Last December, Scott Tallal redeemed 68,500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles for a business-class ticket from Harrisburg International Airport (MDT) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) via Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD).

Unfortunately, when he arrived at the airport for his flight, he learned that it had been canceled. Helpful agents rerouted him, but in the process, they downgraded him to economy. No worries, they told him. American Airlines would refund the difference in miles between the two classes since it was an involuntary downgrade.

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Six months later, despite numerous calls and emails to American Airlines customer service, Scott's points were still missing. In his last written correspondence with the airline, an agent informed him that his complaint had been extensively reviewed. According to her, American Airlines did not owe him a refund in miles or cash, and the airline considered his complaint closed.

That's when Scott sent his request for help to TPG.

A gaggle of gripes

After I spoke to him and reviewed his paper trail, I had good news: American Airlines did owe him the refund he had been expecting. The Department of Transportation requires it, in fact. But it took me a while to untangle.

So what went wrong? Scott had made one of the most common mistakes travelers make when writing a complaint: overcomplicating things.

In an effort to convey the full extent of his inconvenience, Scott had submitted a laundry list of grievances. He included a lengthy narrative about previous flights, other cancellations, partner airline experiences, delays and other extraneous information. That turned what should have been a straightforward request into a complicated maze that customer service agents could not follow.

In fact, when I first reviewed Scott's complaint, even I had difficulty determining what had happened and what he was asking American Airlines to do.

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Not surprisingly, when customer service agents — or even a consumer advocate — cannot easily identify the problem, there is little chance of a positive outcome. If you cannot pinpoint the issue, you cannot offer a solution.

After I delivered his complaint to my executive contact at American Airlines in a concise, easy-to-understand format, though, Scott quickly received his miles.

I review hundreds of consumer complaints each month. Many involve legitimate grievances that customer service agents and even company executives have rejected. In many of these cases, the complaint should have been approved. But the traveler made one or more common — and mostly correctable — mistakes when presenting their request.

Here are the top reasons valid complaints fail and how to give yourself the best chance of finding a resolution to your problem.

Make sure you're sending your complaint to the right company

Even the best travel complaint letter can succeed only if a traveler delivers it to the correct entity. Unfortunately, that isn't as easy as it sounds in 2026.

Recently, I received a request for help from Shane McCormick, who thought he had paid Costco Travel $6,000 for two cabins aboard Royal Caribbean's Ovation of the Seas. He was angry about the company's inability to provide what it had promised at the quoted price. Instead of two cabins, his family had been assigned just one when his itinerary came through.

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So what had happened? When I reviewed his paper trail, a surprising detail emerged. McCormick had not actually been corresponding with Costco Travel.

Google search results had misdirected him to a scam call center posing as Costco Travel. All of McCormick's emailed complaints had been sent to the fraudsters, who had very little interest in correcting his mistaken belief — or fixing his problem. Those bad actors were only interested in spending the $6,000 they had convinced him to send them.

For several years now, scammers have been flooding the internet with fake customer service centers posing as major airlines and cruise lines. And those human agents are always available and eager to receive your complaint and "help" you fix the problem.

Before calling a number or emailing a grievance, it is crucial to make sure you have the company's correct contact information. Never rely on search results to find it. Instead, visit the official website of the business you are trying to reach. Check the URL in your browser to confirm. Downloading the company's app is also another reliable way to find real contact information for a cruise line, airline or hotel.

If you need help locating customer service contacts or consumer-facing executives to escalate a problem beyond the frontline, my advocacy organization, Consumer Rescue, maintains a free directory that I continually update.

Keep your complaint concise

One of the best ways to give your complaint letter a fair chance of succeeding is to keep it concise.

Earlier this month, I received a request for help from a United Airlines customer whose EU 261 claim was rejected. He sent me an eight-page missive that he had already submitted to the airline. It read like a court presentation, complete with labeled exhibits and complicated legal jargon.

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This traveler was surprised that his manifesto had not produced the outcome he had hoped for. He shared his suspicion that no one at United Airlines had actually read his magnum opus. I agreed.

Travelers should always keep in mind that the company representative receiving the letter is likely reviewing dozens of complaints every day. You want that person to be able to scan your message and quickly figure out what happened and how to help.

You can do that by keeping your complaint brief and factual. Start with the problem. End with the desired resolution. Be realistic about what you ask for. Never send a complaint that extends beyond one page. If the company needs more information, it will ask.

Don't "bury the lede" in your complaint

"Don't bury the lede" is a foundational rule of good journalism, and the same concept applies when writing a grievance. An effective travel complaint catches the customer service agent's attention and immediately conveys the reason for the letter.

I know from my case files, however, that travelers often compose complaints that begin long before getting to the actual problem. They hide the pressing issue hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of words into the narrative.

That's a mistake. Most customer service agents likely will not ever reach that far in an individual complaint. Even worse, AI programs are now reviewing and responding to many emailed grievances. These systems often limit how much text they will process. If your critical information is not near the top, the bot may never even consider it.

Remember, your goal is to make the problem simple to understand and instantly clear.

An easy-to-read, bullet-point list showing what happened and the resolution you are requesting often works best.

XAVIER LORENZO/GETTYIf you use AI, don't forget common sense and fact-checking

Increasingly, consumers are leaning on AI programs to help them compose complaint letters and the results are mixed. These programs can help travelers create professional-looking complaint letters free of typos and grammatical errors.

However, AI is also known to invent laws and regulations and encourage travelers to escalate minor grievances into catastrophic, and sometimes sinister, events. In the worst cases, AI creates problems where none exist.

Celebrity Cruises customer Cherie Johnson turned to AI after she and her husband were denied boarding a transatlantic cruise aboard Celebrity Equinox. The couple arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, ready to begin their much-anticipated vacation. Instead, the crew told them they needed Brazilian eVisas to board.

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That was something they did not have.

Even before Equinox sailed away without them, Cherie began asking AI who was to blame and whether they really needed those visas.

Google Gemini instantly agreed with her suspicion that they did not need visas. According to the AI bot, Celebrity had made a grave error by preventing the couple from boarding. It cited "Brazilian Decree 86715/1981," which Gemini claimed allowed cruise passengers to use the ship as a visa-free transit zone as long as they remained onboard while docked in Brazil.

The AI agent also told Cherie that Celebrity was legally required to inform passengers of all documentation requirements before the cruise.

But it was all an AI hallucination. Cruise ships are not visa-free immigration zones, and there is no Brazilian decree that makes them so.

Cherie sent the AI-created "proof" to Celebrity Cruises' legal department and accused the crew of wrongfully denying her boarding and keeping her money. She included an itemized chart of all the things she expected the cruise line to reimburse her for beyond the cost of the cruise. The grand total exceeded $16,000.

At the core of the Celebrity fleet are five similar Solstice Class vessels, including Celebrity Equinox. MICHEL VERDURE/CELEBRITY CRUISES

Celebrity was not swayed by the confident accusations in Cherie's letter. Despite the AI's certainty that the cruise line had made a mistake refusing to let the couple board the ship, it was wrong and Celebrity knew it. As a result nearly all her letters were simply ignored.

By the time Cherie sent me a request for help she had been unsuccessfully trying to convince Celebrity for four months that it owed her $16,000. She hoped I could shine a light on what had happened and succeed in proving the cruise line's mistake.

The task of telling her the truth and hopefully ending her futile battle fell to me. AI had misled her by citing an outdated legal doctrine that didn't apply to her situation. The cruise line had not made a mistake in her case.

Travelers are responsible for having the documents required for their international flights and cruises. This is written into the terms and conditions of every cruise line and airline that I know of.

To ensure you don't end up in the unpleasant situation this couple did, visit the State Department's website. There, you can verify what you need for entry to all countries on your itinerary.

Before asking AI to help with your travel complaint, make sure you understand its limitations. These programs can confidently provide false information — especially if your questions suggest the answer you want to hear.

Always independently verify the "facts" AI provides. And never sign your name to a complaint letter until you have thoroughly researched every claim it contains.

Don't file a credit card dispute before appealing to the company first

The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) allows consumers to dispute credit card charges involving billing errors or unauthorized transactions. But a chargeback should not be your opening move. I see consumers misuse this important protection every day — sometimes with devastating consequences.

First, ask the company with which you have an issue to try to resolve your problem. Follow its complaint process and give it a reasonable opportunity to investigate. Do not simultaneously file a complaint with the company and a dispute with your credit card issuer. Once a chargeback is underway, the company will typically allow that process to play out instead of continuing to negotiate with you.

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If you lose the dispute, the company will have very little motivation to reopen your case — even if your original complaint was legitimate. By then, you may also have weakened your chances of getting help from a consumer advocate.

The proper order of events is simple: Exhaust your options with the company first. Consider a credit card dispute only after those efforts fail and only if your claim qualifies under the FCBA.

Don't insult the company or declare "I'll never be your customer again"

Telling a company you're done with it and will never give them business again is counterproductive. Think about it: If you've written off the company, why shouldn't it write you off too?

Your complaint letter should be cordial, clearly explain the facts and propose a reasonable resolution.

Yet so many complaint letters I receive begin with some version of: "I will never use your services again. Now give me the goodwill gesture I'm asking for."

Surely, once the emotion is removed from the situation, most travelers can see the problem with that approach. In nearly every case, the traveler feels mistreated by a company they have been loyal to. They do not really want to never be its customer again. They want to be heard and have their problem handled properly. However, by telling a company that you will never patronize it again, you disincentivize it from helping you.

Before sending this type of letter, take a breath and think about what you really want. Maybe even close your browser for the night. In the morning, start again and explain what the company can do to keep you as a valued customer.

Do not threaten legal action 

In the age of AI, this is becoming increasingly important to underscore. AI seems to love escalating minor problems into legal battles. But consumers should understand that once they send a legal threat to an airline, cruise line or other travel provider, they had better be prepared to follow through.

The problem is that ordinary travelers are being encouraged to make legal threats without any factual basis.

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As a professional mediator and TPG's ombudsman, I always begin by attempting a cordial resolution. Most legitimate travel complaints can be resolved with a friendly overture to the company backed by clear facts.

But if you open your complaint with a threat to sue or announce that you have involved a lawyer, your letter will likely be forwarded directly to the company's legal department. At that point, frontline customer service may no longer be willing or authorized to help you.

I have seen consumers threaten legal action over disputes involving as little as $25. Companies recognize these empty threats for what they are, and those complaints often land in a virtual garbage can.

If you genuinely want the company's help, leave the legal threats out of your complaint.

Make your complaint clear

A concise complaint is not necessarily a clear one. Make sure your message explains what went wrong, when it happened and what you are asking the company to do about it.

Include your confirmation or reservation number and any evidence that directly supports your claim, such as a receipt, cancellation notice, or written promise from a company representative. Leave out unrelated documents and details that make the problem harder to follow.

Before sending your complaint, ask someone unfamiliar with the situation to read it. If that person can't quickly explain what went wrong and what you want the company to do, the customer service agent probably won't be able to either.

Over at Consumer Rescue, I have published a free resource page that includes a template for an effective complaint letter along with a variety of sample letters.

The bottom line

Writing an effective complaint letter doesn't have to be difficult if you keep a few things in mind. The letters that receive the most favorable response follow the three C's. They are:

  • Cordial
  • Concise
  • Clear

But don't forget one more essential ingredient: a reasonable proposed resolution.

Travelers often weaken legitimate complaints by asking for far more than the situation warrants. Asking a company to correct its mistake or reimburse a documented loss is reasonable.

Demanding a full refund, substantial additional compensation and a pile of loyalty points for a relatively minor problem probably is not.

The goal of a complaint is to make you whole — not to provide a windfall.

Customer service agents are much more likely to help when they can quickly understand what happened, why you believe the company is responsible and what you are asking to be made right. Leave out the insults, legal threats, lengthy backstory and anything else that distracts from your central problem.

You may not receive exactly the outcome you want. But keeping your complaint cordial, concise and clear — and ending with a fair proposed resolution — gives it the best chance of reaching someone who can, and wants to, help.

If you have a problem with a cruise line, airline, car rental company, vacation rental or credit card company, send your request for free help to ombudsman@thepointsguy.com. I'll be happy to try to help or offer advice that may allow you to resolve the problem on your own.

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.