How to resolve travel complaints

• Before you leave for your trip, make sure you have reviewed a written confirmation of what you booked.

• If possible, make travel complaints while you’re still on-site.

• Check with your travel agent, or the travel website you used to book your vacation. They may be able to help.

• If you have serious travel complaints, contact the Department of Transportation, or the local Better Business Bureau.

• Keep complaint letters or e-mails professional, short, and focused on the documented facts.

• Check out Christopher Elliott’s website www.elliott.org. He’s made it his mission to help people resolve their travel complaints.

• Carry the travel agent’s or the travel website’s 800 number with you on vacation in case of travel emergencies.

Regarding booked rooms:

• Have your confirmation paperwork with you.

• Complain immediately to the hotel.

• Contact your agent or website to ask them to help resolve the problem.

• If you asked for a specific type of room, such as a room with an oceanfront view, that is not available be sure to ask for compensation if the same type of room is not available.

• If your problem wasn't handled to your satisfaction you can file hotel complaints with the Department of Transportation on their website at www.dot.gov.

Additional Resources:

1. Department of Transportation online form for airline travel complaints
2. Department of Transportation contact information

DENISE: Hi there I'm Denise Richardson and this is howdini.com. We're going to let you know how to complain about that lousy trip that you just had. My guest is Amy Ziff, editor at large for Travelocity.com. People have such a difficult time if they show up and they hotel's a wreck, the airline just worked on their last nerve, how do people complain?

AMY: Well it's really important to take care of this if you can while you're on property. So that's going to be your best bet. For example, if you booked a room and they said you were going to have an ocean view and it turns out that you have a view of a parking lot, you know that's not acceptable. And if you booked on Travelocity, you can actually call Travelocity and say hey, I got to the hotel and I don't have that ocean view that I selected and what's going on with that. And Travelocity will actually handle that for you. If you're on your own, if you didn't book there that's okay, but you want to go and say hey here's my record. I booked an ocean view, that's what I expect and make sure that they either move you to an ocean view or something better. And if they don't, then they need to compensate you for that because that room costs more.

DENISE: There's also--there's other things about complaining that we wouldn't think of. What would you share with us?

AMY: Well if you want to, if you really have a serious complaint and you think that something kind of egregious has occurred on your vacation and it's just a comedy of errors. And you're not getting the respect that you deserve. There's two things I would say. One is when you file that complaint, you need to also file it with the department of transportation. You can go on their website and do so. So make it very serious when you write your email. Remember, this is a business so I don't want to see curse words and I don't want to see complaining. I want to see documented facts. Keep it to one page, copy the DOT on that. Let people know that you are filing it with them as well. The other thing is check out Christopher Elliot's website. He has made it his mission in life to help travelers who have been stuck and stranded and helps get their complaints resolved. So it can't hurt to copy him either and on his website he actually lists a whole slew of advice for people on how to be really short, to the point and get your complaint resolved.

DENISE: That whole issue of being stranded with the attitude of well go somewhere else, it's not my problem. You oftentimes--I won't say oftentimes--you sometimes run into that personnel that will respond that way. How do you handle it?

AMY: Well, I mean I really hope that's not the case that someone says it's not my problem if you're stranded if they don't have your booking or something like that. But, you need to make sure before you leave, confirm your piece of paper that's your itinerary. Make sure that you've booked. I think for people who are first-timers booking online, you can think you've bought something, but you haven't. Make sure you get a confirmation email if you are buying online which says that you have actually bought. And you get in your inbox all of these little details saying what you've got. Look that over. It doesn't have to be a big process just eyeball it. Make sure, yes, I've got my ocean view, check, I've got my room at the right hotel, check, I've got my airline at the times I picked, check. Okay so if there's any problems we'll deal with that immediately after booking.

DENISE: And unless you've got that laptop with you, carry that piece of paper with you.

AMY: Carry that piece of paper and always carry that 800 number for your travel agency. Again, online or offline this is really critical. If you have a travel agent, they should have 24-7 service and that should be international because you don't want to be stranded someplace where you don't speak the language and you need some help.

DENISE: Thank you so much Amy Ziff.

AMY: Happy travels.