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The Dos and Don’ts of Complaining When a Trip Goes Bad

Need to resolve an issue with an airline, hotel, travel agency or cruise line? Do your best to be brief, clear, and reasonable.

Ombudsman has been a staple in the back pages of Condé Nast Traveler, answering readers’ travel questions and solving their dilemmas every month. Now you can enjoy him weekly in his new online column, Dear Ombudsman.

First, let’s talk about the reason you want to file a complaint. Most likely, something went wrong and you’re looking for compensation. Or maybe you were treated poorly and you want an apology. Either way, the goal is the same: Get a response from the company that acknowledges the problem and provides the desired result. What’s the best way to make it happen?

Start by putting yourself in the position of the person who will read your letter.

Don’t make it personal, even if the company did. Telling them off reduces your likelihood of success and could push your file into the trash bin. Let’s look at an everyday example: Say you owe your friend Joe fifty bucks. You forgot to send him the check. You intended to pay him; you have the money; you just forgot. Joe calls, yells at you, tells you you’re an awful person and he doesn’t want to see you ever again. He also threatens to tell all his friends how awful you are. Even though you know you owe Joe the money, are you now more or less motivated to pay him and to explore how to repair the relationship?

Do a bit of research so you’re prepared to write about the company’s policies and customer service goals. Point out that they don’t appear to coincide with the way you were treated. If you don’t present a clear case, you make it difficult for the letter reader to help.

Don’t write a 20-plus page letter with a table of contents and named chapters (this is not a hyperbolic example, nor was there only one).

Do write a brief letter. Include identifying information about the claim and any backup documentation you have. Do what you can to make any copies or scans clear. Strive to explain everything in one page. (We know that’s not always possible—sometimes the company exhibited astounding levels of incompetence and caused numerous problems.) Go to two pages if you must—if you’re writing in a digital format, call it 1,000 words—but if you break that limit, review the letter and make sure everything you say is necessary and not repetitive.

**Don’t demand; do request. **

Don’t be unreasonable. Asking for $5,000 in punitive damages because your flight was cancelled and you missed two days of work will not help your cause.

Don’t, no matter how incensed you are, under any circumstances, use 15 repeating exclamation points (again, not an exaggeration). In fact, try not to use any exclamation points. And don’t capitalize entire words and sentences. If the person who reads your letter can’t make sense of it without such flourishes, it’s probably a lost cause anyway.

Do write the flaming, angry letter if you absolutely must, to get it out of your system. But: Don’t send the angry, flaming letter. Pull the salient points from it and move on to your next draft.

Do include all of your contact information. All of it. It doesn’t matter whether you hate talking on the phone, or you can’t stand email, or, as a digital savant, you don’t know why anyone still uses snail mail. Give the company the opportunity to help you in every possible way. After you file your complaint, it’s probably a good time to set up your voicemail if you’ve never done so in the past.

Do practice patience. You want the company to take the time to research and evaluate your claim. That doesn’t usually happen in two days (allow two to three weeks). And when you write the first letter, don’t copy eight other entities (publications, consumer advocates, television stations). Give the company an opportunity to respond.

The corollary with that point: Do hold something back. If you don’t get a response or the response doesn’t address your issue, then you could mention some alternative methods you might pursue to seek justice.

Last, but not least, don’t say, “I will never use your company again,” or words to that effect. Once you say it, you remove nearly all of the incentive for the company to help you. This includes premature posts on social media sites. Maybe you’re going to write the most cogent and damning review in the history of the internet when you get your money, but wouldn’t you rather do it with the money in your pocket? And you never know, sometimes when you give people the opportunity to do the right thing, they do the right thing. You might end up writing a positive review based on how the company turned things around.


More answers from the Ombudsman:

I Paid $127 for Three Bottles of Water in a Hotel — Help!

How Do You Get Travel Insurance to Cover Pre-Existing Conditions?

What Happens If Your Plane Is Too Heavy to Fly?