This is Kathyria Padilla’s rental car. When she returned it to Avis last April, she took a few snapshots of the vehicle, just in case.
Good thing she did.
Almost one year later, she got a letter from Avis:
They are claiming that I caused $1,444.61 in damages to the rental.
I have pictures of the rental and there are no damages to the vehicle. I took pictures before I dropped off the car in case anything like this ever arose.
I was told the car was OK when I dropped it off and someone inspected it. I signed the car out and I’ve never heard from Avis until yesterday when I received the claim notice in the mail.
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The Wall Street Journal recently profiled the Oasis of the Seas in an article that details the minutiae involved in the feeding and care of 8,600 passengers and crew. The article provides a fascinating look at some of the mundane housekeeping tasks that, by their gargantuan nature, are sure to make even the most unflappable homemaker tremble — 20,000 pounds of laundry A DAY, non-stop window cleaning chores, and 26 kitchens to stock.
What the article hints at, though, is an answer that’s bit more difficult to pin down than the number of bottles of beer consumed (80,000) or its gross tonnage (225,282), and that is, is the Oasis too big to be good?
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As with everything in Washington DC, there is time to push hard and a time to wait. The Consumer Travel Alliance is in the push-hard part of an effort to force the airlines to tell travelers all of their fees upfront in the ticketing process.
The Menendez amendment to the FAA Reauthorization Act, being debated today, will mandate that airlines and travel agents disclose the full price of a ticket, including taxes and fees, right up front. (Other governments, including Australia and Europe, already do this.)
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Holiday travelers dodged a bullet when a judge issued an injunction against a proposed British Airways strike last December.
Unfortunately that bullet was reloaded and has come back with the British Airways cabin crew union (Unite), calling a strike again, this time in two parts, March 20-22 and March 27-31.
The airline insists in emails to travel agents that their ‘door is always open to Unite” and they are trying to settle, but they have already preemptively canceled many flights this weekend.
As with many airline decisions and policies, these British Airways moves are a mixed bag. Details are updated regularly on BA.com. Here are a few highlights and lowlights of what the airline is doing.
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