The difficulty of getting refunds on flights, hotels amid Italy's coronavirus lockdown

This is a tale of three websites, one that lightened the stress of Italy's coronavirus lockdown and two that screwed up.

As the Italian government focuses on the health of its citizens while it deals with the severe coronavirus outbreak, tourists who can no longer enter the confined country need to cancel their trips. While not a contagious and potentially-deadly disease, the process can cause headaches of its own.

My husband and I were set for a multi-city trip to Italy this month, flying Delta and staying at accommodations booked on Airbnb and Hotels.com. In late February, as the news of coronavirus' spread trickled in, we held steady, as we weren't planning to travel to the affected region in the north. For a fleeting moment, I imagined going to Italy and blissfully not dealing with crowds. Fast forward to this week and that daydream turned rotten. On Monday, all of Italy was put under lockdown by the government through April 3. Travel both inside and outside the country would be severely restricted as the case count jumped Read more...