Travel right now: FAIR WARNING!

[Chuckanut]

We cancelled two months in Croatia planned for July and August, as well as a couple of smaller domestic trips. I’m having shoulder surgery in a couple of days. Might as well fix everything we can this year and hopefully we’ll be back to it next year.

I'm sorry to hear about all those health issues. The do seem to come in bundles at times, and that has to be better than being spread out over several years. My best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I am curious how you find lodgings for several months in Croatia. Will you be moving around are staying in one place? I've never booked long stays in another country and I am hoping to next year.

 

[athena53]

I just got a letter from Overseas Adventure Travel, the company I've praised to the skies before. They're the ones that got us out of Bolivia in March, 2020 when country after country was closing its borders. (Altitude at La Paz prevents the bigger planes from taking off, so no nonstops to US from there.) I hadn't even booked my flights through them and they got us ALL out on a flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Miami- just before Bolivia closed its borders.

Their employees must have been working day and night since they had so many tour groups all over the world at any one time. Worse, they're domiciled in MA, which REQUIRES refunds rather than credits if they cancel all or part of a trip- it has to have had a terrible effect on their cash flow.

So- I accepted a credit and am scheduled for E. Europe in August. With all the cancellations and schedule changes the airlines are making, their employees are overwhelmed and giving priority to those traveling in the next 4 months.

I'm darned glad I made my own travel arrangements in February. So far I've had only one minor schedule change. Fingers crossed.

Things are finally working out. The really nice young guy from the tour company has managed to bypass the evil 3rd party company they contract with and got me home. So I have flights booked. He also got permission to send a private driver and not expect me to navigate a bunch of public transport for the 4 hours to Dublin.

I am SO glad he's helping. A former coworker once referred to the hidden people in an organization who had the network and the smarts to make things happen as "elves". How appropriate you found one in Ireland! I hope you find a way to communicate how helpful he was to the tour company without getting him into trouble for bending a few rules.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Athena, that’s amazing that your travel company got everyone out even if they didn’t book the flights. No wonder you love them!! Elves is a cute term). He said that he would hope someone would help his mom if she was ever in my situation.

 

[aja8888]

I hope not! Reading threads like this one makes me feel SO glad and grateful that we have no desire to travel. Since 2009, when we retired, we have left New Orleans only twice. Both times were for hurricane evacuations (Gustav in 2012, and Ida in 2021). The Ida evacuation was such a nightmare. Frank and I are seriously talking about not evacuating this summer for anything, no matter what storms threaten New Orleans. If/when that happens we'll probably change our minds but right now evacuating sounds awful.

If a Big H comes your way, you could always go hide out in the basement.......Oh, wait

 

[W2R]

If a Big H comes your way, you could always go hide out in the basement.......Oh, wait

Yes, that could pose some problems here.....

 

[Walt34]

Re travel, I and DW are in W2R's camp - if it isn't local, and we can't drive, we don't go.

 

[iloveyoga]

Still road tripping, now in Breckinridge, heading home to Iowa tomorrow. I had a nail in my tire , no puncture, so we spent a few hours at the Big O store dealing with that.

 

[Scuba]

Things are finally working out. The really nice young guy from the tour company has managed to bypass the evil 3rd party company they contract with and got me home. So I have flights booked. He also got permission to send a private driver and not expect me to navigate a bunch of public transport for the 4 hours to Dublin. There’s no train in this town.

He also got permission to move me a day early so I can spend the night at a hotel in the Dublin airport. The other company was adamant that I couldn’t step a foot out of the hotel until 12:01 am on the first. My mom always said if you have to be old you might as well use it to get some perks when you can. He said that he will now work on hotel and transport. I am so relieved). BTW I don’t think any of this has to do with the travel insurance I took but with their Covid promise they offer to everyone.

That’s great! I hope your trip home goes smoothly.

 

[Scuba]

I'm sorry to hear about all those health issues. The do seem to come in bundles at times, and that has to be better than being spread out over several years. My best wishes for a speedy recovery.

I am curious how you find lodgings for several months in Croatia. Will you be moving around are staying in one place? I've never booked long stays in another country and I am hoping to next year.

Thanks Chuckanut. We certainly didn’t expect these health issues in our early 60’s, especially since we’ve both always been very healthy until this year.

Regarding Croatia, we planned to move around quite a bit, so didn’t try to book any long stays on this trip. However, I’ve done so for other destinations by just messaging the VRBO or Airbnb host and requesting a longer stay with a discounted rate. This has worked well planning months in advance, but would probably be more difficult on short notice because they would likely have other bookings that would conflict.

 

[DrRoy]

Last month we had a trip to Europe and the flights were fine. Were on Luftansa. Just got home from a 5 day road trip Michigan to Vermont. That was fine also. We have domestic flights later in the summer. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Teacher Terry]

So this morning I received a email confirming a car is picking me up at 11 am tomorrow and driving me to a hotel in Dublin. I doubt that I will be able to sleep tonight. I am going to have a wake up call just in case.

I have been checking to see if I can pay to select my seat because I get up every 2 hours to use the bathroom and keep from getting blood clots. Not only was there a few aisle seats left but some also gave you priority boarding and 6” extra leg room. It costs 145 which includes both flights and well worth the money. Hopefully this fiasco comes to a on time ending.

I am guessing my driver won’t have any snags as it costs between 800-1000 to have this service. I looked at the prices when I was considering taking myself home earlier.

 

[MarieIG]

So this morning I received a email confirming a car is picking me up at 11 am tomorrow and driving me to a hotel in Dublin. I doubt that I will be able to sleep tonight. I am going to have a wake up call just in case.

I have been checking to see if I can pay to select my seat because I get up every 2 hours to use the bathroom and keep from getting blood clots. Not only was there a few aisle seats left but some also gave you priority boarding and 6” extra leg room. It costs 145 which includes both flights and well worth the money. Hopefully this fiasco comes to a on time ending.

I am guessing my driver won’t have any snags as it costs between 800-1000 to have this service. I looked at the prices when I was considering taking myself home earlier.

Best wishes for an uneventful and safe trip home!

 

[brett]

A friend was returning from Ohio to Bangkok. If he and his wife were to fly from Ohio the ticket price was to be $10,000. They booked a flight out of Newark for $3,000. Two of their flights were canceled. They eventually arrived in Thailand 3 days later.

Thailand will be a challenge for us if our planned snowbird trip happens.

It typically takes us three flight segments to get to BKK. One short hop to the west coast and then two longer ones. It would not take much of a flight delay to be stuck in any one of two airport locations for a day or two.

Looked at the fares last week...they are up, up, up.

 

[athena53]

Apologies if you need a Fidelity account to access this but it's a Reuters article on the Fidelity site.

https://www.fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202206291407RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KBN2OA1T6-OUSBS_1

Briefly, it's about how much luggage is piling up, going astray and getting delayed by a week or more because there aren't enough ground handlers. The number of cargo handlers in Europe in 2020 was about half what it was in 2019. No estimate of current values. Air Canada is handling about 120,000 passengers per day now compared to 23,000 a year ago.

I'm gonna take a few changes of clothes with me in my carry-on when I go to E. Europe. I'll be gone a month so I can't completely avoid checking bags. :-(

 

[braumeister]

Apologies if you need a Fidelity account to access this but it's a Reuters article on the Fidelity site.(

If that doesn't work, here it is on the Reuters site:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/luggage-piles-join-long-airport-lines-fresh-woes-summer-travel-2022-06-29/

Flowers said there is no one explanation for the lost baggage, which is rather the result of staff shortages and flight delays that have created a "spiral effect," resulting in cases of passengers waiting up to seven days to get their bags back.

 

[RandomPJ]

What a nightmare! And rental cars are extremely expensive too. I lucked out on a recent trip to Chicago and am thankful.

 

[Pellice]

Update on my Peru travel insurance claim:

I think I'm going to get fully reimbursed on July 1. I was thankfully able to get American Airline to confirm via a Twitter direct message that my flight had been canceled due to weather. [The insurance company had denied my claim based on a false and unspported statement that my flight cancelation was due to "overbooking."] I made the screen shot of my DM into a PDF - thankfully I had specified the flight and date when requesting the information, not just my locator number - and uploaded the PDF to the portal.

When I got home last night, I found yet another notice of denial of claim on my portal, dated after I had submitted my prooof. So I thought I was going to have to call them up and have a go-round with them about this. But today in the afternoon I first got a notice from Zelle, the online payment company, that I had 4 days to register and claim my payment. I thought at first that it might be a scam, but then I got a brusque email stating that my portal had an update. When I checked the portal, there was a one word update that my claim's status had been changed to "paid." Then I got a couple more emails about the payment, the last one stating it would be in my account on July 1.

So - am hopeful I see the money on Friday in my account. The whole experience was bizarre. I was supposed to be offered the choice of a paper check or a Zelle payment, but all I got was a notice that Zelle had the money, and I had to sign up to receive it. (The signup took place through my bank's website, and was legitimate.) Why the lie on the denial in the first place? If I hadn't been able to get the airline to confirm weather as a cause, would
they have paid up? And why continue the denial and then reverse it? Was it a bot? An automated denial?

I do not need to travel again this year. And I don't think I will!

What lessons can even be learned? I had booked myself 36 hours ahead. I had purchased expensive travel insurance. One lesson - ask whether non-availability of flight crew leading to a flight cancelation is a covered reason. Ask whether getting bumped is a covered reason. Either print or save to PDF your boarding passes - they disappear from your airline app if you don't use them. Make sure the airline gives you a reason for cancelation.

Well, I will update one more time when I see the money.

 

[Trailwalker]

I'm glad that it worked out, Pellice. It's hard to have much faith in the travel insurance industry when they are working so hard to not pay.

I still have my Peru trekking trip this fall. Feels like a roll of the dice.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Athena, there was a lot of luggage laying around in Dublin when I arrived. Someone on our tour never got there’s and the airline has no clue where it is.

 

[Souschef]

Dear TT,

I am glad things are sorted out for you. We hope you will be better soon.


Our last two trips were cruises round trip from LA. NO airports


We were supposed to fly to Reno for our son's birthday, but with all this chaos we decided to cancel.
We will be sending him a nice birthday check, however.

 

[Sunset]

Put an Apple Airtag in your luggage and if you use an iphone, you will be able to know where the luggage is, even if it's in a different city.

It will help you walk right up to your bag if it's in the airport where you are located.

I wish Apple made the app for Android, and I'd buy a set of those airtags.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Souschef, I took a cruise from San Francisco to Alaska for that very reason. We rode the mega bus cheaply from Reno and spent the night. Much better than flying. Reno’s airport has been very busy. Good choice on your part). I have really appreciated all the support from this forum during this stressful time. It’s been unsettling being in a foreign country alone especially when I am used to traveling with a partner.

 

[tulak]

Put an Apple Airtag in your luggage and if you use an iphone, you will be able to know where the luggage is, even if it's in a different city.

+1. DS did this when he thought he’d have to check his luggage because of weight. Fortunately he didn’t.

I haven’t checked luggage for years. It makes travel a lot easier. If you pack smart, it’s not a problem regardless of trip length, since you’ll need to do laundry at some point anyways.

 

[harllee]

Put an Apple Airtag in your luggage and if you use an iphone, you will be able to know where the luggage is, even if it's in a different city.

It will help you walk right up to your bag if it's in the airport where you are located.

I wish Apple made the app for Android, and I'd buy a set of those airtags.

Great idea. I would have never thought of this. I have not flown in a while but in the last 4 times I flew, 2 of the times my luggage was delayed by several days.

 

[athena53]

Athena, there was a lot of luggage laying around in Dublin when I arrived. Someone on our tour never got theirs and the airline has no clue where it is.

Yes, Dublin was mentioned in the article but I didn't want to point it out and alarm you- you've been through enough!

I appreciate others' recommendations of Apple Airtags. A local electronics store carries them and I will be getting them before my trip to Europe. ETA: I'm taking my granddaughters to Chicago in October and I bet they'll get a kick out of tracking our checked bag(s), too.