It's amazing to me how wildly different my experience has been, as a user of various travel services, with big-name companies. American Express has been outstanding in helping me out overseas... but Alaska Airlines was about as helpful as a rusty nail when I tried to use a flight credit. Who has served you well -- and poorly? We should let our money do the talking...

I have foud AmEx to be top notch every time I had any sort of issue. Any questioned charge was always removed from my card immediately and all were found in my favor. Also, when my card # was being used by someone else they removed every charge I named without question and FedExed me a new card the next day. (Caveat: I've had an AmEx card for over 25 years and use it for everything I can including business charges - to get points - so I'm a VERY good customer.)

Have had a problem with only one Visa charge (Chase) nd they eventually fixed it - but it took persistance on my part.

I don;t expect anything from airlines - so I'm never disappointed.

Almost always use Hertz car rental and have found no problems. Have used Avis in europe a couple of times and had one minor and one major problem. Avis europe was no help with either. But when I complained after returning to the US was given reasonable refunds/freebies.

Used an Enterprise rental once (left my car at the dealer for servicing and they were out of loaners - so they organized this). The car was in poor shape, almost out of gas (which I pointed out to them at the time) and they tried to charge me for a full tank when I returned it. I kept the initialed receipt showing I got it almost empty - but they insisted on charging for the gas. But - AmEx denied their charge. I would never use them again.

Oh, another outstanding experience I had: customer service at Kayak.com -- not to mention that I think it's a great site for finding flights.

I definitely always win with Amex. Enough so that it is the only card I use now when traveling, or for booking travel.

We had a customer service loss in Maui with Alamo car rental. We had reserved a mini-van many months in advance, but of course the evening that we arrived there were no minivans. The agent's answer to that was to give us two sedans to haul around 6 folks. Two gas tanks to fill, double the trouble finding parking, following each other on the road to Hana, etc. Oh well, we were in paradise. When we went out back to pick up our two cars there was an employee cleaning out a minivan. Hmmmmm. So Better Half walked over and asked him if that minivan had been spoken for yet and the young man said yes . . . that he had just rented it on the spot for his own family to use that weekend. Sheesh. We wrote emails and spoke to several customer service reps on the phone when we got back home and the best they could do was offer us a percent off coupon for the next time we used Alamo. Better Half told them where to put it! We've never used them again.

In any company it depends who answers the phone. Call several times, get different people, different answers.

We have had really good luck with Hertz for car rentals. With the AAA discount they're about the same price and the service is better.

It's not a travel issue, but I've been trying to close an account with CapitolOne because of fraudulent charges since August. We still have not gotten a refund, and they keep honoring charges put on the card. I cringe everytime a statement comes in, it means another 45 minute phone call.