By the time Tony co-founded Lonely Planet Publications in 1973, he already had the travel bug. And ever since, travel and discovery have been at the heart of his life and career.
I’ve started 2026 with a A$861.15 (that’s US$576) refund from Booking.com, but wow it took a long time to get it!
I did a number of flights in late 2025 on my visits to Nepal, Seychelles, Mauritius, Reunion, Jordan and finally Algeria. Some of the flights were made with frequent flyer points (Air India using my Singapore Airlines miles), some were booked through Trailfinders in London, a number of them were booked directly with the airline and two flights – Amman in Jordan to Algiers in Algeria and then from Algiers to London’s Stansted Airport – were made via Booking.com.
▲ Air Algerie 737 ready to depart Djanet
I also made several domestic flights within Algeria with Air Algiers and my flying experiences with the airline were all fine, perhaps not the newest aircraft in the skies, but they left and arrived pretty much on time – until the last flight. Algiers to London Stansted is only just over three hours and normally I’d have been quite happy flying economy, but I was a little concerned about the connection from my overnight red-eye flight into Algiers from Djanet in the Algerian Sahara and also reckoned I’d have less trouble flying with only a carry on if I opted for Business Class. But then Air Algerie decided to operate the flight with a 737-Max chartered from British Ascend Airways, a ‘wet lease’ which means the aircraft and crew were all from Ascend. It was a newer aircraft than any of the Air Algerie equipment I’d flown on, but the Ascend 737 was all Economy, no Business Class.
▲ we’re going to give you a refund
Air Algerie were very sorry they had to ‘informe de votre déclassement de la cabine Affaire vers la cabine écononmique,’ but no problem since I was due for ‘Remboursement De La Différence.’ The flight ran an hour late as well.
So I contacted Air Algerie with my DEMANDE DE REMBOURSEMENT, the difference between the US$740 I’d paid for Business Class and the US$165 Economy would have cost. Air Algerie were very polite: ‘We thank you for your writing and we inform you that your file will be treated with the greatest attention in accordance with the procedures and regulations in force.’ And ‘While waiting to communicate to you the follow up given to your complaint, please, accept, madam/mister WHEELER, our best regards.’
Wonderful, except after six messages like that Air Algerie decided they were not so interested in my remboursement after all, because I had bought my ticket from somebody else – ie Booking.com – not Air Algerie. So go chase Booking.com for your refund.
Which I did and although at first they tried to send me back to Air Algerie they finally started to tell me – thank you Mayuri M, Pradeep, Asjfak Shaikh, Magahum Marjan, Aditya P and probably several other unfailingly polite chat line people at Gotogate, the Booking.com flight booking division:
• We completely understand how frustrating it can be when processes take longer than expected, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this delay may have caused. Please be assured that we are doing everything possible to expedite your request.
• As this matter requires a thorough investigation and documentation by the relevant team, we must wait for their findings before proceeding further. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding while this is being resolved, and we will keep you updated as soon as we receive any progress.
Altogether, over two months, I had at least 8 discussions with Booking.com/Gotogate as well as at least 6 with Air Algerie. But regrettably I finally found myself caught between two classic pieces of buck passing:
• Air Algerie: “Our service only handles refund requests for tickets purchased on our website www.airalgerie.dz. However, the tickets you have sent us were not issued via our platform. Therefore, we invite you to address your claim directly to the agency that issued your tickets.”
• Booking.com/Gotogate: “We are unable to take any action on the booking as the control over the booking is with the airline. Therefore, we kindly ask that you contact the airline directly for assistance.”
Booking.com/Gotogate added that as far as they were concerned the ‘case has now been closed and that you cannot reply.’
Once upon a time I used to run Lonely Planet and I foolishly thought that travel history might have given me some sort of leverage, I was certainly mistaken with that inflated idea!
Never mind I turned to my travel friend and all around UK-travel-bad-guy chaser Simon Calder and his arm bending proved much more effective than mine. With a few days Booking.com announced they were making a credit of A$861.15 to my account. No explanation why, but after two months of chasing them I was certainly happy to see it.
Lessons learnt? Try not to use Booking.com in future I guess.
▲ George Best Belfast City Airport
Amusingly this was the second time I’d lost money with Booking.com in 2025, the first time I didn’t try to chase them as I figured it was my own stupid fault for not reading the small print. I’d rented a car from Budget Car Rental in Belfast, Northern Ireland to pick up from George Best Airport. Budget certainly had my car ready, but they certainly weren’t going to hand me the keys because I was far too old – ie over 76 years old – to drive one of their cars. Yes, I’d not read the small print about age exclusions. And I’d paid extra for full coverage insurance! My fault. Next counter Hertz would have rented me one, but they didn’t have any free cars. But Enterprise did rent me a very nice ‘wee’ red Renault Clio. I could upgrade to something slightly less wee, but the Clio was just fine.
I didn’t have the best luck with car rentals during 2025. A VW Polo from Zipcar in London simply died on me, a warning came up announcing EPC which – Engineer Google told me – meant the Electronic Power Control has packed in and you ain’t going anywhere. We had to abandon the car and Uber home.
▲ Sixt Rent-a-Hyundai in the Seychelles, note the clean windscreen.
Then in the Seychelles I rented a Hyundai from Sixt, was given some shockingly bad directions on how to get to my hotel – my phone didn’t want to talk to handle local directions – and then when the windscreen became so smeared you couldn’t see out the windscreen washers didn’t work. The water tank wasn’t connected to the water nozzles. I fixed that failing for Sixt and a later Sixt Seat in Reunion worked just fine. Perhaps too fine, I was caught by a French speed camera doing 56kph in a 50kph zone, which cost me €90 plus another €25 for Sixt to notify me I’d been naughty . Still it improved my French deciphering the citation and registering my credit card to pay the fine
13-16 March - Earthquake Zone The 7.8 on the Richter Scale earthquake which hit north-eastern Pakistan on 8 October last year killed 73,000 people, damaged or destroyed 80% of the buildings in large parts of the zone and left three million people homeless. The Lo...
Phuket – Hotel Wildlife, Hotel Guests & Scuba Diving I joked in Once While Travelling about the ‘hotel wildlife’ I’ve encountered over the years – the rats, mice and cockroaches which shoestring travel in the developing world sometimes bring you face to face with...
I’ve watched 747s being put together in Seattle, Mazdas roll down the assembly line in Hiroshima and seen far too much beer in production, so when I was in the English midlands I decided to drop in on the Mini production line just outside Oxford. Maureen and I have on...
PSB, the publisher of Lonely Planet guides in French, awarded their ‘2006 Bourse Lonely Planet’ in Paris in late February and I was their to help judge the winner. Bourse translates more-or-less as ‘grant’ in the British university scholarship sense. The ‘Bourse L...
Australia’s Great Ocean Walk only opened for business in late December 2005. So far only a handful of walkers have set out along this spectacular coastal walk. On the last two days of January 2006 I was one of them. The walk stretches for 96km from Apollo Bay to The T...
France comes to Victoria I spent Australia Day – 26 January – at the small Victorian gold rush town of St Arnaud. So how did this town, 250km (150 miles) from Melbourne, end up with a French name? Well it was originally named New Bendigo, after the larger gold rush t...
Signs in 'Engrish' are found in great numbers in both Japan and China. They are always interesting and I found quite a few when I travelled through China in May 2005. This was one of my favourites, instructions for leaving your bag with the security staff at a shopp...
Mobile (cell) phone coverage in Asia and Africa, sim cards and drug dealers, killer insect repellent and airport baggage handling collapse - guess the airport? . Mobile Phones I use an extremely battered old Motorola mobile (cell) phone. It doesn’t take photograp...
Travelling to the Outer Reaches of the Solar System Over two weekends in December Christopher Lansell and Ed Redman, two young Melbourne residents, replicated the Sun and the nine planets of the Solar System along the city’s bayside. At a scale of one billion to one....
Restaurants Some interesting restaurants from the past 12 months. M on the Bund – Shanghai, China In April 2005 I set out to travel by land from Singapore to Shanghai and before I started I decided I was going to mark the end of the trip by dining at M on the...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013