Traveller Letters: Where is my refund Airbnb?

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This was published 8 years ago

Traveller Letters: Where is my refund Airbnb?

Miss Yara, a dancer who toured Australia.

Miss Yara, a dancer who toured Australia.Credit: Jan Leishman

AIRING A GRIEVANCE

When illness forced me to cancel a 34-night booking in Paris via Airbnb, I found that the cost of the first 30 days was not refundable. Having paid over $2500, I was promised a mere $41 refund. I know it was my fault for not reading the "terms and conditions" carefully.

But if you are planning to book for longer than a month, steer clear of those friendly folk at Airbnb and use regular agencies that do refund something to people who, like me, cancel well in advance.

John Golder

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Your "Six of the best" feature on San Francisco boutique hotels (Traveller, April 18-19) was quite right to include the Hotel Carlton on Sutter Street. We stayed there at the end of an organised coach tour.

It has an excellent Middle Eastern restaurant within and a lively local bar and cafe, called Fly, next door. We did not need to venture far for meals despite many appealing places in the area.

Oh, and go to the Top of The Mark for a late night drink and nibbles!

Tony Sullivan

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BUOY OH BUOY

Our recent experience of the lifeboat drill on the Holland-America Oosterdam leaving Sydney could only be described as chaotic. We checked in to our designated lifeboat position to find our names were not on the steward's passenger list.

He scribbled in mine and then, nodding towards my wife, asked if she was with me. I said yes and he then added a mark and walked off. If he had asked I would have told him she was registered under her maiden name, not mine, but he wasn't interested.

People milled around while the crew made half-hearted attempts to keep them in groups. Senior crew would wander past and disappear. Then the captain made a long announcement in such a thick Dutch accent that no one could understand him, so everyone kept on talking.

This was in direct contrast to our previous Holland-America cruise where the lifeboat drill was done efficiently. Everyone was kept in quiet, compact groups and no one was allowed to move until every passenger was accounted for.

Here we had poor administration, a bored and disorganised crew, and an unintelligible captain. We wondered how they would cope with a real emergency, and if our names would again be missed.

Derek Woolcott

TIME AND TIDE

There was a little cross-pollination from Melbourne back to Paris in the 1890s (Traveller Letters, April 11) when my husband's French grandmother, a dancer who toured Australia, took her stage name "from a river in Australia". She called herself "Yara". I wonder if the Parisians at the time thought she was being pretentious?

Jan Leishman

MAKING A MEAL OF IT

We are travelling to New York for Christmas this year with our children, aged 18 and seven, and would like to have Christmas lunch somewhere nice there? Do you or your readers have any suggestions? We then travel to Washington DC for New Year's Eve and we are also looking for some ideas as well.

Michael Doherty

IT'S TERMINAL

How can we get airports to improve? By competition! I've suggested to Trip Advisor that they should start asking travellers to rate airports; but no action yet. Maybe letters from Traveller readers in support of this letter will bring forward that day?

Lawrence Reddaway

STATUS ANXIETY

I have been a Qantas Gold Frequent Flyer for many years. In early March my partner was struck down with a severe heart condition and I consequently had to cancel all of my booked and planned flights to care for him.

When I contacted Qantas and explained that I would not be able to travel for the final four months of my renewal period and requested a revised assessment period to reflect that, I was told it was not possible. Up to the cancellation of travel I was on track to retain my Gold FF status.

I have always loyally flown with Qantas and it would have been wonderful to see that loyalty repaid with loyalty.

Trudy-Ann King

LETTER OF THE WEEK

In reference to the item by Michael Gebecki, "How much luggage do airlines lose" (Traveller, April 18-19), as a former captain with Qantas, my crew and I were on one occasion to fly between Bangkok and Athens. At the crew check-in we put our bags on a chute and went to wait for our transport to the aircraft. A crew from Aerolineas Argentinas were also waiting.

On arrival in Athens the cabin crew bags arrived but our four "tech crew" bags didn't materialise. They turned up three days later in Athens. They had been everywhere and had multiple destination stickers on each bag, including, of course, Buenos Aires.

All four bags had suntans and two had even learned to Tango. Those were the days – seven day stops in Athens. Nowadays they work the poor possums harder.

Geoff Astbury

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