Feldberg’s ski runs look ready for snow. Nobody on the mountain will promise it’s coming. (Photo by Aren Elliott)
🍁 Greetings from Spokane, Washington, which is in the throes of a colorful fall. After almost 24 hours in planes and airports, we finally made it back to our home base, where we’ll be hanging out for a while.
Today’s featured story is about fall — and what happens afterwards. Achim Laber has spent 36 years watching winter show up later on Germany’s highest Black Forest peak. I asked him how many seasons the lifts up there have left. Our featured article has his answer.
On Backchannel, Noah is fighting a C$5,094 StubHub penalty for delivering World Cup tickets late, on an order StubHub’s own email says arrived four days early.
Confidentially: Nearly three dozen federal lawsuits accuse Apple of selling a tracker that made stalking easy, and a judge in California now has all of them. Your phone can warn you when one of those trackers is riding along in your luggage, but only if a short list of settings is switched on. I’ll have all the details over the wall. — Christopher Elliott
FEATURED ARTICLE
In Germany’s Black Forest, winter isn’t a sure thing anymore
The view from the summit of Germany’s highest Black Forest peak reaches the Swiss Alps, and in September the ski runs below it are green and busy with hikers. For four years running, no snow has fallen there over the Christmas holidays, the two weeks that pay for the towns at the base. The lift company says better snowmaking will buy the mountain more winters. What does the ranger who has watched this mountain for 36 years say?
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Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report
In Germany’s Black Forest, winter isn’t a sure thing anymore
Achim Laber has been a ranger at Feldberg Nature Reserve for 36 years, and the mountain has now gone four straight Christmas holidays without snow on slopes that used to hold it from November through April. Its lift operator is expanding snowmaking to buy more seasons, while a resort at similar elevation across the French border has already set a date to stop skiing altogether.
Is there a way out of this Amazon account recovery black hole?
Henry Dickson’s iPad was bricked during an update, and when he reinstalled the Amazon app, the login asked him to approve a notification on the device he couldn’t reach. Amazon’s identity recovery page required him to sign in before uploading a driver’s license, a dozen representatives sent him the same broken link, and he lost access to his Prime benefits and his entire Kindle library.
Help! A three-hour delay returning my rental car cost me $650!
George Meyer paid $670 for a 27-day Europcar rental in France on a voucher that promised unlimited mileage, then hit traffic on the way back to Charles de Gaulle and reached the counter three hours late. The delay pushed the rental to 28 days, which under EU rules puts it in a different category with a 3,750-kilometer cap, and Europcar billed him $650 for the extra distance.
An arson attack in France doubled her car rental bill. Does she have to pay?
Marianne Piepenburg booked a five-day car from National at the Avignon TGV station for $434, and arsonists attacked the French rail lines on the morning she was due to pick it up. She reached the counter a day late to find her reservation canceled and a comparable vehicle priced at $837 for four days, with National pointing at Enterprise, Enterprise pointing at a local franchise in Avignon and the franchise answering neither its phone nor its email.
The reverse packing list: What should you leave at home?
A first checked bag now costs $45 on most major U.S. airlines, and American charges basic economy passengers $55. Travel advisors who live out of a carry-on have cut themselves down to one pair of versatile shoes and a merino layer that handles a 40-degree morning without the bulk, and one of them nominates the full-size travel umbrella as the most useless item in anybody’s bag.
Only 3 airline seats left? Prove it.
Joshua Clouette’s airline website said only three business class seats were left. A supervisor told him the site might not reflect what was available. Regulators in Britain and Hungary have gone after scarcity claims, but no U.S. agency has brought a case against a travel company over one.
Are tourist taxes fair — or are you being taken for a ride?
Edinburgh, Barcelona, Japan and Kyoto all raised what visitors pay this year, and Europe’s ETIAS fee nearly tripled before the system launched. Some destinations publish where the money goes, while others charge foreign visitors $100 more for the same view.
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AirHelp helps travelers secure up to $650 compensation for flight delays and cancellations under international regulations. Check your flight for free to see if you qualify — and join over 3 million passengers who’ve already received compensation with AirHelp. Visit airhelp.com.
💬 What you’re asking on Backchannel
But I wasn’t late …
Noah Z pre-uploaded two World Cup tickets to StubHub for a Round of 16 match in Vancouver, and the site emailed him on July 3 to confirm they had been delivered, four days ahead of the July 7 deadline printed on his own sales page. StubHub charged him a C$5,094 late delivery penalty anyway, denied two appeals with word-for-word identical messages, then took the money off his credit card in two installments. How do you fight a penalty the company’s own records say shouldn’t exist? Join the discussion on Backchannel.
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Allianz Travel Insurance has built its reputation on partnering with agents all around the world to provide valuable travel insurance for their clients. Contact Allianz Travel Insurance for a valuable list of coverage.
CONFIDENTIALLY
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How to tell if someone is tracking you with an AirTag
Is Apple technology stalking you? Nearly three dozen new cases say it is.
Plenty of travelers drop an AirTag into a checked bag. It’s a handy way to find a suitcase after an airline loses it. But the same gadget can also follow a person around, and a growing stack of federal lawsuits claims that’s what happened.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation sent nearly three dozen AirTag stalking cases against Apple to the Northern District of California, where U.S. District Judge Noël Wise will oversee them in San Jose.
The rest of this exclusive report is for members only.
Behind this line: the settings that have to be switched on before your phone will warn you about a tracker in your luggage, and how long an Android alert survives before it deletes itself. Plus, the six checks to run tonight.
A Members Only story like this runs in every issue, along with Backchannel and the vault.
The plaintiffs filed in at least 10 states. They say abusers hid AirTags in their belongings, their cars or their children’s things to follow them in real time. The court will examine what Apple knew about stalking risks when it launched the device and whether a safer design was possible. Apple opposed consolidating the cases. No court has found the company liable.