Expedia sucks, but you already knew that…
We are headed to New Hampshire later in the month to do some re-con work for our possible move. I decided to use Expedia to book our flight and rental car.
Big Mistake.
Oh yeah, it seemed like it’d be easy. No prob. Input dates we want to leave and return. Select flights. Select car. Done.
A few minutes later we get the confirmation email. WTF? It shows us leaving on Thursday and not Wednesday like we wanted. Ok, it was probably my fault so I called Expedia to fix it. After explaining what occured they said it’d be $100 per person to change the outbound flight date. You mean it costs $300 to change a number in a database? ‘Yes, sir. It does. What we can do is cancel the whole trip for $35 per person and then remake the reservations for the correct date’. ‘Um, ow. I don’t think so.’
I called up Continental who we’ll be flying with and explained the situation. The lady said I really need to talk to Expedia about it. She helpfully checked to make sure there was room on the earlier flight and said there was and ‘look at this. They are $40/person cheaper now.’ Ok, I figured I’d call Expedia, cancel it for $35/person and then book straight through Continental and wind up saving $15 overall.
I called back Expedia and said I’d just prefer to cancel the reservations I made just 30 minutes earlier. She said no prob and that I’d see the credit to my account in 2-3 billing cycles.
‘Hold the phone! You mean I won’t get my money back for 2-3 months?’ ‘Yes, sir.’
Uh, no. That’s not good for me as I stupidly used my debit card for the tickets and that is cash straight out of my account. I argued with these damn Indians(don’t even get me started on this subject) that I could hardly understand for about 45 minutes and got nowhere. I told them not to touch my reservation and called back Continental.
I got a very helpful lady and explained everything that happened up until then. She said normally there’s a $100/person change fee but since I’d made the reservation only an hour before and I’d gone through hell with Expedia she’d make the change at no charge. Not only did she make the change without charging me she even refunded the difference in price of $120.
I love Continental.
I hate Expedia.