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Hey, what have you done with my car?
🚗 Ever had your bank decide your rental car company was running a scam? — One of our readers did, and it locked him out of his own money. By the time he sorted it out, Avis had taken the car back and barred him from renting for two years. You can read the troubling story today.
On Backchannel, one of our community members paid extra for a bulkhead seat to Taipei and then spent an 11-hour leg looking at an entertainment screen that would not turn on. Now what?
For Members Only: Southwest carried 13 million fewer bags in the first six months of this year. Check out our exclusive story to find out why — and what it means for your next flight. — Christopher Elliott
FEATURED STORY
He paid Avis $1,895 to settle up. It kept him on the Do Not Rent list anyway.
Aaron McIntosh rented through the Avis Uber Partner Program so he could make a living driving. When Avis started charging his account several times a day, his bank flagged the billing as fraud and locked him out of his own money. He told the rental office he was waiting on a replacement debit card, and an Avis representative told him to text when he was ready. A day later he watched a tow truck go past with his rental on the back of it. Can our advocacy team get him back on the road?
OUR UNDERWRITER
Southwest Airlines is dedicated to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. We are committed to providing our employees with a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth.
📌 Here’s what you missed this week
Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report
Avis said his car was stolen, but he was just waiting for a new debit card
An Uber driver in Philadelphia lost access to his bank account after it flagged Avis’s billing as fraud. Avis repossessed the rental and put him on its Do Not Rent list for two years, which ended his ability to earn a living.
Banned by JetBlue after booking through the wrong website
A caregiver who flies Hartford to Fort Lauderdale twice a month paid $468 through a site called Farehub. JetBlue’s records show the ticket was bought with someone else’s travel voucher, and an agent stopped her at the gate.
Do you have a high travel IQ? Here’s how you can tell
A behavioral researcher watched one traveler come apart over a gate change in Tokyo while another passenger walked away and solved it. Travel IQ is the gap between what you think you know and how the world works, and there are seven signs yours needs work.
Americans are tearing down surveillance cameras. Then they’re lining up for one at the airport.
Americans spent the summer packing city council meetings and cutting down license plate cameras, and last week the company behind them rewrote its privacy rules. A lot of those same people drove to the airport, walked up to a checkpoint and let a machine photograph their face.
Can you turn tourists into conservationists? How one tour operator is trying to close the “say-do” gap
RealNZ raised $270,000 for predator control and replaced invasive pines with about 30,000 native trees across the lake from Queenstown. Its chief executive says the hard part is getting visitors to care once they start comparing prices.
The Bruno Mars ticket glitch that only affected fans with disabilities
A Chicago reader filtered Ticketmaster for ADA seating and watched every seat he selected come back unavailable. The next day the same seats were available through resellers, at a markup.
How to get a refund when your luxury hotel stay goes to the dogs
A Westin resort on Hilton Head Island caps pets at 40 pounds, two to a room, and then let shepherds and pointers ride the elevators. A Lifetime Titanium member wrote to the general manager and got silence.
OUR UNDERWRITER
Surf Air Mobility is a California-based air mobility platform. With its AI-enabled SurfOS software and electrification programs, Surf Air Mobility provides technology designed to support the modernization of air operations and the adoption of next-generation aircraft. Surf Air Mobility currently operates one of the largest commuter airlines in the United States by scheduled departures, which provides operational scale and real-world operating data to validate and deploy its software.
💬 What you’re saying
A seatback screen that died over the Pacific, and an airline that says it never happened
Nothing to do but stare at the back of my seat on this really, really long flight.
B Meadows paid extra for early seat selection and a bulkhead row on a Dulles to Taipei trip on Turkish Airlines, then spent an 11-hour leg looking at an entertainment screen that would not turn on. New headphones didn’t fix it, and neither did four resets from the cabin crew panel. Is a refund in order? Here’s our team’s advice on Backchannel.
OUR UNDERWRITER
Travel Leaders Group is transforming travel through its progressive approach toward each unique travel experience. Travel Leaders Group assists millions of travelers through its leisure, business and network travel operations under a variety of diversified divisions and brands, including All Aboard Travel, Andrew Harper Travel, Colletts Travel, Corporate Travel Services, CruCon Cruise Outlet, Cruise Specialists, Nexion, Protravel International, SinglesCruise.com, Travel Leaders Corporate, Travel Leaders Network and Tzell Travel Group, and its merger with ALTOUR. With more than 7,000 agency locations and 52,000 travel advisors, Travel Leaders Group ranks as one of the industry’s largest retail travel agency companies.
The rest of this newsletter names names.
Our exclusive Members Only stories go beyond the alerts and to the detail: who's running the scams, what happens to your information, and what to do if you already gave it up. PRO subscribers get one in every issue, plus Backchannel, our private forum, where you can bring me your own case. It costs about a dollar a week through Labor Day.
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