I posted the last blog on Thursday afternoon, when my midday flight to Montreal via New York had been cancelled and I'd been re-booked on one at 7:55 Friday morning.

By 20:30 Thursday I knew that that wasn't going to go either: I stayed as planned in London and went into my office on Friday morning. American Airlines had rebooked me on a flight at 7:55 Saturday morning, so I booked another hotel in London for Friday night. After doing some work in the office, I went home. The news continued bad through Friday, and by mid-afternnoon I decided to cancel the trip.

I then found how difficult some hotel chains make it to cancel a reservation!

Some were easy.

Some, when phoned, gave me a recorded message with the usual 47 options: the Cancel option asked me to enter my 16 digit reservation number then the last 4 digits of my credit card! I wasn't certain which card I'd used for that particular booking, so I just emailed them instead.

Trying another hotel, I was told that the time for cancellation had passed so my credit card would be charged anyway. Moreover, since the person I was speaking to wasn't actually at the hotel and I'd booked on the web, would I please redial the international number I'd just called and ask for Front Desk. Now why would I bother to do that?

The American Airlines web-site offered a click-through link for people affected by the flight disruption. It said that if my flight was cancelled, I could request a refund. However, when I tried this I was told that my ticket was not refundable but I might be able to put the value towards another ticket.

Well, since I still need to go to both Montreal and Washington - my original trip - I may well try that.

Meanwhile a colleague, booked to fly on Virgin, had a much more friendly response and was offered an unconditional refund.