Everyone will tell you that traveling during the holiday season can be THE worst. You’ve got millions of people trying to “get home (or somewhere else) for the holidays,” on top of the potential for bad weather. Southwest Airline’s now-famous meltdown during the 2022 holiday season was the perfect storm of bad weather and outdated software.
But cancelled and delayed flights can happen at any time of year. And if you’re trying to contact an actual person at the airline (or hotel or car rental company) because things haven’t worked out to your satisfaction, it can sometimes be an effort in futility to find that information.
Enter Christopher Elliott.
Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that empowers consumers to solve their problems and helps those who can’t. He’s the author of numerous books on consumer advocacy and writes weekly columns for King Features Syndicate, USA. He also publishes a newsletter for consumers and a consumer news site (thanks, Forbes!).
To put it bluntly, Christopher Elliott is the “one stop shop” equivalent for every local TV station’s “Shame on You,” “Channel # on Your Side,” “Troubleshooter,” “Help Desk,” etc., out there…and without any schmaltzy TV spot added in.
True, Elliott does “troubleshoot” others’ travel problems, and those columns are reprinted cross-country. However, some consumers, including travelers, don’t need the hand-holding as much as simply the resources to allow them to solve their own problems.
One of these resources is company contacts. He’s compiled list after list of “How to talk to/email/contact a real person” for the likes of auto manufacturers, insurance companies, cable companies, healthcare companies, you name it. For travel enthusiasts, included are contacts for:
- Airlines
- Car rental companies
- Credit card companies
- Cruise lines (note: Virgin Voyages is not yet included. Also, Crystal Cruises has relaunched as Crystal and that’s still not noted on their site)
- Hotels
- Online travel agencies
- Timeshares
- Tour operator
- Travel agency
Each entry for each consumer category includes one or more of:
- Responsiveness rating (if and how well the respond to consumers)
- What you need to know about the company (i.e. if Elliott gets a lot of compaints about them, and for what)
- How to resolve a problem with the company (i.e. addresses, phone contacts, social media contacts, contacts for executives within the company, etc.)
- What others have said about the company
I won’t list every single entity because many of the lists are long (for example, the airline list includes over 90 airlines, ranging alphabetically from Aegean Airlines to Westjet Airlines). But I’ve included the links above to each “master list.”
There’s no guarantee that Elliott’s methods for contacting a person at a given company will solve your travel-related problem. But if, for example, you’re trying to talk to someone at Frontier Airlines, which doesn’t show its phone number online unless you know where to find it, it can be a good resource.
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1 comment
Really useful. Have you considered putting in a Tools & Resources list or something similar under your Categories pull down menu? You could also include things like air conditioning hacks. It might be a bit more work to set up but likely take much upkeep once established. Anyway, just a thought.