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🌸 Yep, I still write about sustainability — A few of you have asked why a consumer advocate spends time on green hotels and carbon math when there are refunds to chase. Fair question. I want there to be a world our children and grandchildren can visit. That’s the problem I’m trying to solve.

Our featured article takes you to Queenstown, New Zealand, where 3 million visitors a year land in a town of 35,000 people. The tour operator whose founders helped start the country's conservation movement still burns diesel in its boats and coal in a steamship built in 1912. But there’s more to this story.

Deb M. brought a question to Backchannel that I get often. She wants an honest assessment of her Marriott timeshare before the company talks her into buying more points, and every search she ran came back with companies promising to get her out instead. So where does she go for a straight read?

Americans got 4.2 billion robocalls in April, roughly 13 apiece, and the Senate finally passed a bill about it. Members Only has what's in that bill and why your phone may not notice. I'll have all the details over the wall. — Christopher Elliott

Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

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.

Avis charged her for returning a car early. Then things got complicated
A medic working in the North Sea cut a rental in Spain short after a family emergency, and the bill nearly doubled. Avis called the extra charge an error, refunded most of it and kept about $130.

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.

Travel is lonelier than ever. Here’s why, and what to do about it.
Kiosks, QR codes and noise-canceling headphones removed nearly every point of human contact from a trip. Group travel is down 9 percent since 2020, and the average trip now carries fewer than two people.

Since when does an airline change your itinerary without asking?
A Washington Post columnist found his American Airlines itinerary rewritten, and he hadn’t asked for the change. The software behind it has been running since 2023 and now covers six hubs.

Every customer should have the right to reach a human
A PayPal chatbot offered a reader a live agent four times and never connected her. States now require a person to sign off when an algorithm denies your health care, but nothing covers your money.

Should I buy more Marriott points — and finding accessible seats at a Bruno Mars concert

Over on Backchannel, Deb M. and her husband are deciding whether to keep their Marriott timeshare, and she wants an honest assessment of the program before Marriott talks them into buying more points. Every search she ran came back with companies promising to get her out instead. I explain what happened to the independent reviewer she remembered and tell her the options. Where do you go for a straight read on a timeshare?

You had plenty to say about the accessible seats Ticketmaster couldn’t find but resellers could. Scott Kopper argued the regular seats were probably gone too, so the buyer got the same runaround as everyone else. Mel65 wasn’t having it, and pointed out that everyone else has hundreds of seats to choose from while accessible inventory is a handful. That gap is what most of you kept coming back to. Do accessible seats deserve different rules?