kind of corporate doublespeak that makes consumers feel cheated and disrespected. Kind of like something right out of an Eric Clapton song, come to think of it. (Related: Ticketmaster sold me “great seats” that turned out to be obstructed. Where’s my refund?)

You were also right to push back against a refund, which was your other option. But remember that asterisk I was talking about? Here it is: According to the guarantee, StubHub will “find you comparable or better tickets to the event, or offer you a refund of what you paid for your purchase or credit of the same amount for use on a future purchase.” In other words, under the guarantee, StubHub could offer you a refund and it would be in compliance.

Why StubHub’s FanProtect guarantee has a major catch

Quick sidebar: Our advocacy team has been receiving a growing number of StubHub complaints lately, many involving the FanProtect Guarantee. If StubHub is going to advertise that it protects ticket buyers, it needs to make good on that promise — or change the way it promotes its guarantee. There’s no two ways about it. (Related: StubHub charged me $3,300 for Coldplay tickets I never received — can I get my money back?)

Your case shows why persistence matters. When a company makes a bold promise like StubHub’s FanProtect, customers should expect it to follow through. If it isn’t, don’t accept excuses about what the “system” can or can’t do. Press for the resolution you’re owed.

I reached out to StubHub on your behalf. After some back-and-forth, the company finally honored its guarantee. It issued you tickets in the same section you originally booked, just as you asked. You and your wife will celebrate your 24th anniversary at an Eric Clapton concert after all.