What You Can Do If a Strike Messes Up Your Travel Plans

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

A recent trip was up-ended by a strike at a ski resort.  Here are tips to help you pivot if a strike threatens to wreak havoc on your vacation plans.

1.       Stay informed

Get as much information as you can through the website, social media, etc. We didn’t get much advance notice of the impending work action, aka, strike.  Once we knew a strike was imminent, we followed the daily updates on the resort website, which were, uh, minimal at best.  Initially, the ski area website posted that it would not refund accommodations scheduled during the 8 days of the scheduled strike. You read that right. No refund.  The reason?  Accommodations are separate from the ski operations.  You’re kidding right?  Our cabin was booked through the resort website! If operations are shut down, there is NOTHING, to do at the ski area if mountain operations are down.  No skiing, snowboarding, lcafeteria. There's not even a town!  Yeah, I get their point that operations and accommodations are separate, but nobody’s going to a remote ski area to hangout.

2.       Stay calm

It’s tough to stay calm when you see your much anticipated vacation start to derail; however, losing your s**t isn’t going to help.  The person at the receiving end of your wrath probably has nothing to do with whatever is going on.  You’re probably the 100^th person who’s yelled at them today.

3.       Be flexible

We had a backup plan..ish.  We were lucky that we were driving, not flying, to our destination, but it was 11-hour drive from our house, so we broke up the drive into two days.  We didn’t want to lose the money we paid on the cabin, so begrudgingly, we started our journey understanding that the strike would probably mean no skiing.  On the drive, we figured we needed a backup plan.

Since we were stopping halfway for the night at another ski area, we decided to ask the hotel if they had rooms for the next few days. At that point, we thought we’d have to eat the original rental cabin anyway, but at least we could ski.  Fortunately the hotel had rooms, so we stayed. Then we got the email about a refund.  Yay!

If the “halfway” hotel didn’t have rooms, we were going to suck it up and head to the cabin at the un-skiable resort.

4.       Know your rights

Read the cancellation policy for your accommodations.  Sometimes there is flexibility and sometimes there isn’t.  Even if the policy states NO refunds, itdoesn’t hurt to ask. We had luck getting a partial hotel refund on a recent trip. I was also successful in filing an insurance claim through my credit card.

Read your airlines contract of carriage. It’s that boring fine print that has the detail.  If you’re flying in the U.S. and your flight is canceled or significantly delayed, depending on your airline’s definition of “significant delay”, you may be entitled to a full refund. Delays and cancellations due to work actions may addressed in your contract of carriage, too. 

You may be able to make a flight change free of charge.  On a recent trip, I was able to do change my flight at the last minute without having to pay a change fee.

If your flight is interrupted in Europe due to an airline strike,  EC 261/2004 applies.  If you’re in the United Kingdom, they call it UK 261, but it’s the same law. I also found useful information on the EU Air Passenger Rights website.

Tip: Non-strike related, but disruptive all the same, recent government shutdowns are impacting airport security lines. TSA may not be updating wait times on its website. Even if airlines websites are providing information, check the website of the airport that you're flying out of. It may have information to help you guage how far in advance you may need to be at the airport. As an example, here's security checkpoint information from PHL airport.

5. What happened? Did we get any resoultion?

Yep. We continued to monitor the ski area’s website to learn whatever information we could.  Two days into the strike, the resort website said it would offer a credit for accommodations that would be valid for one year.  Okay, not great, but better than the original “no refund”.  The instructions were that you needed to email the resort to advise that you opt for the credit option so I emailed the resort.  I didn’t hear from them for about a day, so I sent a follow up email.  A short while later, the resort emailed stating that they would offer me a full refund.  I accepted and the amount was refunded to my credit card within a few days.

Ultimately, we got a favorable resolutio, but we were already in transit before we learned that a refund was even possible. It would have been more helpful if the ski resort had acted quicker to offer credits, then refunds, but they were probably trying to figure it out as the situation eveolved. For us, diving, not flying, gave us a lot of flexibility to pivot  Sure, it wasn’t the vacation we planned, but it was fun all the same.