The Icelandic volcano ash phenomenon has had an impact beyond anything we have seen before: more flights cancelled and a bigger impact on civil aviation than WW2 and 9/11 combined. My problem: getting from NY to London last Friday evening. Booked on Delta (flight cancelled of course), highest level premium status with OneWorld, Star Alliance and Virgin ("sorry, no seats available at all for anyone"). What do most people do? Follow the crowd and listen to what the airlines tell them, and wait wait wait - or give up. What did I do? Get Cranky Concierge! After a few e-mails and SMS, CC got me the last seat on Icelandair to Reykjavik, connecting to the UK as soon as the flights opened up again. Did you say Reykjavik, Iceland, where the volcano is?? Exactly: totally counter-intuitive and based on fact. (1) The volcano had no impact on Reykjavik (100 miles apart and the wind blowing in the other direction), (2) Only a few hundred displaced travellers in Iceland compared to thousands in major hubs in Europe and the USA (according to the UK government, over 150,000 displaced UK citizens at the moment), (3) An airline (Icelandair) at its hub ready to put on flights to any open airport at a moments notice. Result: Icelandair found a clear gap in the ash and flew me into Edinburgh, Scotland, on Tuesday, and a short train journey later I am back in London. Basically, I am back home and at work days (if not a week) earlier than anyone else still stuck in North America and Europe fighting for scarce airline seats. Plus I got to discover Iceland, which is truly a most extraordinarily beautiful country that I will certainly visit again soon. Good job, Cranky Concierge, you have delivered in possibly the most impossible airline situation we will all face in our lifetime - great job.

My fiancée and I recently completed our first trip with Cranky Concierge and have decided that we will be return customers every time we fly. During our trip we had Andrew assist us on our way down to Alabama and on the return we worked with Mr. Cranky himself. Andrew and Brett both did everything they could to make our trip go smoothly and we really enjoyed the tips for things to do at the airport during our layovers. It was really nice knowing about gate changes and other flight information valuable minutes before the rest of the passengers so that we could get moving before the flood of people.

Cranky has always been our go-to guy for advice on how to travel. Never has that been more true than when my stepfather died unexpectedly while I was out of town in Eureka, California. Obviously I was online, searching through various sites looking for a reasonable way to get out of Eureka to the east coast, and then back to Los Angeles. This was complicated by the fact that I didn't know how long I'd have to be out there. Frustrated with the lack of clarity I felt about the situation, I called Cranky. He immediately suggested that instead of booking both flights I just concentrate on getting to Washington D.C. one-way. He also pointed out that if I could fly to Baltimore, I could save $300 and arrive at the same time.

This turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. I didn't have to worry about when I was coming back, or change fees, or finding one airline that both flew out of Eureka and could get me back from D.C. to Los Angeles. When the time came to fly back I was able to book another one-way flight, and the total I spent on both flights was actually lower than the cost of the flights I'd been looking at before talking to Cranky. In addition I was able to book the return flight out of Reagan National airport, which was more convenient. That wasn't even an option in the plans I had been looking at before.

In short, Cranky knew exactly the right thing to do, and helped me make a difficult situation much easier, and saved me about a hundred dollars besides. Cranky, I owe you dinner.

My husband, baby and I needed to fly across country for a family emergency. We talked to Cranky at 2:00 pm, and were on a plane leaving Burbank by 4:15 pm. Not only was Cranky able to quickly book flights for all of us, but they found us an awesome fare, great flight times, and we were even able to sit together in the bulkhead row. I was so busy trying to pack and prepare our baby for the trip that I'm glad I had Cranky to help. I never would've been able to book flights as quickly or as cheaply as Cranky did. They're truly miracle-workers!

Cranky is a lifesaver. On a recent trip to Vail to celebrate the Fourth, United let us down in a big way. We got to the airport to find a wall of delayed flights and a huge queue for ultimately unhelpful, uninformed customer service representatives. Faced with the prospect of missing our connection to Denver and throwing our entire weekend into disarray, we called Cranky.

Unlike United reps, he gave us loads of useful information: the full download on what was causing the delays, which flights gave us the best chance for clearing the standby list, and what our back-up options were in case all else failed. While we cleared the standby list for one flight, another United issue (a cracked windshield!) delayed us again and caused us to miss the final flight to Denver. Not to be defeated, Cranky (while eating dinner with his wife!) found us an alternative flight into Colorado Springs (which, again, United customer service failed to think about) and even helped us book a new rental car reservation.

All we can say is that it was great knowing you had someone on your side when things went to pot. Thanks to Cranky the weekend was saved and much stress averted. We'll be coming back!

While we consider ourselves travel geeks with an arsenal of apps on our iPhones, Cranky Concierge really helped us during a recent trip to Denver, better than any of our apps. We found the updates on the equipment to be unexpectedly helpful as you kept us updated on where our aircraft was throughout the day and how long it was becoming delayed. CC gave us earlier and more accurate information than any of our apps and especially the airline. While other passengers were fuming at the gate, we were enjoying a relaxed dinner. Thank you, Cranky!