You’ve seen the new Elliott Report. You’ve seen the new Backchannel forum. But there’s more.

This newsletter went through the same overhaul—and you’re reading the result.

Consumer news is a daily feature now. When a refund rule shifts on a Tuesday, you hear about it Tuesday, not at the end of the week.

The format is easier to read, especially on a phone. The case you came for is at the top of the newsletter, always.

There are conversation starters throughout. Every issue points you somewhere you can weigh in, argue with a ruling or tell another reader what you’d have done instead. (The best answers around here have never come from me.)

It’s also more fun. Consumer advocacy doesn’t have to read like a legal brief.

This week the whole newsletter is free. Yep, I dropped the paywall. Read all of it, then decide whether you want the full experience every day.

P.S. Upgrading is what keeps the consumer journalism in this newsletter funded. You’ll get the Members Only section in every issue, the private forum on Backchannel and the rest of the extras.

Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

StubHub says the Rick Springfield concert was postponed, but it wasn’t. Can I get a refund?
A rescheduled date never made it into StubHub’s system, so his tickets stayed locked on the night of the show. The venue confirmed the concert went ahead, but the company’s records still list it as pending.

Who pays for a flat tire on a Turo rental? It’s complicated
A blowout at 40 mph in the New Hampshire mountains turned up two front tires worn down to the metal. Turo cleared him of fault, reversed itself an hour later and billed him $500.

Booking.com rented him a room with blood on the walls. Why won’t it refund his $313?
A studio apartment in Penang, Malaysia, came with bloodstains, mold and someone else’s hair in the bedding. Booking.com says the refund is the host’s call, and the host says cancel.

The ugly truth about August travel: Why you should stay home—or do this
August travel means thin staffing, dirty rooms and more cancellations, all at peak prices. Why the system breaks down every summer and how to work around it.

Would you pay extra to use the overhead bin?
If you’ve ever wondered what they’ll think of next—at least when it comes to airline fees—here’s your answer: Jetstar announced this week that it will soon charge you to put a bag in the overhead bin.

A stunning reversal for airline consumer rights
The government hasn’t assessed a single civil penalty against an airline for violating consumer protection rules this year.

More travelers are losing their insurance claims because of this. Don’t be one of them.
When something goes wrong on the road — a flight delay, vanishing luggage, illness — you file a travel insurance claim, expecting a quick reimbursement.

Cross-border car rentals in Europe, and what you said about the Turo blowout

F Harrison and his wife prefer to drive on their European trips, and the cross-border rules keep getting in the way. He rented a car in Budapest, drove into Croatia, then had to drop it for a substantial fee and rent again to reach Montenegro. Next May he wants to pick up a car in France, ferry it to Corsica and Sardinia, then cross to Italy and leave it there, which runs into a ferry clause in nearly every rental agreement. My answer involves four separate rentals instead of one. Is there a better way around this?

Yesterday's Turo case drew comments all day. AJPeabody argued the platform isn't a rental agency at all, so the owner decides what shape the car is in, and a hidden defect stays hidden only until somebody looks. GradUT disagreed with my closing advice outright, saying the takeaway should be to skip Turo rather than check the tread yourself. One of you turned it back on the platform and asked who verifies tire safety, and how often. What do you think?

Information and insights for Elliott Confidential PRO subscribers

A reader wrote to us this morning to ask whether her checked suitcase could be used to move somebody else's drugs.

A Canadian TV network documented at least 17 passengers on flights out of Canada who were detained on drug smuggling allegations over the past year after their baggage tags were moved onto suitcases packed with narcotics.

All 17 were eventually released, but some were handcuffed, arrested and jailed first. The flights went to the Dominican Republic, Paris, Germany, Morocco, Bermuda, the Philippines and South Korea, and in several of those countries a trafficking conviction can carry a death sentence.

The mechanism is crude: A worker in a restricted baggage area peels the adhesive tag off a legitimate suitcase and sticks it on a similar-looking bag full of drugs. That bag then flies under the passenger's name. If an accomplice collects it at the other end, nobody is the wiser. If customs opens it first, the name on the tag is the one that ends up in an interview room.

The RCMP has arrested six baggage and ramp workers at Toronto Pearson over the past year in connection with tag switching. All of them worked for Air Canada or Swissport.

Most of the advice circulating about this doesn't prevent anything. The switch happens in a back-of-house area you can't reach, after your bag has left your hands.

So what can you do?

Pearson runs about 3,000 security cameras and still has blind spots in the restricted areas where this happens. Until that gets fixed, the airport's answer is enforcement after the fact, which does nothing for the passenger sitting in a foreign cell.

The takeaway: Photograph your bag on the scale, keep the claim stub until the trip is over and put a tracker inside. More on protecting checked bags is in our guide to keeping luggage safe.