A funny letter of complaint to an airline with an unusual response from customer service

by Jessica Festa on

Apparently, Southwest Airlines’ passenger B.J. Schone had a rather unpleasant experience on his flight, or at least once he got off, as his brand new TravelPro suitcase had been damaged. Instead of taking the action that most people on a late-night flight home for Christmas would take (i.e. cursing out a staff member or writing a nasty letter to the company), Schone took a different approach and wrote the funniest letter of complaint I have ever seen, complete with animations, photos, jokes, and a polite ending asking for help.

While many people who have seen the letter, which you can read by clicking here, are skeptical of its validity, what’s even more shocking is the reply that Schone apparently received from a person named Verity from Southwest Airlines, which you can read by clicking here. Instead of just offering to solve the problem, the return letter is written in the same comedic and animated style of Schone’s original, with a happy ending awarding Schone a check for new luggage.

Are the letters real? On Southwest Airlines Twitter account they sent a message to Schone on January 5 saying “Hey BJ! We saw your web site. Someone from our customer relations team will be in touch today!” Then, on Schone’s Twitter account on January 12, he posted the response letter and tagged not only Southwest Airlines in the tweet but also Verity herself, followed by a message saying “Thank you very much. You guys rock!”

While the answer to the validity of these letters isn’t 100% confirmed, it does appear that it is possible. Either way, they’re definitely worth a read.

Tips for road-tripping with your dog part 2: tips from commenters

by Elizabeth Seward on

I recently published a piece here on Gadling titled 10 tips for road-tripping with your dog. Somewhat chronicling my experience with hitting the road for 38 consecutive days with my 6 month old puppy, I thought through what made the trip work for me and compiled those thoughts into 10 tips for those of you enjoy the open road alongside your pooch. Luckily for me and all of our other readers, many of you chimed in, as requested, with your own tips through the comments. I was excited to read so much useful advice from those of you who are road warriors and dog lovers. So excited, in fact, that I felt a part 2 to my first piece was in call for… and so, here you have it, a list of additional tips for road-tripping with your dog, courtesy of the typing hands of Gadling readers who comment.1. Don’t assume hiking trails and other recreational areas are dog-friendly.
As one reader pointed out, you sometimes have to learn the hard way with this one. I was recently in Laredo, Texas and found that the only park in the city (that I could find) for dogs was Lake Casa Blanca. Once I paid the fee and got into the park, I found out that dogs aren’t actually allowed off-leash inside the park. So my dog, Fiona, and the puppy I rescued off of the street while in Laredo, Donnie, got to exercise a bit, but not as much as I was hoping for. If a campground is dog-friendly, don’t automatically assume the surrounding park is. Do your research.

2. Get a Kennel Cough vaccine.
If at any point in time on your journey you’ll be boarding your dog or leaving your dog where other dogs are or have been, consider getting a kennel cough vaccine for your dog. Kennel Cough is a highly contagious illness that affects canines. It causes inflammation of the upper respiratory system. Not only do you want your dog to be healthy and free of nasty bugs like this one, but a sick dog can demand altering your travel schedule and/or itinerary.

3. Research before crossing borders with dog food.
One commenter says that you cannot enter the USA with an open bag of dog food nor can you enter the USA with dog food from another country. Before crossing any country line, make sure you know the rules about what kind of food you can bring into the country for your dog.

4. Have a doggy bag.
Consider putting together a bag that is just for your dog. This bag can include everything from your dog’s paperwork to medication. This way, while you’re cramped up in the car, you’ll know exactly how and where to find everything your dog may need.

5. La Quinta.
La Quinta hotels, according to one commenter, are pet-friendly and don’t charge a pet fee. Keep that in mind.

6. Safe water.
Not all water is created equal. Make sure you have a healthy supply of water for your dog. Don’t assume the water in any particular region of the world is safe for your pup to drink before knowing the facts. In some cases, your dog will need to drink bottled water.

7. Safety check every space.
Before letting your dog off-leash at a pet-friendly hotel or even the house of a friend or relative, make sure you sweep through the area and check for pet-unfriendly items. I was recently at the home of a relative and found chocolate candies on the floor that her daughter had dropped. Not the fault of the relatives, of course, they don’t have a dog and probably don’t know or think of doggy no-nos, but checking the floors and areas can prevent your dog from illness or even death.

8. Dog tags.
Make sure your dog has all of the proper tags on his or her leash. Vaccination tags, name and contact information tag, microchip tag, etc. This will be a dog-lifesaver if your dog wanders off without you.

9. Have photos of your dog.
Make sure you have good and clear photos of your dog before embarking on any trip. In case your dog does get lost, this will enable you to more easily and effectively have people in the respective community on the lookout for your dog.

10. Bathroom on command.
I have Fiona trained to use the ‘bathroom’ on command (and I’m working on the new guy). This is particularly helpful if you are road-tripping. If your dog knows the bathroom command, you won’t have to worry about having accidents in the car.

11. Doggy daycare is everywhere.
Rather than leave your dog in the car if you’ll be away from the car for any extended period of time, consider looking into local doggy daycare centers. When I say they’re everywhere, I’m only kind of exaggerating. They are available in many locations, many of which you will likely be traveling through.

12. Know local law.
If you do sometimes leave your dog in the car for short and safe periods of time, beware the laws of the land as you travel. One commenter told a story of having a dog removed from a car in Burbank, where, apparently, people frequently remove dogs from their owners’ cars without consulting with the owner (who, for all they know, might have been picking up takeout food from the restaurant just beyond the restaurant parking lot, for instance). If a place you’re traveling through has regulations in place regarding dogs left in cars–know them. Know them well.

Freedom to Roam: The Southern Alps by helicopter

by Kyle Ellison on

No, the Southern Alps aren’t in the south of France or Italy as the name may lead you to believe. Rather, they are 12 time zones away in a remote corner of the Pacific Ocean and form the spine of the rugged South Island of New Zealand. Home to National Parks such as Mt. Aspiring, Mt. Cook, Arthur’s Pass, and Fiordland, the similarities to their European counterparts are so similar, however, that when hiking amongst sections of the Southern Alps you could swear you were outside of Chamonix, France.

It’s well known that the original Maori name for New Zealand is “Aotearoa”, a phrase which literally translates to “Long White Cloud”. Seeing as the Polynesian triangle only has a few mountains tall enough to ever receive snow, it’s understandable why a narrow, snow capped mountain range could be construed as being a long white cloud. (The only other mountain in Polynesia outside of New Zealand which regularly sees snow is Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii, a name which literally translates in Hawaiian to “White Mountain”. See a trend?)

Aside from providing a picturesque backdrop for the majority of the South Island, the Southern Alps are also home to the majority of the outdoor activities in the country, which is really saying something in an outdoor haven such as New Zealand.

When it comes to the Southern Alps, even though you can hike your way through them, ski your way down them, jetboat their rivers, and fish in their lakes, the undisputed best way you’re going to actually SEE them is by getting up on top of them. Unless you plan on climbing 12,316 ft. Mt. Cook (Maori: Aoraki, “Cloud Piercer”) and are a whiz with crampons and an ice axe, your best bet is to get beneath a set of rotating blades and take a helicopter to plop you down on top of them.

That’s what I did over Mt. Aspiring, and in all seriousness, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

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Departing from the Wanaka Airport which lies in the foothills of Mt. Aspiring National Park, the trouble with being in a helicopter is you never know which way to look. When you have a a 270 degree view from inside a hovering glass bubble, you aren’t sure if you should focus your attention–and camera lens–on the lakes below you or the glaciers in front of you.

Either way, with the Southern Lakes region shimmering beneath our whirling metal blades, it wasn’t long before our pilot Nick had dropped us down on top of 7,700 ft. Mt. Alta, a rocky pinnacle being whipped by an alpine breeze and the type of place where you could scream and no one would hear you. Not in the scary way, but in the chest-thumping sense of freedom way.

Though standing atop Mt. Alta was invigorating in its remoteness, it was nothing when compared to the glacial flyby we were about to be treated to.

Eventually reaching the snowline, our machine hovered so closely to the melting ice fields you could practically hear the ice changing into water. Racing along ridge lines, all of that melting water suddenly made itself known in a thundering set of falls exploding off of the face of 8,600 ft. Mt Avalanche, an alpine promontory glowing in white and studded in hanging glaciers.

If ever there was a time in my life I felt like an aerial cameraman for a Lord of the Rings shoot, it was at this moment right now.

Just as Nick played a game of chicken with the approaching set of falls, he pulled up on the stick and raised the chopper just high enough above the falls to give myself and the two other passengers in the aircraft a sweeping view of a hidden turquoise lake that is among the most pristine bodies of water I have seen anywhere on the planet. And this is from a guy who grew up in Hawaii.

You can judge a good helicopter ride by the juxtaposition of adrenaline and exhaustion when you finally step back onto the tarmac, and after the 1 hour whirlwind through the glaciers of the Southern Alps there was little left to do but order up a late-morning coffee, lay down in the back of campervan, and question if what I just saw was actually a real place on this Earth.

Can’t relax for too long though, as there are many more adventures to be had in one of the world’s best countries for touring…

For the next 2 months Gadling blogger Kyle Ellison will be embedded in a campervan touring the country of New Zealand. Follow the rest of the adventure by reading his series, Freedom to Roam: Touring New Zealand by Campervan.

Vagabond Tales: Lunch on Guilty Beach, Cambodia

by Kyle Ellison on

Lunch on Guilty Beach was a tough meal to swallow.

If you look on a map of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, you’ll find beaches such as Victory Beach and Independence Beach, but you’ll find no such place as Guilty Beach. Regardless of what a map might say, unofficially, every beach in Cambodia is Guilty Beach.

Guilty Beach is not just a Cambodian phenomenon, but rather a global destination that can be found along coastlines the world over. It’s in Los Cabos, Mexico, in the shadow of the famous Cabo arch. It’s in Jaco, Costa Rica, backed up by sagging palm trees and world class surf. It’s in Asilah, Morocco; it’s in Mabul, Malaysia. Guilty Beach is every beach in the world where those unfortunate individuals living well below the poverty line–many of them children–work the beach in the hope of squeaking out much less than a living; most likely, they’re just trying to make that night’s dinner.

While beach merchants and scam artists can often be viewed as hawkers selling goods you would never want, Guilty Beach, Cambodia is thusly labeled because here it is different. Children don’t prod you to buy some fake sunglasses–they simply ask for a bite of your food. Men don’t sell knockoff jewelry for extra beer money. Rather, children sell bracelets while carrying their infant brother in their arms because their parents are too sick, or worse, dead.

Guilty Beach is thusly named because I no longer want that $2 plate of fried noodles, or that $1 can of beer. How can I accept that $2 plate of food when I just told an 11 year-old girl I didn’t want her $2 bracelet? Then to eat it in front of her, as her eyes fail to flinch from the fried fare before me.
So why not buy the $2 bracelet? Why not donate my meal? Because the sad reality is knowing you cannot help them all; that there are no amount of bracelets that will heal this heart wrenching dilemma. Furthermore, the precedent set by rewarding begging can be far more disastrous than the apparent problems you’re trying to prevent.

Finally, it’s a somber truth knowing that these innocent faces, with bulging stomachs and bulging eyes, are merely working for someone above them, whether it’s family or otherwise. The average tourist won’t buy sliced mango from a fully grown man, but they’ll open up their wallet for a child. And sadly, everyone knows it. These are merely conscripted child soldiers in a brutal reality of poverty and survival.

“They tell us to say that,” the little girl confesses. She has just asked us to “open our hearts by opening our wallets.” It’s a heavy line that’s been proven to work.

How do you deny an 11 year-old girl of $2 while she holds an infant and tries not to cry? How do you not look at all of them, 20 or 30 deep, wishing you could buy all of their bracelets so they can go play in the water like all 9 and 11 year-olds should?

Even if you buy them from two, three, or eight different children, eventually you have to tell one no, and is their pain dampened any by the fact you just helped the eight previous? The guilt is nonetheless the same. A line intrinsically must be drawn somewhere, but that line never gets any less painful, or justifiable. We gave the girl $1 for a smaller bracelet, and she left despondently, a sense of failure in her face. Nobody wins in this game.

Even more, who am I that you should even feel the need to beg to me? I don’t deserve this phony pedestal you place me upon. I don’t deserve this plate of food you lust after. I don’t deserve to sit on this beach, in this comfortable chair, and lead an easier life than you.

Lunch on Guilty Beach was a tough meal to swallow.

Vagabond Tales: How to roast marshmallows over an active volcano

by Kyle Ellison on

This may sound strange, but one of my favorite aspects of international travel has to do with liability, or rather, the lack of it.

Although the age of personal responsibility seems to have gone the way of the cassette tape and litigation is now just another part of business, believe it or not, there are still a refreshing amount of countries out there where common sense and an acceptance of the risks involved are all that are required for most activities.

This is why you won’t see many people roasting marshmallows over slow-moving lava at Kilauea National Park in Hawaii, but you certainly might see the same at a place such as Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano in central Guatemala where I once dined over the 1500 degree Earth.

Set just outside the colonial outpost of Antigua, a town whose cobblestone streets bustle with Spanish language immersion students feasting on flan and savoring fresh local coffee, Volcan Pacaya has been actively erupting for the past 47 years. The undisputed highlight of the Pacaya Volcano National Park, roasting marshmallows over the active eruption has for years been a cheap thrill of travelers scaling the side of the mountain, and seeing as you could never get away with something like that back home in the US I was understandably keen to try it.For the grand total of $15 I arranged a tour with a company departing from Antigua for a late-afternoon ascent of Pacaya. In a decrepit old van stuffed with fellow adventure travelers, the rusty metal box climbed its way over dusty gravel roads high into the preserve. Local children with dirt-smudged faces swarmed our van upon arrival in an effort to sell us wooden walking sticks, but unfortunately for them I had already spent the last of my quetzals for the afternoon on the bag of sticky white marshmallows ready to be roasted. Had they accompanied me to the lava field I gladly would have treated them.

The lava on the mountainside is constantly shifting, however, and on some days the conditions are better than others for tracking down Mother Nature’s mountainside BBQ. On this particular day our guide Eduardo, a friendly, sun-weathered and semi-toothless gentleman informed us there was a fresh column of lava that was inching its way down the southwest flank of the mountain, so that’s where we were going to head.

Steeply ascending the side of the 8,373 ft. peak, the first hour was spent beneath a sweeping green canopy of forest and mud-soaked trail that had obviously seen a lot of recent use. When we finally rounded the corner to the southwestern flank and could see the whole of Pacaya opening up before us, my disappointment loomed large when it became apparent there was no lava to be seen anywhere.

“No te preocupes” Eduardo ensured me. “You cannot see the lava from here, but when you reach the top, it looks black like the rock. From there you can see.”

With Eduardo’s guarantee we raced off down the sub-alpine scree slope until our shoes were full of tiny rocks. Although being buffeted by 50 mph wind gusts, our group nonetheless progressed up the flank of the mountain until reaching a point where the Earth suddenly seemed to be shifting.

Though I found myself standing on black lava rocks hard enough and sharp enough to slice right through skin, just a few feet away the same rocks had taken on the appearance of cake batter being slowly poured into a bowl. Black folds and ripples tinted with flares of orange bulldozed a molten path down the mountainside as I watched Earth being created before my very eyes. For the intensity of the moment, never had I seen such a violent and lethal force move so imperceptibly slow.

It was the faint trace of movement, however, which allowed the marshmallow roast to become a reality. With sticks acquired from the canopy floor beneath us, various trekkers squatted mere inches from a substance which could cut right through our bare flesh. With the nonchalance of a child next to a campfire, our handful of international volcano hikers sat in a semi-circle and dined on roasted Jet-Puffs from 6,000 ft above the valley floor below, all of us firmly taking responsibility for our own potentially dangerous actions.

So even though Kilauea National Park in Hawaii may have the longest running eruption in the United States (and myriad fences and boundaries keeping you at bay), if you want to dine on food roasted by nothing but the Earth, head to Antigua, Guatemala, a place where it’s still possible to gauge your own surroundings and be responsible for your own decisions.

Read more of the Vagabond Tales here.