But when has a rule ever stopped me? Which is why I’m asking about Sally Radicali’s Holland America cruise to Tahiti.
From the beginning, things didn’t go as planned. Her home-based agent never sent her a receipt for the $3,500 deposit. And then, a few months ago, she tried to cancel her cruise because of a work-related issue.
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Question: My fiancée and I are planning our destination wedding in Jamaica this summer and are using a travel agent. We’re also using the travel agent for our honeymoon at a different resort on the island. We will be in Jamaica for two weeks. There are about 40 people booked at this time, with only a couple more to book. She has been going through Apple Vacations to help book the flights and hotels.
Our problems began back at the beginning of this year. Our agent had a couple of relatives pass away. We have tried to call and email the agent several times with little or no response. We even went to her house (she works from home) and talked with her in person, voicing our concern of the lack of communication.
We also have asked her, on a couple of occasions, to charge part of our stay to our credit card, she has not done this yet. We would like to space out the charges so we don’t get hit with it all at once.
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I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall at the Gallup Organization last week after it released a poll that suggested more than half of all Americans believe the TSA is doing a “good” or “excellent” job.
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Editor’s Note: This is part two of a new Insider series on cruising. Here’s the first installation. As always, please send me any suggestions on topics or content I may have overlooked.
Not so long ago, you had to pick up a phone and call your local travel agent to book a cruise. No longer.
Although 90 percent of all cruise vacations are still bought through travel agents, not all agents are the same. You can turn to a full-service, “bricks-and-mortar” agency or an online agency. Or you could deal directly with the cruise line, in some instances.
But which option is right for you?
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When Rela Geffen was hospitalized after suffering from congestive heart failure recently, she assumed her airline would take care of her. She was in Georgia on a business trip, but she’d paid an extra $19 for trip interruption insurance on her US Airways tickets.
And this is one of those times when I’m happy to say that the insurance came through for her. US Airways charged her a $125 change fee and a fare difference to fly back to Philadelphia a few days after her originally-scheduled flight, plus a $25 fee for making the change by phone, and her insurance picked up the tab.
“They were great and paid the $325 promptly after I returned home,” she says.
But that wasn’t the problem.
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Now that’s what I call a birthday party.
The TSA’s publicity machine spent the last several days in self-congratulation mode, describing all of the wonderful things that have happened — and I guess more to the point, not happened — since its creation 10 years ago.
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“As a proud American, I served my country with loyalty and dedication in the aftermath of 9/11 by joining the TSA and the fight on terror,” the letter begins. “After publishing a book about the TSA and Airport Security, with full knowledge of the FSD and his assistants, I’ve now been targeted for removal along with the evidence, while the cover-up for the truth is in effect.”
The missive, sent from Transportation Security Officer William Touzani directly to the president, landed in my “in” box yesterday afternoon. I’m not the first person he approached with this story. He published the entire letter on CNN’s iReport a few weeks ago.
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