My D booked and paid for flights with Expedia. This morning, she received an email from the airline, notifying her that her ticket for her flight tonight was cancelled.
Turns out Expedia somehow booked the flight incorrectly, even though they took the money. When she called them, they told her she was cancelled because she didn’t check in. Her check in time was 8pm this evening! After hours on the phone with many “Please hold for a few minutes while I look into this”, and telling her she would have to just book another flight (at the top dollar price, for today, which she can’t afford), they finally admitted they screwed up. They are refunding her money.
After admitting they were at fault, why wouldn’t Expedia just buy her the flights as a goodwill gesture? She actually booked with Expedia because they are allegedly reputable.
I also heard about a group who paid for accommodation on Expedia. They showed up to find out the accommodation doesn’t exist. They had nowhere to go. Not sure what the status currently is, but they had to argue with Expedia.
Is this an Expedia problem, or are more of these incidents occurring on other sites? I know there are plenty of stories about all kinds of travel snafus, but these both seem totally ridiculous.
I don’t have an answer to your question. Just a comment that, while I often use expedia to search for flights, I always book directly on the airline website to avoid just this sort of situation. (I do the same with hotels.com, use it for searches but not for booking.)
This is my fear for my summer trip. But we booked direct and just used as a search engine. But I’ve showed up at Marriotts and Hyatt’s to find out they oversold - forgetting my status or if I no showed I still owe payment for a night.
Most large company customer service, including where I work, stink. It’s not that they don’t want to help. They are not empowered to help. They have scripts that handle customer caused issues but not their caused. My company is at fault for nothing if you call in. Even internally we a y like that when our customers have an issue or concern. It’s nauseating.
The only way to get a response I’ve read is to tweet (I’m not a tweeter) so the whole world can see or what I do - email the CEO. No the CEO won’t see but their executive assistance team will and quickly reach out. This has worked for me in the past in getting things fixed although won’t be real time like you need. But you can still blow off steam and you will get a call from someone more empowered.
I agree with the suggestion to book directly with the airline whenever possible.
On a side note, if her original flight was tonight then check in would have started last night. But you don’t have to check in until the flight closing time. So that shouldn’t be a reason for them to cancel her reservation.
I book direct also but do airline searches on a combination of Kayak and Google and hotels on TripAdvisor. Kayak has the best filters for searching airlines, though it doesn’t include a couple of the “discount” carriers (though its been years since those turned out to be a deal for us once you added up all the separate add-on fees to get what we would expect).
We had issues with Expedia years ago when we booked international flights through them. It took hours and hours to get it sorted out and I it took forever for them to final refund our money. The customer service was abysmal. We’ve never used them again and always just book direct.
I stopped using Expedia. Any changes to flights are always a PITA. I usually use a site like Kayak or Google flights to check pricing and options, then just buy direct from the airlines.
I had a similar issue with Travelocity about 10 years ago. They changed my flight departure from 1 p.m. to 7 a.m. That was bad enough…but their new booking had me missing my connection by an hour. I called the airline and they claimed they could do nothing because I booked through Travelocity. I had my original itinerary on my computer…and there were still seats on both flights. The airline person looked and agreed that she could just switch me back.
There was no way to even get in touch with Travelocity. Oh…and I had already checked in for the original itinerary when this change happened!
I’ve been advised to go to social media with issues like these. You rarely get anywhere with “customer service” calls. They seem to follow scripts only. It is such a rare joy when customer service actually assists!
I’m very sorry you’re experiencing this. That sounds pretty awful. I always look at several different sites but try to book directly with the airline or hotel, with no company in the middle.
I admit we did use hotels.com for a hotel in osaka that was a lot cheaper on that site than hotel site and had no problems.
Normally we arrive to many destinations early in the morning so have not had overbooking cancelation issues—so far. When H experienced this for his work travel, I scrambled and found him a cheaper and better hotel while the agency who had booked his hotel and the original hotel did nothing!
Sadly 3rd party booking for travel (especially plane tickets) is a bad idea. The airlines won’t talk to you if there’s an issue, and the 3rd party couldn’t care less.
Use https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search to compare flight prices and then book direct. The Matrix software doesn’t include Southwest so always compare them separately.
I had a bad experience with Expedia 20 years ago. I booked a hotel stay, and when we arrived at the hotel to check in, they said they had no rooms. It was Christmas time, so calling around, all the hotels were booked. I showed them my printout of the booked reservation, and it took a good hour or so of arguing before they gave me the room. I booked direct from hotel websites from then on.
Like others, after a bad experience with a flight through a 3rd party site many years ago (Travelocity), I vowed to always book my flights direct. While I will check Expedia and the like for hotels first (mainly to get an overview of what’s available), I try to also book those direct unless it’s last minute and the Expedia rate is significantly better. I do sometimes book rental cars through Expedia and have never had an issue with those.
To your original question - I have noticed with recent hotel searches on Expedia, that they seem to have less hotels available on their list. When I search a specific hotel direct or search another 3rd party site, they have availability where Expedia is showing none. Makes me wonder if some hotel/hotel brands are pulling away from Expedia?
I’ve never had luck getting customer service attention by tweeting (never did it for Expedia). Seems like that’s reserved for celebrities or others with many followers. Companies don’t care about my 20 followers
One thing to be careful if us to be SURE you are booking directly with the hotel if that’s what you’re intending to do. Many websites and searches make it look like you’re booking with the hotel but they are a 3rx party site & middle-person.
I also like searching on itasoftware Matrix (linked above) and then go directly to airline website to book. The matrix fares are often cheaper than the ones I buy because I prefer seats I can get upgraded — normally I get upgraded to economy plus on United. I like looking at time bars and considering where any layovers are and how long they are. The website also makes it easy to have multiple destinations or stops or even open jaw trips.
Unfortunately this happens when you book direct too - even with status and their ‘guarantees’ of not doing this too high members. They oversell - thinking there will be no shows even though the no shows have a night penalty for not showing so their room is paid for. They’ll say you didn’t call to let us know you were coming in late.
But odds are better they’ll try to help - but they don’t always.
