Editorial illustration of a laptop tethered to a wall outlet

You paid for portable. It only works plugged in. (Illustration by Dustin Elliott)

Thank you for your support! Our fall fundraiser is in full swing. We’ve raised 13% of the money needed to keep operating this quarter. Here’s how to participate.

💻 Five repairs later — Tracey Croisier's Lenovo Yoga 9 loses most of its charge on a 10-mile drive and has peaked at 134 degrees in her hands. As a fix, a Lenovo representative suggested she turn the laptop off in the car. See how this one ends.

On Backchannel, Carol Rawson's family sat on an Avelo jet at Tweed for seven hours before the flight was canceled. The airline is blaming the weather. What’s really going on?

For Members Only: A subprime auto lender agreed to $694 million in cash and debt relief over loans its own scoring model predicted borrowers couldn't repay. That settlement helps some past customers, but it does nothing for the next person who walks onto a used-car lot with a thin credit file. What keeps you out of a loan built to fail? — Christopher Elliott

FEATURED ARTICLE

Help! My $1,866 Lenovo Yoga is an expensive paperweight

Tracey Croisier bought a high-end Lenovo laptop expecting a powerhouse, but the battery died faster than a cheap phone. After five repair attempts and some truly bizarre advice from tech support, she's stuck with a "portable" computer that only works when it's plugged into a wall. Is it time for the company to give her money back?

🧳 “Response was immediate”

SAS lost Jerry’s luggage for more than five weeks. Its baggage customer service was no help, even after he told them the bags were being stored at a hotel he never stayed in.

Then he contacted us. “Response was immediate and I received my luggage 5 days later,” he says.

We don’t mess around. We work fast and we get results.

But our advocacy work depends on readers like you. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to our fall fundraiser today.

OUR UNDERWRITER

Global Rescue is the world's leading provider of medical, security, evacuation and travel risk management services. Founded in 2004, Global Rescue has exclusive relationships with the Johns Hopkins Emergency Medicine Division of Special Operations and Elite Medical Group. Global Rescue provides best-in-class services that identify, monitor and respond to client medical and security crises. Learn more about Global Rescue.

📌 Here’s what you missed this week

Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

Help! My $1,866 Lenovo Yoga is an expensive paperweight
Tracey Croisier's $1,866 Lenovo Yoga 9 started dropping from 100 percent to 30 percent battery in two hours less than a year after she bought it, and an in-home technician replaced the battery and the motherboard without fixing it. Six repair tickets later the laptop was peaking at 134 degrees, and a Lenovo representative suggested she turn it off during her 10-mile drive to class.

Help! Swiss bumped us to the back of the plane, and now our refund is gone
Mila Schoun paid $3,274 for premium economy from Miami to Prague, and Swiss moved him and his wife to economy for the long leg home, a downgrade worth $165 under European rules. The airline told him he had already collected an Easy Cash card at the Zurich airport, and he had never seen one.

Honest pricing works in travel. Just ask Airbnb.
U.S. airlines collected $2.1 billion in checked bag fees in the second quarter alone, and the industry says a fare that includes the bag and the seat would confuse travelers and push prices up. Airbnb moved to all-in pricing in April 2025 and its revenue rose 17% last quarter.

How Queenstown, New Zealand, is creating a greener adventure capital
Shotover Jet has built a prototype electric jet boat and can’t get it light enough to deliver the 360-degree spins its customers pay for. Charging a fleet would draw a megawatt on a river that floods up to 16 times a year, and the Ngāi Tahu iwi that owns the operation has told it to move off fossil fuel anyway.

My GE washer is a heavy metal drummer, but I didn’t buy tickets to the show
Six months after installation, a $1,856 GE Spacemaker washer still bangs into the walls of Laura Bartholomew’s Ventura, Calif., laundry room on every spin cycle. Five technicians ran controlled tests with no water or with four matching towels, reported the machine was working properly, and GE closed her case.

My tour operator promised a price lock — and then broke it
Michael Hughes prepaid a Spain and Portugal tour 10 months early under Overseas Adventure Travel’s Good Buy program, which advertises protection from cost increases. After Air France canceled his flight, OAT billed him $670 more and gave him two conflicting explanations for the charge.

When your Daryl Hall concert is canceled but the refund is out of touch
Robert Logan paid $489 for a pair of StubHub tickets to a Daryl Hall show in Denver, and after Hall canceled it he called six times and got the same promise to escalate the refund in four or five days. His bank turned him down too, saying the Fair Credit Billing Act’s 60-day window had closed because he bought the tickets in June.

OUR UNDERWRITER

INFplans.com is a specialized travel medical insurance platform dedicated exclusively to non-U.S. residents traveling outside their home country, including to the United States, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Europe, and other global destinations. Key differentiators include coverage for travelers up to age 99 and unique options for pre-existing condition coverage, benefits that are rarely available in the visitor insurance space. With a simple online experience and a seasoned support team, INFplans.com makes it easy for non‑U.S. residents to secure the travel medical protection they need to explore the world with confidence. Travel with confidence with INFplans.com

💬 What you’re asking on Backchannel

Why won’t Avelo help us?

Carol Rawson and her family of five boarded an Avelo flight from New Haven to Fort Lauderdale and then sat on the tarmac at Tweed for seven hours before the airline canceled it, leaving them at the terminal at 10:30 p.m. with no lodging and no rebooking. Avelo blames weather and air traffic control and won't reimburse the hotel rooms, the rental car or the flights they finally bought out of Philadelphia two days later, though Rawson says the sky over New Haven was clear for the first four hours. Does a seven-hour tarmac delay change what an airline owes? Here’s our team’s advice on Backchannel.

OUR UNDERWRITER

International Citizens Insurance helps expats, travelers and anyone far from home find the right insurance plan. Our knowledgeable agents will help you find the best plan at the right price and be your advocate for the life of your policy.

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