When Daria’s Airbnb account was abruptly blocked right after she booked a trip, the money for two reservations was frozen for over a month. And Airbnb’s response? Nothing.

“Airbnb either ignored me or insisted they had never received my information,” she says.

That’s when our advocacy team reached for our capes.

“Once Elliott Advocacy stepped in, Airbnb finally replied,” she says. “Thanks to their involvement, I was able to get my account restored and my money refunded. It was still a painful and frustrating process, but without Elliott’s team, it would never have been resolved. I can’t thank them enough for their support and humanity.”

That’s what we do. But our advocacy work depends on readers like you. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to our fall fundraiser today.

Catch up on the latest stories from the Elliott Report

Your hotel room isn’t guaranteed. Here’s the fine print they’re hoping you won’t read.
Omer Malik reserved a king room on a low floor at a German chain hotel because he thinks about exits and stairwells for a living, and the front desk told him at midnight that a guaranteed room type belongs to elite members. Hotels have stretched run-of-house assignment, once a discount option, across full-price bookings, and a confirmation now commits the property to little more than a bed configuration.

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.

Experian said his credit was unfrozen. So why couldn’t he buy a car?
Robert Boisvert asked Experian to lift a credit freeze so he could finance a car, mailed two certified letters with copies of his ID and his utility bills and waited three months. Experian told our advocates the freeze had come off the day he asked, and the only letter that reached him said his account was inactive.

Travelers are facing more entry and exit fees than ever. Here’s what you need to know.
New Zealand charged Brian Clark about $70 to enter before he’d booked a room, Britain has raised the price of its entry permit twice since launch and the United States nearly doubled its own fee to $40.27. Fake government portals now outrank the real ones in search results, and the colleague who clicked the first result paid a markup for the same 72-hour wait.

These 7 phrases will doom your consumer complaint
A reader who said she’d been injured on a shopping trip answered our offer of help with a line of profanity, and her case went into the F-Files. Four other phrases turn up weekly in complaint letters, including a demand for pain and suffering that the Supreme Court foreclosed for international passengers in 1991.

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.

Robert Lee booked award seats on Iberia for a family of four and got bumped out of the cabin he paid for on three transatlantic flights. The Madrid departures drew an offer of 75% of the Avios he spent, which is what European rules call for, and the flights out of New York and Boston drew the fare difference instead, 4,500 Avios against a 29,500-Avios ticket. Which regulator do you take that to? Here’s our team’s advice on Backchannel. P.S.: Have you see Backchannel lately? We’ve been flooded with new consumer cases and we’d love to get your input and help!