We're at the end of section two of the travel A to Z course. We've gone over a lot of information in this section, such as how to get a visa, how to adjust to cultural differences. We've looked at safety and communication abroad. We've even gotten some language lessons and French, Pooler and Wallah. We've ended by talking about traveling with kids, and how to deal with culture shock. I thought it would be good in this last lecture, to go over how to prevent or deal with some common airline woes.

I know we've all seen the news and media reports of more and more people facing dissatisfaction as they fly. That could be because of bumped flights, delays, or lost or stolen luggage. Those are actually the top three things that airline travelers complain about. So some of it is unavoidable. As more and more people travel, and as airlines are changing and trying to adjust their customer service policies, some of which really aren't that good, but some are trying to get better. So what you can do is try your best to prevent these things.

And also have a strategy in mind for what to do to deal with it, if they should happen to you. In terms of getting bumped, there are three things you should do. One is to make sure you arrive at the airport on time and that you're not the last to check in. You don't want that to happen. That sort of marks you as someone who could potentially be bumped. The second thing is make sure that you get to the counter as early as possible and start to talk to the ticket agent.

Let them know that you have somewhere to be try to do some small talk to find out how for the flight is and stay abreast of information if you're going to start bumping people The third thing is that you want to try to travel off peak times as much as possible. I know this isn't always possible, but the less crowded the flights are, which they are on off peak times, the less likely you are to have to be bumped. So what you can do is try your best to travel in the middle of the week, early in the day. And anytime this not right before a holiday. Sometimes it's even better to travel on the holiday, such as Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, New Year's Day, and so forth. People are already at their destinations.

So they're not necessarily flying on the actual holiday. If you should be marked for someone that has to be bumped from the flight, which airlines do have a right to do, even if you've been ticketed, and you've boarded and been seated. Some airlines are trying to change or look at those policies because of some bad publicity around incidents where people were dragged off of flights after they've been booked in ticket it and seated. But if you should be told that you have to be bumped from your flight, you should definitely make sure that you get proper compensation in terms of vouchers or payment for future flights. Sometimes you can ask for accommodations or if you're not going to be in the airport for that much longer, you can ask to be put in the airport lounge where you can relax, look at some television or entertainment, get some drinks, and just feel comfortable.

Now in terms of flight delays, this is happening more and more when it's peak time or the most crowded time to fly, then that's when you're most likely to encounter flight delays. What you can do is look at the airlines and research them. Most of them have a place on their website where they actually tell you how frequently certain routes or flights are on time or late. So when possible, try to avoid flights that are late more than 90% of the time 80% of the time or something like that. Look for flights, which are usually earlier in the day in the middle of the week again, that don't tend to be late. The other thing you can do is try to research flights by competitive airlines or competing airlines around the same time.

That way, if there's a long delay or even your flight has to be canceled. You can approach the ticket agent or the airline with information about a competitor's flight that will get you there on time or earlier. Now, not all airlines are willing to pay to put you on a different flight. But some are and if you have the information available, if you've done your research about similar flight times, or airports or so forth, with competitive competitor airlines, then You are more likely to get them to help you. The other thing you can do is to use Twitter. So if you're in a situation where your flight has been canceled or severely delayed, and they are not willing to help you to rebook or to put you on a different flight, then you can actually go to Twitter.

Sometimes Twitter is more efficient than actually calling customer service. You can hashtag the airline, and you can tell the audience in Twitter land, what your issue is your customer service problem is, a lot of times they will respond. They're actually social media workers who mined the Twitter accounts and look for hashtags and look for problems that passengers are reporting. Now in terms of lost or stolen goods, the most important thing to remember is not to pack things like valuable jewelry, valuable electronics inside of your luggage. These are things that you need to care about. on your person, or if they're just too large, and you have to put them in your luggage, your check luggage for whatever reason, you need to make sure that you take out an additional insurance policy through your travel insurance.

It's something called extra evaluation. Most airlines will compensate you if your luggage or your bags are stolen or lost in their possession. However, they will only compensate you up to a certain amount. They won't compensate you for thousands of dollars in these expensive equipment, or thousands of dollars in jewelry or other types of valuables like that. So either don't pack those things in your check luggage or make sure that you have an extra or additional insurance policy to cover them. So those are things that you can do to prevent or deal with the top travel airline walls which are being bumped delays in your flights and lost or stolen luggage.

So Happy travels and enjoy your next trip.