TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER Change, upgrade fees for cheaper seats baffling
is in Lapad Bay. And if you can splurge a little, there are some really nice hotels there like the Hotel Splendid. You can sit on the terrace and have espresso while your kids splash around in the calm water. If you’ve really saved up a little vacation cash, you can hire a boat to take you to one of the nearby islands, many of which still have bullet holes in the facades of the buildings from the civil war in 1991. The snorkeling is amazing. You can rip a sea urchin off the rocks and eat it right on the dock.
Q: What was the first trip you took as a child?
A: My first big trip that I remember distinctly was somewhere in Miami. There was a red tide, and all these dead, bloated jellyfish were washing up onshore. So we spent the whole vacation cooped up in a hotel room with the air conditioning on max and nothing to do. Maybe that’s where I get my sense of impending dread from.
Q: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from your travels?
A: That at some point I’m going to wig out. It could be in a train station where a train leaves just as you figure out the ticket kiosk, or on a beach where
QI lose sight of my youngest daughter, or waiting an hour for my kids to figure out how to put their snow pants on. And then I’m going to feel bad about wigging out and want to make it up to my kids by handing them all the coins in my pockets so they can explore every weird Italian vending machine on track 28.
Q: What are your five favorite cities?
A. New York, Los Angeles, Dubrovnik, Montreal, Miami.
Q: Where would you like to go that you have never been to before?
A: My favorite authors — Chekhov, Dostoevsky — are Russian, so if the political climate ever thaws there, I’d love to go to St. Petersburg.
Q: What kind of research do you do before you go away on a trip?
A: I’ve become addicted to TripAdvisor, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Because when everyone likes something, you can sometimes end up at a crappy gelato place in Florence that charges $14 bucks for a single scoop. I told my daughter she was stuck with it.
I have a dispute with United Airlines that I hope you can help me with. I recently flew from Venice, Italy, to Miami in business class. I paid for my ticket with mileage rewards.
The day before I was to leave Venice, I learned of a better itinerary, which I was able to switch to, but in Economy Plus.
United billed me a change fee of $100 and an upgrade fee of $129. It definitely was not an upgrade; in fact, it was a downgrade from the business-class tickets I had. I’ve asked United for a refund of both fees, but it refuses. I would appreciate any assistance you can give me to resolve this complaint. agers on my consumeradvocacy website. A brief, polite email to one of them might have yielded a more plausible explanation.
I contacted United on your behalf. A representative called you and explained the fare difference. United also offered you a $150 certificate, which you accepted.
Next time, you might want to keep your original flight.
Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and a co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for travelers. Because of a backlog of cases, your story may not be published for several months. Read more tips at
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