When a visa snafu marooned honeymooners Bethany Thomas and Dmitri Zagidulin in Frankfurt en route to St. Petersburg last week, their journey had all the makings of a disaster: a tepid response from their travel agency, Expedia, a closed consulate and luggage that had gone on to Russia without them.
Alerted by a blog post from Thomas (a fantasy writer in Peaks Island, Maine, who goes by the name Catherynne M. Valente), the author’s supporters launched a volley of calls and online missives to Expedia. And less than 24 hours after the duo’s drama began, they were headed to Russia with a promised refund of their $2,000 trip, reimbursement for last-minute visas and other expenses in Frankfurt, plus a $3,000 credit for future travel — thanks to the power of Twitter and Facebook.
Their happy ending is “a huge triumph for social networking,” says Thomas, who met her Ukraine-born computer programmer husband online in 2003. “Without it, we’d still be stranded in Frankfurt.”
Expedia spokesman Adam Anderson says the agency should have directed the couple to the U.S. State Department’s site instead of assuring them they didn’t need visas. Adds Expedia customer service senior director Thomas Seibert, “Social media played an important role in alerting us to our error.”
The horror honeymoon-turned-fairy tale is another example of how travelers are using social media to help solve problems. Writes IndependentTraveler.com’s Ed Hewitt: “Calling the 800 number and sitting on hold for 45 minutes waiting for your complaint to be heard isn’t your only option anymore.”
This summer, months after baggage handlers at United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s guitar and United refused to pay for the $1,200 repair, the Canadian singer fought back with a music video titled United Breaks Guitars that has been viewed about 6 million times on YouTube.
United now uses the incident in training…