Most people who have glitches in their travels that are no fault of their own don’t howl enough about it. They simply accept it as Murphy’s Law, or at most, they write a complaint letter to the airline, hotel or cruise line. Then, after they get the canned apology response, that’s the end of it.

We did the useless complaint letter routine last year when we (age 71 and 82) ran into snarly clerks at the Marriott in the Tampa FL airport. Our flight arrived early and we had four hours to wait until a family member would pick us up. We asked if we could put our arthritic rumps on the upholstered sofas in the hotel lobby. They snapped that only guests could sit there. We certainly didn’t want to pay the $3oo inflated nightly charge to spend a couple of hours in the lobby or in a room. So, we sat on a couple of uncomfortable iron benches just about 20 steps from the hotel lobby’s soft and empty seats.

We wrote the info in a complaint letter to Marriott, and the equally snarly reply from some low-level clerk was that it was hotel policy, and implied we could take our arthritic bones elsewhere. We should have followed up with a big fuss, because everyone knows the squeaky wheel gets the most oil.

Our mistake, other than writing the general letter to a nowhere Marriott department in the first place, was that we didn’t make enough noise. We should have researched the Marriott system and found the highest executive we could reach.

Then we should have sent him/her a personal snail mail or email letter, telling of the original problem, the inappropriate response and the employee names involved. We should also have let others know about it, including our travel agency, the airline, the airport authority and the local Tampa media. Make that squeaky wheel go as loud as possible.

Here’s a more recent example of how complaining to the right person in the right way gets instant results. Our flight from Fort Lauderdale sat on the runway for five hours, making us miss our connecting flight. The counter clerk in the Las Vegas airport said the next flight was full, and she’d put us on the wait list. She also used irritating terms of dearie and darling to two very senior citizens, but refused to help us.

As I was uselessly fussing at the snippy counter clerk, my spouse called the airline’s executive phone number and quietly told of our problem with the delay and missed connecting flight. Quick results: seats on the next flight, as well as later receiving a $300 credit plus two free future round-trip flights.

When you don’t get what you pay for, whether in the air, on the ground or at sea, take all the necessary steps to assert your rights. And don’t give up until you get complete satisfaction!