7 Common Travel Fails and Exactly How to Deal

There are certain snafus that most travelers face at some point, from flight delays and lost luggage to shampoo leaks in your suitcase. Here, pros offer up their smartest solutions for how to handle any sticky situation.

Illustration by Lydia Ortiz

Traveling opens up an actual world of possibilities, whether you’re checking out a bucket-list destination or just getting an escape from the stressors of life. And while a trip can bring up other problems at times (missing a flight or butting heads with your travel companion, for example), those things don’t have to ruin your whole trip — especially if you’re prepared to handle them. To help you navigate those bumps along the road, we got top pros to share their fixes for tricky travel scenarios.

Scenario #1: Your Flight Is Delayed

The Fix: Line up at the service desk with all the other disgruntled passengers, but while you’re waiting, place a call to your airline’s customer service line to double your chances of getting through to someone, suggests Sara Clemence, author of Away & Aware: A Field Guide to Mindful Travel. By asking the reason for the delay, you may be able to suss out whether a cancellation is imminent, but know this: Any changes you request before the flight is officially grounded will likely come from your own pocket.

That said, being nice can sometimes give you a leg up. “A gate agent may let you change flights before a cancellation happens in order to have one less person to rebook later,” notes Clemence. If you prefer to wait out the delay, depending on its length and the reason for it, you may be owed food vouchers, a hotel room, or other compensation. (Look up what you’re entitled to on Air Help.) For the future, if you absolutely have to be somewhere — say, a wedding — it may be worth signing up for a domestic service called Freebird, says Clemence. The $19 fee enables you to rebook gratis on any airline.

Scenario #2: You Miss Your Flight

The Fix: Ditch your pride and put yourself at the mercy of the desk agent, advises Clemence, who did just that when she didn’t make her flight to Washington, D.C., for her mom’s surprise 75th birthday celebration. Fessing up to her mistake (she left her wallet at home and her husband couldn’t race it there in time) earned her a rebooking and a spot at the table for her mom’s fete. There isn’t really a uniform response to these types of scenarios — the decisions are typically made at the airline’s discretion, notes Clemence. But, she adds, “I feel like admitting it’s your fault can help you gain people’s assistance.”

Scenario #3: The Airline Loses Your Luggage

The Fix: Report immediately to the baggage desk to file a claim, and this is key: Make sure you get some sort of receipt or paper evidence as well as a contact number, advises Clemence. You might have to call and politely nudge a few times after leaving the airport, but typically you should get your stuff back within 48 hours. In the future, if you stash a set of clothes and essentials in your carry-on just in case, lost luggage won’t be as much of an inconvenience. You could even take your prepping one step further, like Laurence and Jessica Norah do; the founders of the travel blog Finding the Universe divide their items between two suitcases so that “if one goes missing, at least you have half your clothes,” Laurence says.

It’s also helpful to book travel with a credit card that offers baggage delay protection, like Chase Sapphire Reserve, to cover anything you need to buy while you wait for your bag to resurface. And just in case he’s unlucky enough to have luggage that never does resurface, Matthew Kepnes of Nomadic Matt takes a time-stamped picture of his packed suitcase right before the trip. “It helps expedite the claim process if you can show ownership of your lost items.”

Scenario #4: You Get Sick

The Fix: If you have travel insurance, you should be able to secure medical treatment with just a quick call, says Laurence Norah. His insurance company recently helped him make an appointment with a nearby doctor in less than 30 minutes. “They booked it and they paid for it,” he says. If you don’t — and you don’t know anyone local who can facilitate an appointment — ring your local embassy, suggests Clemence: “They’ll be able to put you in touch with a good doctor who speaks English.” She also subscribes to another service called Medjet, in case she or her family needs more advanced care. The company will arrange medical transport to your hospital of choice if you’re more than 150 miles from home.

Scenario #5: Your Passport Goes Missing

The Fix: Head straight to your destination’s embassy or consulate to start the paperwork for a replacement. If you’re headed home ASAP, you can be issued a temporary passport that day, but if you’re continuing on to other countries, you’ll need a new one, which can take up to a week to receive. In the future, follow Kepnes’ approach: The author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day never leaves the country without a printed and digital copy of his passport, which can speed up the replacement process.

Scenario #6: Shampoo Explosion in Your Suitcase

The Fix: Sop up the mess with some damp towels, then rinse anything washable in the bathroom sink and find a warm area to dry it. Norah has gone through this a number of times — “With the pressure change on flights it’s basically inevitable that some shampoo will come out,” he says — so now, pre-flight, he transfers all liquids to screw-top containers, stores them inside a large plastic baggie, and puts that inside a toiletry case to limit the wreckage.

Scenario #7: Fighting With Your Travel Companion

The Fix: Unless you two are able to work things out in the first 10 minutes or so, your best bet is to gently suggest giving each other a little space, whether that entails venturing out to explore solo or just moving to another area in the airport terminal to “ignore each other until you are calm enough to resolve it,” as Norah puts it.

Often quibbling is simply the result of being tired, irritable, or hungry, but arguing about the vacation itself is common, too, so it always helps to have a conversation about expectations pre-trip, says Norah. (Which sights do you want to see? Would you splurge on a pricey meal? Do you plan to be up and at ’em every morning, or are you more interested in the late-night scene?) Sometimes you can fend off the fighting just by being willing to split up, says Norah. He and Jessica, who together created Independent Travel Cats, have a system. “I will go off hiking for three or four hours and she will go visit a museum, and then we’ll meet up,” he says. “We know what we both like, so we’re happy to do that.”

About the author: Sarah Grossbart is a Michigan-born, New York-based writer-editor who has written for Us Weekly, E! News, HGTV Magazine, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Glamour. When she’s not busy running or yelling at a Michigan State basketball game, she can usually be found watching bad reality TV.