Travel right now: FAIR WARNING!

[Pellice]

What kind of travel insurance is that! Flight is cancelled because there is an issue with the crew, and they don’t cover that situation?!?

I actually think it was weather-related, as there were many, many cancellations on Friday June 17th, but the company gave a different reason (one that makes no sense.). I will relay what happens ultimately, and if the company deserves opprobrium, I shall hurl it!

 

[audreyh1]

As long as you do not have to get into a fist fight to get your EV supercharged.

We avoid traveling on major holidays so I think we’ll be just fine especially as some routes have 2x+ the superchargers we might need. The last two superchargers we visited, we were the first to arrive. Tesla shows you how busy each supercharger is in real time on their navigation map.

Here is a cool shot from our last charging in Kingsville TX. No one was there when we arrived. The cool thing is only red Teslas showed up while we were there! Just as we left a 4th red Tesla showed up. Supposedly red Teslas are rare.

 

[Sunset]

I actually think it was weather-related, as there were many, many cancellations on Friday June 17th, but the company gave a different reason (one that makes no sense.). I will relay what happens ultimately, and if the company deserves opprobrium, I shall hurl it!

Airlines are also cancelling flights , just before they should depart due to staffing issues.

While the insurance company should pay, as a backup maybe your CC covers trip/travel problems ?

If the CC does cover it, be sure to dispute the insurance company payment as they failed to provide services and don't deserve the payment.

 

[NW-Bound]

I will never travel to Europe in June/July/August, even without Covid. It's the heat!

In 2017, we did a long road trip through Western Europe, from early May to late June. Got caught in a heat wave at the end, and were miserable.

In 2019, started out earlier in April, and ended in May. Much, much better.

In the past we have done a couple of impromptu late fall trips when seeing fares so low we could not resist. Not good moves. It was not that cold in November, but the days were so short, and many tourist attractions closed for the season. I still remember wandering the streets of Kutna Hora, looking for the train station to get us back to Prague. In the rain, and at 4PM, it was dark, and the streets were deserted. There was no Google Map back then.

Anyway, I will do April/May, and September/October from now on. May even try March/April. Did February one time, and it was not bad at all in Southern France and Southern Italy.

The only problem is Scandinavian countries where it's cold like heck, except in the summer.

 

[Chuckanut]

We've got a road trip planned for the late Summer. Since GF has never seen Yellowstone we were planning to spend one day in the major geyser basins on the way to our destination.

The park will reopen but with a odd/even license plate admission policy. With all the reservations in place I just found out we will be entering the park on an even day. My plate number is ODD.

Now talking to my cousin Zetanella who says she has a former lover who can get me some even plates I can use just for visiting Yellowstone. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Souschef]

I do not know if anyone has done the math, but on average figure 150 seats on each plane. If 100 flights are cancelled, that is 15,000 passengers that will have to be put on other flights! With all flights near capacity, how are they going to find seats for all these passengers in a reasonable time??

 

[Time2]

I have a friend that went to Oregon from Florida last year for $352. This year his grandson is getting married, he went to get tickets and they were $1,347 each, he has bought them and keeps checking prices, but so far they have only went higher.He is also concerned that a flight could get cancelled putting his and his wife in a bind, both are in their eighties and healthy. He is a little sick about it, he can afford it but he figures he will see his grandson for 10 minutes on a 4 day trip, and wonders if he should just send $2,700 to his grandson and stay home. I think he is probably going to go, and he was just letting off steam at the difference in price.

 

[Ronstar]

We've got a road trip planned late summer also. Through Yellowstone and Glacier. We may be ok for Yellowstone - we have reservations at Canyon Lodge, so we are exempt from the even/odd license plate policy. But Canyon Lodge is not open yet.

We may have a problem driving Going to the Sun Road in Glacier. I don't have an entry permit and won't be able to apply for one until the day before I need it. And I'll already be in West Glacier and may have no wifi. But we're taking the GTTSR red bus tour on the previous day, so we'll experience it. Just want to drive GTTSR from our hotel in West Glacier to Many Glacier the next day because its shorter.

I just added a day to the front end of the trip in Wyoming. I'd like to add another day to the back end in Glacier, but not having much luck finding vacancies.

 

[jldavid47]

Having just returned from a weeklong, cross-country trip for a cousin's wedding and some sightseeing/vacationing in the area, I can safely say that the travel situation in the U.S. right now is... well, to put it kindly... a bit of a disaster.

Right now, if we can't get there by car we don't go. We just finished a 1700+ mile trip over the course of a week with two primary destinations. Despite being in a car a whole bunch, it was a LOT better (and cheaper) than flying. YMMV.

 

[Sojourner]

I do not know if anyone has done the math, but on average figure 150 seats on each plane. If 100 flights are cancelled, that is 15,000 passengers that will have to be put on other flights! With all flights near capacity, how are they going to find seats for all these passengers in a reasonable time??

It is a real dilemma, and I honestly cannot imagine how they are coping with it on days when 1,000+ flights are canceled (like Thu-Fri, June 16-17). Unfortunately, we got caught in the crossfire, and I feel like we came out a little less worse off than many travelers. But still, the entire industry is getting crushed right now and we'd all be well advised to avoid air travel (domestic, at least) this summer, if possible.

 

[Chuckanut]

Despite all the horror stories about flying I do know a number of people who have successfully complete trips using air travel, many to Europe and a few to Asia. No cancelled flights, no Covid infections. They do say that airports are crowded.

Personally, I am content to stay home over the Summer as it is the nicest season of the year where I live. But, I do hope to hop a plane to some exotic destination next year. So, please feel free to get the travel urge out of your system in 2022.

 

[RobbieB]

We'll be doing the road trip thing to Colorado soon.

 

[RunningBum]

It's been years since I've traveled over Thanksgiving, but I'm doing it this year. Trying to make it as stress free as possible.
Direct flights, first class, no airport shuttle for parking or rental car, and bypass the rental car counter. If the outbound flight turns into a mess, I'll just cancel the trip. The return trip is a different matter, especially since my son has to work on Monday, but we booked a 6:30am flight on Sunday so hopefully we'll make it.

 

[FREE866]

That sounds so awful--thx for posting!


I wasn't a big fan of air travel pre Covid and this story just confirms I won't be doing any air travel for awhile

 

[NW-Bound]

I do not know if anyone has done the math, but on average figure 150 seats on each plane. If 100 flights are cancelled, that is 15,000 passengers that will have to be put on other flights! With all flights near capacity, how are they going to find seats for all these passengers in a reasonable time??

They walk, or ride Uber like the OP.

 

[iloveyoga]

We drove in our car today from Iowa to Rapid City, SD. Great scenery! On to Mount Rushmore in the morning.

 

[ivinsfan]

Part of these staff shortages fall directly on the shoulders of the airlines I personally know 3 Delta workers who took very generous buyouts during Covid from airline government bailout money. The airline could have kept paying them probably for less total money. Delta gambled they could get rid of older, higher payed workers and replace them for less money when Covid slowed down. They lost that bet and now the public pays the price.



So IMO travel insurance should cover this issue because at this point the airlines are playing catch up yet still falling behind. Or the insurance should quit insuring trips.

 

[explanade]

I wonder if you buy insurance through the airline, the same time you buy the plane ticket offers better coverage.

But I think the carriers are typically the same as the ones you'd get if you enrolled through Squaremouth.com or Insuremytrip.com.

 

[Bamaman]

Yeah it sounds like most of the flight cancellations are domestic?

I took three trips to Europe last summer and two so far this year.

I believe they said domestic flights in the US in summer 2021 was over 100% of domestic flights in the summer of 2019.

Europe flights from the US were not at 2019 levels.

This summer though, fares are higher so that may reflect higher demand, even before they dropped the test requirement to return to the US.

We returned 2 weeks ago from a trip to London, Athens and Venice. We flew into and out of London Heathrow without incident on American Airlines connecting through Charlotte.

Going over, the flight on a Boeing 777-200 was 100% full, and the flight attendants said it was like this virtually every day right now. Our return flight may have had 6 unused seats, and the flight attendants used them to take breaks/naps.

The long haul flights often have flight attendants and pilots that are high seniority, older employees. They seem to show up for work because they can get their maximum monthly work/hours completed in two weeks.

The AA food was good, and service level was great. Our only negative was with the Charlotte Airport and the TSA security staff there.

 

[Katsmeow]

We plan to go on a trip a little later this summer (checking out an area we may want to move to) that is roughly 1200 miles away. We had debated a bit about whether to drive or fly and had tentatively decided to drive. These flight cancellations make it certain we will drive unless things clear up really soon.

 

[Gremlin]

We drove in our car today from Iowa to Rapid City, SD. Great scenery! On to Mount Rushmore in the morning.

You are in our neck of the woods. Enjoy your stay!!!

 

[NW-Bound]

We drove in our car today from Iowa to Rapid City, SD. Great scenery! On to Mount Rushmore in the morning.

Oh yes. Beautiful country.

In an RV trip some years ago, we also visited Wind Cave NP to the south, and drove the State Route 87 loop. There's a lot to do there.

 

[jollystomper]

We hope not to fly again until after Labor Day. The combination of airline pilot/flight attendant shortages with every rushing to fly due to (a) the summer peak vacation time, (b) loosened covid travel/masking/gathering restrictions, and (c) fear of another spike happening to bring back those restrictions means a huge amount of people trying to travel and airlines "just in time" crew scheduling for flights failing miserably.

We will stick to road trips for the summer... though in our neck of the woods we are already rumblings of "intentional" road/traffic disruptions this summer due to, I will just say, "circumstances".

 

[meridiver]

A friend of mine was flying from LAX to Chicago this morning. Finally boarded her plane 5 hours late, then was stuck in front of someone whose dog was right under my friend's seat (she has severe dog allergies). However, she was able to move to a middle seat in the back of the plane and otherwise, everything went smoothly.

 

[madatrub]

I travel for work fairly regularly (10 flights in the last 2 months). 8 of the 10 have been delayed. 2 of the 10 has been cancelled. Its a total mess right now.