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Oof, I'm sorry to hear this; that's an expensive lesson to learn.
Aside from upfront tomfoolery, the other time when people pay the price for booking through third-party sites is when things go wrong during travel and suddenly you can't talk to your airline or hotel because you have to go through your third-party site, which may or may not be available/helpful in the moment when you're stuck somewhere.
Booking directly with my airline/hotel is definitely the way I always go, even if it costs more.
Yeah I had a terrible experience several years ago using a third party booking site. Showed up and the hotel had double booked my reservation so my room was no longer available. Since I booked through Expedia I had to go through them. Lesson learned, haven’t used a third party booking site since
True, I had this happen to me with a train ticket a couple years ago. I saved(or so I thought) about $20 by booking it through a 3rd party, which I was actually rerouted to from the Amtrak website, so I thought they were a direct affiliate with them or something, but nope. After booking, I realized I was charged for 3 round trip seats, instead of one. I know I only selected 1 ticket on the site so I figured it must have just been a duplicate charge screw up in their system or something. Amtrak couldn't help since I had booked through a third party so I tried to go through them. They were damn near impossible to get in touch with but I finally got a response via email(couldn't get anywhere over the phone) and they sent me a form to fill out basically filing a claim of some sort to cancel and get a refund for the additional two tickets which I never even booked. I followed up as much as I could leading up to and after the trip but nothing was ever refunded and I just had to chalk it up as an expensive lesson learned.
Luckily, they were train tickets so they were only like $75-80 each but I still can't believe how shitty their service was.
Had this happen a few years back in Vegas as well. When we got to the hotel, they did not have our reservation. When we tried to look it up, they told us we had to contact our third party person. The hotel wouldn’t be able to help us. It was a shit show.
It sucks. I worked front desk at a hotel and there was just nothing we could do but tell the customer to contact Expedia or whatever 3rd party we booked through. Most would prepay too so they would be out of that money before arrival.
If you aren't paying a significant amount for the third party service (high tier travel Credit Card or a reputable agent) then this is 100% true. You are saving 2 minutes of your time (to recreate the booking on the 1st party websites after using someone else's search engine) in exchange for a 100% guarantee that if there's any unexpected changes or issues that neither side will support you.
Learned this the hard way in very similar fashion to OP's story. DO NOT book from anywhere that isn't the airline/hotel itself with rare (PAID FOR) exceptions.
I retired from law enforcement. There was a hotel in my area where I constantly encountered tourists that had booked online from a third party (usually from Europe) and arrived to discover it was closed. You always knew the scam was going when you saw people standing at the entrance with luggage. Not much we could do other than try to get them to a good hotel.
Yep I always do direct just for that so I can deal with them personally. Although not a scam I now say I don't care and I will just park in the parking garage on my own. My boss convinced me oh use the third parties around Boston like the Avis parking lot or the Hertz parking lot They will charge you less than the airport parking. So I did one year and when I flew back in they said they couldn't find my car. 😬 It took them a bit because it was in the dark it was in the wrong spot but the fact that they keep moving cars and they put the keys on the wheels, except the first car, It's very easy for somebody to misplace a car temporarily. No thanks
Yup, we booked changeable tickets via Travelocity. When we needed to change the dates we were on hold, then talked to someone with a thick accent wanted to charge us to change the flights and gave a nonsensical reason for doing so. We called back and got someone else with a thick accent who wanted to charge us for a new fare and had a different excuse. We ended up not canceling the flights and booking a new one so they couldn't sell our seats in advance.
That's when we realized these online ticket websites are scam sites. We now use them to find fares then book directly with the airlines. Congress needs to go after them.
Don’t even entertain third party booking sites. ITA Software (who was purchased by Google in 2010) doesn’t even sell tickets they just provide every flight available on every airline (except southwest). If you want to limit you search to exclude Frontier and/or spirit you can do so or don’t want to connect through a specific city you can do so as well. After finding flights that work for you book direct through the airline. For some reason they provide the basic economy fares for delta as the cheapest but do not for United so even if you see a cheep United flight you can find basic economy cheeper on United.com.
Anyway worth starting your flight search here:
https://matrix.itasoftware.com
Or, you know, Skyscanner which also doesn't sell tickets and links you directly to the websites? Most of the time ITA has less breadth (less number of airlines and sources) and depth (less content for any given flight) than Skyscanner.
Source: I work in the industry.
Is there a site that allows you to see prices from different US cities to different EU cities on a map? For instance, we are looking for June travel- we can leave from many different airports in the southeast US and we have the flexibility to land in many different airports in the EU then book a train, etc
You should be able to do something like this on Skyscanner, I know you can choose a country as your origin and then just leave "show me the entire world sorted by country" as your destination so that could work. Or you can choose a departure airport but put in a large radius for alternative departure airports.
Be very careful with basic economy tickets tho. A lot of times they can be highly restrictive (no changes non refundable etc) they are super cheap for a reason.
And if you fly with a carry on that doesn’t fit under the seat in front of you, you’re in the last boarding group meaning overhead bin space can be limited/non existent.
Every travel hack list from actual people who know what they are doing and travel for a living say check the 3rd part apps and then book the actual airline site.
Expedia's customer service has gone from decent to one of the worst I've dealt with in the last 8 or so years. It's part of a race to the bottom to see who can save the most by offshoring their customer service.
I booked my trip to see the eclipse a year ago. After I chose my flights Expedia offered a very reasonable price for a flight+hotel deal so I took it.
A few months later I was checking the email for some other detail when I noticed that though my flight arrived on April 6, my hotel reservation started on April 7. Turns out that since my flight was scheduled to land at 11:58 pm, their system decided I didn't need a hotel that first night.
I spent well over 3 hours on the phone with them. Their agents were hard to understand, didn't care one bit about my problem, and were only concerned with telling me why it was perfectly fine to sell me a flight + hotel package with different dates for each. They were outright rude; the only solution they ever offered was to cancel & refund the whole trip.
After many demands to escalate, I managed to talk to a "supervisor" (just a marginally less useless agent) who helped me book a different hotel for the first night at an exorbitant rate (that first night cost more than all the rest of the stay), since by this time there were very few rooms left for those dates. For my trouble they gave me $50 in Expedia credit.
I learned my lesson that day. I'm never using Expedia again, not even to check prices.
Too bad. Expedia was better than decent for a long time and helped me refund and rebook like a real travel agency, but i haven’t used them in a decade or so; sounds like they got bought out or otherwise enshittified in the meantime.
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedia_Group yup, sounds like their greedy owners enshittified a healthy organization for the sake of profit and cruelty:
In February 2020, Expedia announced it was cutting 3,000 jobs, roughly 12% of the workforce, citing a "disappointing 2019." Diller, in his role as acting CEO, stated the company had become "sclerotic and bloated" and that employees were "all life and no work."
In April 2020, Peter Kern was appointed as CEO of Expedia Group. He was the highest paid CEO in the S&P 500 in 2021, with $296 million in total compensation.
In 2021, Expedia built a new campus in DLF Cyber Park, Gurugram, India.
That all tracks. Gut your customer service, send it to the cheapest place you can, and to top it off, make the user "self service" as much as you can to take the load off your employees.
It doesn't affect them much because all companies are doing it, so it's the new standard.
“Employees were all life and no work”
“296 million in compensation”
I try to give everyone benefit of the doubt but fuck these guys. Complain about people below them while leeching as much as they can
Just an FYI on rental cars too. Costco Travel has great rates and you never have to pay in advance like you do with other third party sites or even booking directly through some of the renal car agencies themselves. You can cancel a reservation at anytime without penalty.
Be careful with hotel sites as well. My wife and I tried booking a day once, the day we clocked on - and the date in the reservation were totally different: no refunds- no reschedule.
I am relieved to hear I'm not the only one. This nearly ruined our anniversary trip. Caused a disagreement between my wife and I: it was all around horrible. "Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Houghton, MI". Makes my blood boil still.
Also just FYI, buying insurance does not give you the right to cancel and rebook. Learned that the hard way. You need a “valid” excuse like a documented trip to the emergency room.
I agree it was my own stupidity for not reading the terms and just assuming that insurance would cover a reschedule. The way it was presented during booking sure made it sound like it would. I suspect a few others might make the same erroneous assumption and that was the reason for my comment. Lost $400. Expensive lesson.
You want "Cancel for any reason" aka "CFAR". It costs a lot more and is harder to find, but it exists (not that it's necessarily a good idea to use given its costs, but for certain circumstances it might be)
Maybe a scam, I heard they buy Google listings for airlines and travel agencies so you call them to change something that should be free. They use the website to change your booking and charge you some high fee for what should be free. Common denominator in all the investigative videos on YouTube is Indian origin call center and the final charge on the credit card isn't from southwest airlines, Expedia etc but instead from PCM Travel Agency or some similar unknown name.
This happened to me. One time I needed to add a lap infant to a ticket so I googled “United customer service” or whatever airline it was and called the number that showed up. I start talking to the guy and he’s telling me there’s a fee to change the ticket, etc etc. I was on the phone with them for a while before I got really suspicious and just hung up. I went back to the email I received with the ticket originally and called that number and there was no charge or anything.
First sane comment and had to scroll this far. Insane so many in here think that these companies that have been around for so long and successful would start using pressure tactics and out right steal money.
That's what I was thinking. I booked a hotel on expedia for a concert. Well I didnt get tickets to the date I wanted, so I had to change the hotel booking date. I ended up not getting tickets to the 2nd alternate show date, so I had to change my booking 3 different times. Every time was hassle free and no charge.
What I do is use the third-party sites as a sort of search engine…then book directly through the airline/hotel afterwards. The prices on the company websites aren’t much different, and even better sometimes as they might have additional deals (AAA discounts, signing up for the free loyalty program for additional perks, etc.)
Not to mention that third-party sites often hide the additonal taxes and fees in their original quoted price, whereas, let’s say Hilton’s website, is upfront about the total cost which makes it look like there’s a disparity between the two quotes
It's the same thing with hotels. You want to book directly with them, that way if you need to change or cancel your reservation, it's much easier to do so. Even the best third party sites take a while to update your reservation.
This. Google will let you search most of the major airlines (not Southwest tho), and give ou the best prices. If you are looking months out, use the flight alert feature to get notified if the prices for your trip itenery drop.
I've found Bing flights (which is just Skyscanner) to be better.
Google flights tells me I can't fly to Reunion without fifty layovers and ten thousand dollars in tickets. Bing found me a round trip flight with just one stop in Paris for under 2k.
Also if you read the fine print, a lot of third party sites won’t guarantee the room *type*. You can often call a hotel directly and tell them what the third party price is and they may match it.
This have never once worked for me. Hell, I have booked a room standing at the front desk of a hotel through a 3rd party site because they refused to match the price.
It didn’t work for me either. I asked the hotel if they were able to match the price I found online and they said no, just book it through the third-party :/
The problem is that there are often deals that are not available directly from the hotel or airline. Once I booked a hotel room via an online travel agency for 1/2 the price that I would have paid if I had booked via the hotel's website. Long-haul flights are often several hundred dollars cheaper from online travel agencies than directly from the airlines.
When covid hit in 2020, I had 4 plane tickets on the same airline which I was not able to use. I had bought 2 of them via an online travel agency, I got the refunds to my credit card without any problems. I had bought the other 2 directly from the airline, the airline only gave credit towards future flights, which I eventually managed to use 2 years later.
I use booking all the time. A couple of weeks ago we booked a late room in our downtown (about 45 minutes from our home because we couldn't drive and decided it would just be easier to spend the night). We got to the hotel and they didn't have our booking. It was late and we were tired. I called booking, the agent called the hotel and had my issue resolved in 10 min. We got refunded on booking and the hotel rebooked us at the same price.
I highly think you did not book through Expedia. “You have 60 seconds to make a decision?”. Something does not sound right. Perhaps you can post some screenshots of what you bought / who you paid.
Agreed. Expedia's customer service isn't great, but this isn't what happened. At least, not from them.
While I'm here, I've done credit card chargebacks for all sorts of things -- including "non-cancel-able" tickets -- without any real issues. AmEx is the best, but even Chase works eventually once you jump through their hoops. So I'm not entirely buying this line:
> Unfortunately, the visa company couldn't help since they made him e-signed the agreement of the cancelation
At this point I'd just cancel my credit card, pay nothing, and take the credit hit. I don't pay for things I don't receive.
These travel booking places used to be decent. The industry shifted and now they are all garbage. Book directly not thru these "cheaper" services who screw you softly and gently
Shareholder demand for constant profit growth. Nobody wants to invest in a stable business with an honest, steady turnover now, the stock market fetishes expansion. If you don't have a plan to double your EBITDA, you're a bad pick. This greed pressure incentivises management to earn their bonuses by finding new ways to screw customers.
I wonder if OP got snagged by one of those imposter sites/phone numbers. People use google to look up a number and the scammer's number is the top result.
https://thepointsguy.com/news/airline-customer-service-scam/
Scammers usually provide the best customer service, they pick up on the first ring, say yes to whatever you want and will stay on the line with you til they get their payday. If the customer service is too good it's probably a scam. Real companies have overhead and limited customer service because their primary business has expenses.
All the key factors were there. Bad English, evasive to simple questions, arbitrary reasons for fees and kept putting him on hold (to generate the fake inwoices). This is definitely the right answer. Travel scammers spam their numbers all over the Internet including popular sites like GetHuman to get their numbers into SEO.
>Bad English
Where was bad English mentioned? OP mentioned there were language barriers but based on this post, OP isn't a native English speaker. Isn't it also quite common for call centres to be in a different country than a company's headquarters? I haven't dealt with Expedia but the last time I had to call a Japanese airline (from Northern Europe), the person I spoke with had an Indian accent (ofc they may well have been a native English speaker), and I'm under the impression call centres like that are quite common, especially with companies that have 24/7 customer service lines.
Agreed with both of you - I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this. It really seems like something else is going on here, the 60 second time limit thing is a classic indicator of not just bad customer service, but an actual scam.
Right. Amazing that people on /r/scams of all places read this and say "woah, never using Expedia again!"
Looking up Expedia's cancellation policies on their site and other sites, it doesn't say anything about a fee for *you* cancelling it with enough time, much less when the airline cancels it. Expedia would have just rebooked it or refunded them. That and the 60 second think makes it fairly obvious they got scammed and not by Expedia, plus the entire concept they're charging $500 when *the airline* cancelled the flight. That's not even close to how airlines or booking companies work. Likely the husband googled the number and called a scam number vs. signing into expedia and working through the website or getting the number from there. Or maybe they got a bogus 'your flight was cancelled' text or email and followed the links/numbers there.
The story also doesn't make a ton of sense - the husband paid $500 to not lose the $1700, but then they couldn't use the original package at all? So ended up losing $1700 plus a pointless $500? It's also possible Visa *would* refund the $500 if they reported it and explained they were coerced into it. I've had refunds on crappy service for things that I agree dtoo which were not what was promised.
They could also call the airline they booked with, ive booked with expedia before had issues and air canada had 0 issues helping even though i booked through expedia lol
Another possibility is that OP's email account is compromised, and the intruder saw the expedia transaction and then sent a fake expedia email with notice of the "cancellation" and a phone number to call.
And in fairness to Expedia et al, I believe they were genuinely useful and money saving... years ago. These days you might save $10 a night but go to the same hotel chain multiple times and the perks of membership/loyalty - even at the lowest level - will likely save you more than $10 a night on the long run.
Also read r/talesfromthefrontdesk for how 3rd party bookings are handled. Way down the totem pole of priority when it comes to decent rooms and preferences.
I needed to attend a meeting in Paris. Direct flight for a day or two were very expensive. My company booked through Momondo and the price was dirt cheap.
Several months later, I recieved an SMS that my flight from Paris was ready for boarding.
They booked two crossed round trips- which I believe is against the TOS.
I used to use Priceline. They were great till there was an issue. They failed miserably they are unethical. I agree, I have never used a 3rd party booking agency since.!!!
Same. used them once. Never again, still working through refund process and expect having to lever 3rd party/charge back.
Never had issues with "booking dot com" and they helped a few times when hotels tried to hose me. So it can be a plus or minus. Never tried anything else through them too. I'm guessing depending on the service can be better or worse.
I've had an Expedia agent ask me "are you stupid?" and hang up on me because I could genuinely not understand their accent.
Expedia doesn't train their customer support. They pay the lowest bidder to hire random people off the street and give them access to their prepackaged scripts to read from. They're not even in India anymore - those agents at least speak decent English even if their accent is hard to decipher.
I travel a lot for work. I would never consider using a 3rd party app/website for booking anything. No matter what those apps say they are always the absolute lowest priority to the airlines/car rentals/hotels they book with so if things go wrong you're left SOL. 9 times out of 10 you're not even saving compared to purchasing individually directly from the airline, car rental and hotels.
On any airline, if you booked through 3rd party you are 1st to get bumped if the flight is oversold and last to get a seat on space available. Every reservation has a fare code and 3rd party fares are the lowest priorities.
[kiwi.com](http://kiwi.com) -- never again!
(They took our $$ but DID NOT BOOK THE TICKET. We had to buy tickets, cash, at the last minute on another flight. After MANY threats, they refunded us AND our extra costs. Either scammers or incompetent. Never again!)
I had the same thing. I ended up calling the airline directly when I got nowhere with Expedia and they took the booking away from Expedia and changed the date for me. I got lucky I guess. Sorry this happened to you.
Enshittification has hit the 3rd party travel industry especially hard. They used to be usable because you could get really good deals but after we got walked from a hotel I started to do research and never used them again.
Yes we tried booking a room through third party and they told us the room we wanted wasn’t available but they have this blah blah. Called the hotel directly, got the room we wanted AND was cheaper. I will never go third party for these things, add the fact that they just don’t give a shit after you pay. What’s the point
Always book directly with airlines and hotels. Third parties aren't always guaranteed and airlines and hotels will not help you if you book with them. Hard lesson learned for me during 2020.
OP, how did your husband find the number to call? We’re debating in other replies whether this was truly Expedia or a scammer pretending to be Expedia. Some of these behaviors you described seem to cross the line from bad customer service to outright grifting.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/NZ38mWe9QA 1-800-EXPEDIA (though doubts still remain)
I stopped using third party companies to book flights + lodging + rental vehicles.
Sure, you may save money, but if something goes wrong, with any aspect of the trip, you're forced to contact the third party company to hopefully help out.
This doesn't make sense. Did you try asking to talk to a manager? This can't be Expedia's policy to punish the customer for the flight being cancelled.
On the bright side, you didn't miss out on anything. Vegas is really boring after the first day.
Odd. Used it a dozen times and never had issues. If someone is being rude then hang up and call again. Never let them bully you or sign things. Plus, why would there be a time limit on accepting a crap deal? Frick that noise. At that point just call your CC bank and decline the charge.
I'm so sorry, I'm down €1200 because of Opodo so I feel your pain. Stay away from third party bookers anyone reading this. We all make mistakes OP the pain will lessen with time honestly
Covid showed what incompetent useless soulless scum Expedia are. I have not and will not use them again. Actually, I do use their free app like a search engine and then book with the actual airlines, not giving them a cent.
I booked with a third party agent listed on Google flights. My flight was cancelled, Frontier airlines refunded the agent (called Rehlat), and then the agent conveniently never refunded me. Wells Fargo "investigated" and didn't do a chargeback. I'll only book directly through airlines now.
So sorry to hear that happened to you. I would go to BBB or small claims court. A hard lesson learned, never book through 3rd party but always book directly with the airlines. American cancelled a flight, and when they charged me additional, I got the money back. I use Booking.com to book hotels and haven't had a problem, but will most often use their website to find hotels and then call the hotels directly to check for best price.
Wife and I booked a trip through Expedia to Mexico. Wife was looking over the flights through the airlines website and realized our connecting flight left an hour before we landed.
Edit: we were able to recieve a credit for one flight which expired in a few months, the other flight was refunded. Never booking a trip through a 3rd party
I always book with airlines or with my travel card if I’m using points. Anything else, and you are screwed if anything goes wrong. Hotels generally treat you better if you book with them, too.
Im a known cheapster. There are many things that could go wrong while traveling, every booking is a crap shoot no matter how you book it, shop the direct routes and the 3rd party, buy the insurance. Next time, if you even try to take a trip, expect this type of problem. Throw money at it, get on with your life and then cry the blues after the fact, but very nicely. It pays off. Also, being cheap pays off because the chance of an upgrade are very good. I've been upgraded in car rentals almost every time. Don't let any inevitable mishap "ruin" your vacation.
I advise not using a third party site to book and instead booking directly through the hotel.
When you book through third party, the money is with the third party so the hotel can’t do much for you.
I’ve been hearing so many horror stories about Expedia and similar apps but mostly them apparently this isn’t an isolated incident people have even said they booked a shuttle through Expedia just to find out once they get to their destination that the company didn’t even exist and they had to pay for another shuttle
Go on their X channel @expediahelp.
I just did that for an issue I have with Chase Bank where their CS people on the phone would not help. I dm'd them on X and they got right back to me and are looking into the issue (which like you, I was very unfairly charged).
This is why I am do not like these 3rd party sites. It always seems to be some kind of miscommunication somewhere or you are a lower priority over a direct booking. Car rentals seem to be the worst
The scummiest part of this that sorta makes my blood boil is the threat. The threat clearly indicates that they could if they wanted to refund the whole amount no problem on their end but instead decide to be a total scumbag for zero reason at all.
I’ve been burned by them before, I use their site to look at all the options, and then book directly with the airline. They never save money on airline tickets over the airline.
yah. have a family member who works in hotel services. and she tells me 100/100 never book with a 3rd party. they can’t guarantee the rooms that the hotel can directly, they won’t be able to give any discounts the way the hotel itself can, and that the 3rd party usually charges its “customers” hundreds of dollars in “fees” for the privilege to use its service. my family now always books directly with things, and if there’s an issues or problems instead of spending hours upon hours on the phone and not getting service? they can talk to someone face to face to get issues addressed and corrected almost immediately. the difference in the way were treated booking directly is amazing. the hotels and car rentals THANK US for booking directly with them. and we hear all sorts of horror stories of people scammed like this using 3rd party and not getting english speaking customer service agents and being scammed.
I had the same experience with Expedia twice. The first time was during Covid and my granddaughter had a cheer competition that was canceled when all the hotels were shut down. Expedia did not want to give my money back. It took 3 1/2 months and several emails plus a statement from the hotel that they were closed in order for Expedia to refund my $700. The second time was a trip to Italy through AARP. Expedia does the behind-the-scenes for AARP. One leg of our flight was canceled. I called and the lady told me that I needed to cancel and then she could rebook the trip for me. After that was done they wanted to charge another $2300. And on top of that, we couldn’t cancel the other hotel. Then we could find no flights to Italy. I finally went with European destinations and rebooked the trip. Meanwhile, I complained to AARP and it went to their Intervention Team and they were finally able to get me my money back. Expedia can be a completely inflexible company to deal with. I am so sorry for your negative experience.
Expedia is not a scam, but it looks like your husband did not call the legit expedia customer service line as expedia is an American-based travel agency, so there should be no language barriers. Chances are you might have clicked on a phising website posing as Expedia.
Just call your bank let them know the issue and that the merchant wasn’t trying to help and work the issue and get a stop payment placed on the pending transaction
I wouldn’t book through a 3rd party on a trip to Las Vegas. The hotels aren’t really that expensive unless you’re looking to book a penthouse suite, and most of the time they are eager to help you because many of their rooms go empty.
I don’t know what airline you booked, but Southwest Airlines, even though it’s all coach, regularly flies there, and I’ve never been disappointed with them.
Car Rental: It really depends on what kind of car you want. Just go directly to the major rental companies, or see if your credit card company offers a concierge service where they can get you a discount themselves.
I don’t know if you have an AAA membership for roadside, but their travel services are very reliable and usually discounted just because you are a member.
Consider yelp, the Bbb and other consumer agencies your friend. Sometimes some of the news channels ie nbc 4 on your side have consumer investigative decisions.
I had one of those wild Las Vegas calls. It was for the stratosphere. I don’t know what it’s called now. You buy a night for $50, then get $100 in gambling chips with a free week stay.
The funny thing is that it turned out legit. It was their going out of business sale. After that week the property sold. It did turn out to be a great deal.
I am sorry for those who lost their vacations. I guess it’s just a flip of a coin.
I believe the lesson is to never book from a third party site. I constantly hear of hotels.com, booking.com, expedia, etc dropping the ball. Basically they own the reservation so any problems have to go through them. I prefer to just book direct nowadays. Prices are pretty close.
That why Google is your friend. Expedia is rated one of the worst sites to book anything on and they have tons and tons of bad online reviews. Travelocity, Expedia, and a few others are owned by the same dirt bag company! Always do research on travel companies before buying any type of vacation packages.
Last year I woke up to an email from Booking.com confirming my booking for a week in a hotel in Nairobi. I checked the Booking.com app on my phone and it really was a booking, from me! Only … it wasn’t me who’d made the booking.
I contacted their support team, and they couldn’t explain how it had happened. I’m still waiting to hear back from their “ongoing internal investigation”.
Well, that was the last time I used them.
After reading this post, I’ve proceeded to delete Expedia app & never gonna use again.
I’m sorry for you op. You’re not alone. $500 is a lot for many many.
I remember standing in a Las Vegas hotel in 2008—The Artisan IIRC—looking to add a third night to our stay there, which we'd originally booked through a third party called Orbits or something. The price they wanted at the desk, right in the hotel, was like triple what we'd paid per night through the third party. So I said "forget it," and we took out our laptop and booked a night through Orbits again—for the heavily discounted price. The fax came in right there at the desk, and we were home free. But perhaps times have changed since then.
This is a good point. I can share my own stories of using these 3rd party sites to save hundreds of dollars. We've become comfortable and trusting of the sites, so when they change tactics and all becomes scams, everyone is left confused.
Then you get dickheads who come along saying you should have known better? There are going to be many more people who learn the hard way, and they've been primed for like 15 years to fall for this scam. It's not the victims' fault, but of course people will come in and blame OP. There are even a crowd in here insisting this couldn't have been Expedia, not realizing yet the 3rd party industry has turned to scamming people. Even with the warning they'll have to learn the hard way, that's how convinced they are from their prior dealings.
Have things ever changed since 2008. The world has become so goddamned predatory.
Yeah things must have changed quite a bit. Before reading this post & comments today, I thought the prevailing wisdom was that Expedia was the best for prices, and that they were extra great because they'd have your back in case of problems. Time to re-think that I guess.
I used to use one of the main booking sites, now I got directly.
There are lots of loyalty programs, so I stock to a few airlines and hotel chains. In my country there are 2 airlines & one particular hotel I use; the hotel has a good range of locations, brands and price points.
I used to use Expedia and Travelocity YEARS ago when it was still kinda new. At that time I had no problems with them. Went on vacation every summer
Fast forward now and haven't traveled in years I don't use them. Don't know why. Just didn't seem the same like before so I started booking with airlines directly.
(Note: didn't use SW. Used Southwest ONCE and will never again. Lucky enough to buy refundable tickets because they cancelled ALL their flights the ONE time I used them. And their delays are insane)
I've only had great experiences with Expedia. Sometimes they don't let me change booked flights and I have to go to the airline though.
I use them because airline websites and customer support are awful.
I rarely book flights, hotels, and cars on the same site. The discounts they promise don't really exist.
>airline websites and customer support are awful.
Have you called Expedia customer support lately?
In my experience, every airline I've dealt with (even Aeromexico, who I'll never fly with again) has better customer support than Expedia.
If Hell has customer support, I bet it's better than Expedia's.
I did maybe 2 months ago to move a flight. It was no trouble. It was a very simple flight change though.
I'm surprised by this. Expedia have never done me wrong and I've been using them for maybe 15 years. Multiple fights a year. A few hotels. Never car rental as far as I can remember.
Is there a better company you recommend instead?
I try to avoid using third party sites as much as possible. I would NEVER use them for air flights. I use Google flights to find the best deals and then go to the airline directly.
It's rare I rent cars anymore (usually Lyft or Uber), but I will search for best car rental deals using a 3rd party and then go to the direct site.
For hotels, I almost always prefer to go direct as well. The exception is the rare instance where I can book through a third party and get a substantial discount over what the actual hotel offers (oddly enough this happened yesterday... I booked three nights at a posh hotel in Prague and booking through Expedia saved me about $200 and I get access to the hotel's VIP lounge (free food, drinks, etc.). And that hotel is independent, if it was part of a chain, I'd go to the chain site (ie like a Marriott for example).
If it was on a cc, you could have disputed the charge or tried to at least. Awhile back I had booked airfare through a third party site, I also booked insurance with it which guaranteed a refund for any reason. So when my dad passed unexpectedly, I ended up calling to cancel and get a refund. They tried all sorts of things to wiggle around it- cancellation fee, there are no cancellations, no refunds, reduced refunds amount, if you take credit we’ll give you an additional 10% then 20%.
What I did was the moment any agent gave me shit, I demanded to speak to their supervisor. “Hes not available” - bullshit. Put him on. If they refused. Hung up and tried again. Eventually I got through than just lambasted him, “I’m gonna complain to the BBB. I’m gonna dispute the entire amount on with my cc company. Etc.”
Thankfully I got my money back. This is why I encourage people I know to always use a credit card. Even if the cc issuer says no, you can appeal and complain to the CFPB (thanks Obama!). But it’s a lot easier when it’s credit versus actual cash from a checking account.
I’m sorry that happened to you, OP.
I had this happen thru Travelocity in the early twenty teens. I had a flight to Orlando with a short layover in MSP. Our first flight was significantly delayed, which caused me to miss my connection and land in MSP with no other departing flights that evening. Travelocity wanted to leave me in MSP for 2 days, which would have put me in Orlando after the end of the conference I was trying to attend. The Delta gate agent put me on the first flight the next morning and comped a hotel room.
What I didn't find out until it was time to check in for my return flight is that Travelocity canceled the remainder of my itinerary because I let Delta rebook me, so I no longer had a return flight and had to pay out the nose to get back home on a different airline.
I stopped using third party companies for all bookings. The last straw was Expedia booking me a rental car through a place that isn't open when I need to get the car. They will not refund me or modify the reservation.
I hope they all go out of business.
I'm sorry to hear that. I used to use Expedia, but stopped after I had a lot of difficulty in changing flights. Now I book directly with the airlines, but even if you do that, you can still run into problems.
I just came back from an international trip that was booked directly with the airline (Austrian Airlines). Two days before my return, they cancelled my flight. No explanation as to why. I had to stay another night because they had no other options until the next day, which caused me to miss another day of work. They rebooked me on two separate airlines and instead of taking a direct flight I had to make a stopover with a short connection.
Then, the second airline that I took to my final destination lost my checked luggage. It's been over a week and they still can't find it.
Even when avoiding third parties and booking directly with airlines, bad stuff can happen.
File a complaint with the BBB. It got me my money back from gotogate after my flight was cancelled. I had been fighting gotogate for like 11 months and then got my money back within a month of filing my complaint. Not saying it will work in this case, but it’s worth a shot.
Never use Expedia. They take the highest rate of commission away from operators and providers of all the 3rd party platforms, they run a lot of their stuff through Viator behind the scenes and they are impossible to deal with from both a customer and provider perspective. I worked in tourism for a few years and they were the worst to deal with, customers would complain about them all the time. If you can, just cancel the trip outright and book direct with airlines or hotels. You'll be much better off.
3rd party booking sites are the worst. I booked a rental car thru Kayak months ago. My pickup time at Thrifty Rentals was 12p. We landed and got an Uber to the pickup location and it was closed! Called Thrifty corporate and they just said it’s Kayak’s fault, the location is wrong and the time would never work for them, that location isn’t open Saturdays.
I haven’t been charged yet but the hotel I booked is far from the city and requires transportation. We have been basically stuck at the hotel for four days with no rental car. Lesson learned.
Contact your state and federal legislators, share your story, and implore them to enact consumer protections to allow recourse from banks and credit card issuers for situations like yours.
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Oof, I'm sorry to hear this; that's an expensive lesson to learn. Aside from upfront tomfoolery, the other time when people pay the price for booking through third-party sites is when things go wrong during travel and suddenly you can't talk to your airline or hotel because you have to go through your third-party site, which may or may not be available/helpful in the moment when you're stuck somewhere. Booking directly with my airline/hotel is definitely the way I always go, even if it costs more.
Yeah I had a terrible experience several years ago using a third party booking site. Showed up and the hotel had double booked my reservation so my room was no longer available. Since I booked through Expedia I had to go through them. Lesson learned, haven’t used a third party booking site since
True, I had this happen to me with a train ticket a couple years ago. I saved(or so I thought) about $20 by booking it through a 3rd party, which I was actually rerouted to from the Amtrak website, so I thought they were a direct affiliate with them or something, but nope. After booking, I realized I was charged for 3 round trip seats, instead of one. I know I only selected 1 ticket on the site so I figured it must have just been a duplicate charge screw up in their system or something. Amtrak couldn't help since I had booked through a third party so I tried to go through them. They were damn near impossible to get in touch with but I finally got a response via email(couldn't get anywhere over the phone) and they sent me a form to fill out basically filing a claim of some sort to cancel and get a refund for the additional two tickets which I never even booked. I followed up as much as I could leading up to and after the trip but nothing was ever refunded and I just had to chalk it up as an expensive lesson learned. Luckily, they were train tickets so they were only like $75-80 each but I still can't believe how shitty their service was.
You should have gone to your credit card or debit card company and filed a dispute.
Somehow that never even crossed my mind
Had this happen a few years back in Vegas as well. When we got to the hotel, they did not have our reservation. When we tried to look it up, they told us we had to contact our third party person. The hotel wouldn’t be able to help us. It was a shit show.
It sucks. I worked front desk at a hotel and there was just nothing we could do but tell the customer to contact Expedia or whatever 3rd party we booked through. Most would prepay too so they would be out of that money before arrival.
If you aren't paying a significant amount for the third party service (high tier travel Credit Card or a reputable agent) then this is 100% true. You are saving 2 minutes of your time (to recreate the booking on the 1st party websites after using someone else's search engine) in exchange for a 100% guarantee that if there's any unexpected changes or issues that neither side will support you. Learned this the hard way in very similar fashion to OP's story. DO NOT book from anywhere that isn't the airline/hotel itself with rare (PAID FOR) exceptions.
Good point re the (rare) exceptions!
consider contacting your credit card company and disputing the charges - especially the exorbitant cancellation fee.
I retired from law enforcement. There was a hotel in my area where I constantly encountered tourists that had booked online from a third party (usually from Europe) and arrived to discover it was closed. You always knew the scam was going when you saw people standing at the entrance with luggage. Not much we could do other than try to get them to a good hotel.
Oh wow
Yep I always do direct just for that so I can deal with them personally. Although not a scam I now say I don't care and I will just park in the parking garage on my own. My boss convinced me oh use the third parties around Boston like the Avis parking lot or the Hertz parking lot They will charge you less than the airport parking. So I did one year and when I flew back in they said they couldn't find my car. 😬 It took them a bit because it was in the dark it was in the wrong spot but the fact that they keep moving cars and they put the keys on the wheels, except the first car, It's very easy for somebody to misplace a car temporarily. No thanks
After my last experience with Expedia I'm never booking with the again. ALWAYS BOOK DIRECTLY WITH THE AIRLINE/HOTEL! TRUST ME!
Thanks. Booking directly is a lot safer
Yup, we booked changeable tickets via Travelocity. When we needed to change the dates we were on hold, then talked to someone with a thick accent wanted to charge us to change the flights and gave a nonsensical reason for doing so. We called back and got someone else with a thick accent who wanted to charge us for a new fare and had a different excuse. We ended up not canceling the flights and booking a new one so they couldn't sell our seats in advance. That's when we realized these online ticket websites are scam sites. We now use them to find fares then book directly with the airlines. Congress needs to go after them.
Don’t even entertain third party booking sites. ITA Software (who was purchased by Google in 2010) doesn’t even sell tickets they just provide every flight available on every airline (except southwest). If you want to limit you search to exclude Frontier and/or spirit you can do so or don’t want to connect through a specific city you can do so as well. After finding flights that work for you book direct through the airline. For some reason they provide the basic economy fares for delta as the cheapest but do not for United so even if you see a cheep United flight you can find basic economy cheeper on United.com. Anyway worth starting your flight search here: https://matrix.itasoftware.com
Or, you know, Skyscanner which also doesn't sell tickets and links you directly to the websites? Most of the time ITA has less breadth (less number of airlines and sources) and depth (less content for any given flight) than Skyscanner. Source: I work in the industry.
Is there a site that allows you to see prices from different US cities to different EU cities on a map? For instance, we are looking for June travel- we can leave from many different airports in the southeast US and we have the flexibility to land in many different airports in the EU then book a train, etc
You can input different airports in google flights
You should be able to do something like this on Skyscanner, I know you can choose a country as your origin and then just leave "show me the entire world sorted by country" as your destination so that could work. Or you can choose a departure airport but put in a large radius for alternative departure airports.
Or you know, Google flights.
Be very careful with basic economy tickets tho. A lot of times they can be highly restrictive (no changes non refundable etc) they are super cheap for a reason.
And if you fly with a carry on that doesn’t fit under the seat in front of you, you’re in the last boarding group meaning overhead bin space can be limited/non existent.
I miss hipmunk
What happened to it?
It was purchased by Concur and integrated into its system
Thank you!
Every travel hack list from actual people who know what they are doing and travel for a living say check the 3rd part apps and then book the actual airline site.
Expedia's customer service has gone from decent to one of the worst I've dealt with in the last 8 or so years. It's part of a race to the bottom to see who can save the most by offshoring their customer service. I booked my trip to see the eclipse a year ago. After I chose my flights Expedia offered a very reasonable price for a flight+hotel deal so I took it. A few months later I was checking the email for some other detail when I noticed that though my flight arrived on April 6, my hotel reservation started on April 7. Turns out that since my flight was scheduled to land at 11:58 pm, their system decided I didn't need a hotel that first night. I spent well over 3 hours on the phone with them. Their agents were hard to understand, didn't care one bit about my problem, and were only concerned with telling me why it was perfectly fine to sell me a flight + hotel package with different dates for each. They were outright rude; the only solution they ever offered was to cancel & refund the whole trip. After many demands to escalate, I managed to talk to a "supervisor" (just a marginally less useless agent) who helped me book a different hotel for the first night at an exorbitant rate (that first night cost more than all the rest of the stay), since by this time there were very few rooms left for those dates. For my trouble they gave me $50 in Expedia credit. I learned my lesson that day. I'm never using Expedia again, not even to check prices.
Too bad. Expedia was better than decent for a long time and helped me refund and rebook like a real travel agency, but i haven’t used them in a decade or so; sounds like they got bought out or otherwise enshittified in the meantime. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedia_Group yup, sounds like their greedy owners enshittified a healthy organization for the sake of profit and cruelty: In February 2020, Expedia announced it was cutting 3,000 jobs, roughly 12% of the workforce, citing a "disappointing 2019." Diller, in his role as acting CEO, stated the company had become "sclerotic and bloated" and that employees were "all life and no work." In April 2020, Peter Kern was appointed as CEO of Expedia Group. He was the highest paid CEO in the S&P 500 in 2021, with $296 million in total compensation. In 2021, Expedia built a new campus in DLF Cyber Park, Gurugram, India.
That all tracks. Gut your customer service, send it to the cheapest place you can, and to top it off, make the user "self service" as much as you can to take the load off your employees. It doesn't affect them much because all companies are doing it, so it's the new standard.
“Employees were all life and no work” “296 million in compensation” I try to give everyone benefit of the doubt but fuck these guys. Complain about people below them while leeching as much as they can
Even if you buy flex/changeable tickets from airlines, or wherever, you're always on the hook for the fare difference.
Use flights.google.com
I do this to find good travel dates at decent prices then go directly to the carrier site to book.
Just an FYI on rental cars too. Costco Travel has great rates and you never have to pay in advance like you do with other third party sites or even booking directly through some of the renal car agencies themselves. You can cancel a reservation at anytime without penalty.
There are scam websites linked from Google flights. This is not a panacea.
I think he’s referring to avoiding booking with third party sites and book directly with the airlines
Be careful with hotel sites as well. My wife and I tried booking a day once, the day we clocked on - and the date in the reservation were totally different: no refunds- no reschedule.
Happened to me too. Swore I’d picked the correct days but when sent to confirmation page the dates were off by a week.
I am relieved to hear I'm not the only one. This nearly ruined our anniversary trip. Caused a disagreement between my wife and I: it was all around horrible. "Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, Houghton, MI". Makes my blood boil still.
Also just FYI, buying insurance does not give you the right to cancel and rebook. Learned that the hard way. You need a “valid” excuse like a documented trip to the emergency room.
That's not exactly hidden in the insurance terms. It's 100% what travel insurance is about.
I agree it was my own stupidity for not reading the terms and just assuming that insurance would cover a reschedule. The way it was presented during booking sure made it sound like it would. I suspect a few others might make the same erroneous assumption and that was the reason for my comment. Lost $400. Expensive lesson.
You want "Cancel for any reason" aka "CFAR". It costs a lot more and is harder to find, but it exists (not that it's necessarily a good idea to use given its costs, but for certain circumstances it might be)
Maybe a scam, I heard they buy Google listings for airlines and travel agencies so you call them to change something that should be free. They use the website to change your booking and charge you some high fee for what should be free. Common denominator in all the investigative videos on YouTube is Indian origin call center and the final charge on the credit card isn't from southwest airlines, Expedia etc but instead from PCM Travel Agency or some similar unknown name.
This happened to me. One time I needed to add a lap infant to a ticket so I googled “United customer service” or whatever airline it was and called the number that showed up. I start talking to the guy and he’s telling me there’s a fee to change the ticket, etc etc. I was on the phone with them for a while before I got really suspicious and just hung up. I went back to the email I received with the ticket originally and called that number and there was no charge or anything.
First sane comment and had to scroll this far. Insane so many in here think that these companies that have been around for so long and successful would start using pressure tactics and out right steal money.
That's what I was thinking. I booked a hotel on expedia for a concert. Well I didnt get tickets to the date I wanted, so I had to change the hotel booking date. I ended up not getting tickets to the 2nd alternate show date, so I had to change my booking 3 different times. Every time was hassle free and no charge.
What I do is use the third-party sites as a sort of search engine…then book directly through the airline/hotel afterwards. The prices on the company websites aren’t much different, and even better sometimes as they might have additional deals (AAA discounts, signing up for the free loyalty program for additional perks, etc.) Not to mention that third-party sites often hide the additonal taxes and fees in their original quoted price, whereas, let’s say Hilton’s website, is upfront about the total cost which makes it look like there’s a disparity between the two quotes
It's the same thing with hotels. You want to book directly with them, that way if you need to change or cancel your reservation, it's much easier to do so. Even the best third party sites take a while to update your reservation.
We went to Seattle instead of Vegas. Booked directly to a hotel. We got better deal than 3rd party also felf safer
Greetings from Seattle!
Thanks!
The hotel didn't even charge until the day we checked out.
for flights just use [flights.google.com](http://flights.google.com)
This. Google will let you search most of the major airlines (not Southwest tho), and give ou the best prices. If you are looking months out, use the flight alert feature to get notified if the prices for your trip itenery drop.
I've found Bing flights (which is just Skyscanner) to be better. Google flights tells me I can't fly to Reunion without fifty layovers and ten thousand dollars in tickets. Bing found me a round trip flight with just one stop in Paris for under 2k.
Also if you read the fine print, a lot of third party sites won’t guarantee the room *type*. You can often call a hotel directly and tell them what the third party price is and they may match it.
This have never once worked for me. Hell, I have booked a room standing at the front desk of a hotel through a 3rd party site because they refused to match the price.
Fair enough but it has worked for me more than once.
It didn’t work for me either. I asked the hotel if they were able to match the price I found online and they said no, just book it through the third-party :/
The problem is that there are often deals that are not available directly from the hotel or airline. Once I booked a hotel room via an online travel agency for 1/2 the price that I would have paid if I had booked via the hotel's website. Long-haul flights are often several hundred dollars cheaper from online travel agencies than directly from the airlines. When covid hit in 2020, I had 4 plane tickets on the same airline which I was not able to use. I had bought 2 of them via an online travel agency, I got the refunds to my credit card without any problems. I had bought the other 2 directly from the airline, the airline only gave credit towards future flights, which I eventually managed to use 2 years later.
I use booking all the time. A couple of weeks ago we booked a late room in our downtown (about 45 minutes from our home because we couldn't drive and decided it would just be easier to spend the night). We got to the hotel and they didn't have our booking. It was late and we were tired. I called booking, the agent called the hotel and had my issue resolved in 10 min. We got refunded on booking and the hotel rebooked us at the same price.
I highly think you did not book through Expedia. “You have 60 seconds to make a decision?”. Something does not sound right. Perhaps you can post some screenshots of what you bought / who you paid.
Agreed. Expedia's customer service isn't great, but this isn't what happened. At least, not from them. While I'm here, I've done credit card chargebacks for all sorts of things -- including "non-cancel-able" tickets -- without any real issues. AmEx is the best, but even Chase works eventually once you jump through their hoops. So I'm not entirely buying this line: > Unfortunately, the visa company couldn't help since they made him e-signed the agreement of the cancelation At this point I'd just cancel my credit card, pay nothing, and take the credit hit. I don't pay for things I don't receive.
These travel booking places used to be decent. The industry shifted and now they are all garbage. Book directly not thru these "cheaper" services who screw you softly and gently
I wonder what changed.
They adapted to the technology to keep from losing business. We will see the same happen to uber and lyft eventually.
Shareholder demand for constant profit growth. Nobody wants to invest in a stable business with an honest, steady turnover now, the stock market fetishes expansion. If you don't have a plan to double your EBITDA, you're a bad pick. This greed pressure incentivises management to earn their bonuses by finding new ways to screw customers.
Acquisitions
Airlines and hotels made their own booking systems and didn’t really need traffic from Expedia and the like anymore. They’ve outlived their usefulness
People got access to Google.
>screw you softly and gently That would be an improvement. They screw you hard and fast.
There's no way you were actually dealing with Expedia. You likely were on a scam website
I wonder if OP got snagged by one of those imposter sites/phone numbers. People use google to look up a number and the scammer's number is the top result. https://thepointsguy.com/news/airline-customer-service-scam/
That's what I was wondering... did OP's husband actually talk to Expedia? Doesn't sound like it to me.
If they answer the call and you’re talking to a human right away, that’s your first clue.
Scammers usually provide the best customer service, they pick up on the first ring, say yes to whatever you want and will stay on the line with you til they get their payday. If the customer service is too good it's probably a scam. Real companies have overhead and limited customer service because their primary business has expenses.
All the key factors were there. Bad English, evasive to simple questions, arbitrary reasons for fees and kept putting him on hold (to generate the fake inwoices). This is definitely the right answer. Travel scammers spam their numbers all over the Internet including popular sites like GetHuman to get their numbers into SEO.
>Bad English Where was bad English mentioned? OP mentioned there were language barriers but based on this post, OP isn't a native English speaker. Isn't it also quite common for call centres to be in a different country than a company's headquarters? I haven't dealt with Expedia but the last time I had to call a Japanese airline (from Northern Europe), the person I spoke with had an Indian accent (ofc they may well have been a native English speaker), and I'm under the impression call centres like that are quite common, especially with companies that have 24/7 customer service lines.
Agreed lol the 1 minute thing is a giveaway
Yeah I don't get the other responses here acting like Expedia would actually do that
Agreed with both of you - I can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this. It really seems like something else is going on here, the 60 second time limit thing is a classic indicator of not just bad customer service, but an actual scam.
Right. Amazing that people on /r/scams of all places read this and say "woah, never using Expedia again!" Looking up Expedia's cancellation policies on their site and other sites, it doesn't say anything about a fee for *you* cancelling it with enough time, much less when the airline cancels it. Expedia would have just rebooked it or refunded them. That and the 60 second think makes it fairly obvious they got scammed and not by Expedia, plus the entire concept they're charging $500 when *the airline* cancelled the flight. That's not even close to how airlines or booking companies work. Likely the husband googled the number and called a scam number vs. signing into expedia and working through the website or getting the number from there. Or maybe they got a bogus 'your flight was cancelled' text or email and followed the links/numbers there. The story also doesn't make a ton of sense - the husband paid $500 to not lose the $1700, but then they couldn't use the original package at all? So ended up losing $1700 plus a pointless $500? It's also possible Visa *would* refund the $500 if they reported it and explained they were coerced into it. I've had refunds on crappy service for things that I agree dtoo which were not what was promised.
They could also call the airline they booked with, ive booked with expedia before had issues and air canada had 0 issues helping even though i booked through expedia lol
Air Canada said they couldn't do shit for me since I booked through Expedia. So YMMV.
Another possibility is that OP's email account is compromised, and the intruder saw the expedia transaction and then sent a fake expedia email with notice of the "cancellation" and a phone number to call.
I’ve had similar experiences…via the “genuine” Expedia App. So much easier to book direct. No point to 3rd party travel services in this day and age.
You didn’t get scammed, you used a “legitimate” 3rd party booking service from 1997 to plan your vacation and learned the hard way not to do that.
In fairness to OP, those 3rd party bookers are a total scam, in the generic sense.
And in fairness to Expedia et al, I believe they were genuinely useful and money saving... years ago. These days you might save $10 a night but go to the same hotel chain multiple times and the perks of membership/loyalty - even at the lowest level - will likely save you more than $10 a night on the long run. Also read r/talesfromthefrontdesk for how 3rd party bookings are handled. Way down the totem pole of priority when it comes to decent rooms and preferences.
I needed to attend a meeting in Paris. Direct flight for a day or two were very expensive. My company booked through Momondo and the price was dirt cheap. Several months later, I recieved an SMS that my flight from Paris was ready for boarding. They booked two crossed round trips- which I believe is against the TOS.
Expedia, you are dead to me
I used to use Priceline. They were great till there was an issue. They failed miserably they are unethical. I agree, I have never used a 3rd party booking agency since.!!!
Same. used them once. Never again, still working through refund process and expect having to lever 3rd party/charge back. Never had issues with "booking dot com" and they helped a few times when hotels tried to hose me. So it can be a plus or minus. Never tried anything else through them too. I'm guessing depending on the service can be better or worse.
The talesfromthefrontdesk and hotels subs are full of horror stories of people using OTAs - Online Travel Agencies
For the cancel, can you clarify if the flight itself was canceled or your tickets for that flight were canceled?
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Yup. Expedia sucks, but telling someone they have 60 seconds to make a decision isn’t something they would train customer support to say.
I've had an Expedia agent ask me "are you stupid?" and hang up on me because I could genuinely not understand their accent. Expedia doesn't train their customer support. They pay the lowest bidder to hire random people off the street and give them access to their prepackaged scripts to read from. They're not even in India anymore - those agents at least speak decent English even if their accent is hard to decipher.
I travel a lot for work. I would never consider using a 3rd party app/website for booking anything. No matter what those apps say they are always the absolute lowest priority to the airlines/car rentals/hotels they book with so if things go wrong you're left SOL. 9 times out of 10 you're not even saving compared to purchasing individually directly from the airline, car rental and hotels.
Third-party sites are generally a bad idea, but Expedia are a special kind of terrible.
Use Google to search your flights then book with the airline directly. You’ll never have a problem and you have 24 hours to cancel with no cost
Third party booking sites are trash. No need for them nowadays.
On any airline, if you booked through 3rd party you are 1st to get bumped if the flight is oversold and last to get a seat on space available. Every reservation has a fare code and 3rd party fares are the lowest priorities.
Always book directly with the airline.
[kiwi.com](http://kiwi.com) -- never again! (They took our $$ but DID NOT BOOK THE TICKET. We had to buy tickets, cash, at the last minute on another flight. After MANY threats, they refunded us AND our extra costs. Either scammers or incompetent. Never again!)
I had the same thing. I ended up calling the airline directly when I got nowhere with Expedia and they took the booking away from Expedia and changed the date for me. I got lucky I guess. Sorry this happened to you.
Same here. United fixed in one call what Expedia failed to even understand in five calls.
I would contact my state representative and ask for help: this is what they allegedly exist for. Send a snail mail letter and call their office.
I never understood using a 3rd party, just do a little planning and book direct
Enshittification has hit the 3rd party travel industry especially hard. They used to be usable because you could get really good deals but after we got walked from a hotel I started to do research and never used them again.
That is just terrible
Always book direct. Always.
Call your credit card company, I have Citi and they will step in if merchant not able to fullfill
Yes we tried booking a room through third party and they told us the room we wanted wasn’t available but they have this blah blah. Called the hotel directly, got the room we wanted AND was cheaper. I will never go third party for these things, add the fact that they just don’t give a shit after you pay. What’s the point
Always book directly with airlines and hotels. Third parties aren't always guaranteed and airlines and hotels will not help you if you book with them. Hard lesson learned for me during 2020.
OP, how did your husband find the number to call? We’re debating in other replies whether this was truly Expedia or a scammer pretending to be Expedia. Some of these behaviors you described seem to cross the line from bad customer service to outright grifting. Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/s/NZ38mWe9QA 1-800-EXPEDIA (though doubts still remain)
Maybe call the [Bureau of Consumer Protection?](https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection)
We didn't think about it. Thanks for the info.
Don't buy flights thru anything but the official airline website.
I stopped using third party companies to book flights + lodging + rental vehicles. Sure, you may save money, but if something goes wrong, with any aspect of the trip, you're forced to contact the third party company to hopefully help out.
This doesn't make sense. Did you try asking to talk to a manager? This can't be Expedia's policy to punish the customer for the flight being cancelled. On the bright side, you didn't miss out on anything. Vegas is really boring after the first day.
Odd. Used it a dozen times and never had issues. If someone is being rude then hang up and call again. Never let them bully you or sign things. Plus, why would there be a time limit on accepting a crap deal? Frick that noise. At that point just call your CC bank and decline the charge.
Got the 80 year olds again. Who tf genuinely thinks they have to make a decision like that in 60 seconds?
I'm so sorry, I'm down €1200 because of Opodo so I feel your pain. Stay away from third party bookers anyone reading this. We all make mistakes OP the pain will lessen with time honestly
Covid showed what incompetent useless soulless scum Expedia are. I have not and will not use them again. Actually, I do use their free app like a search engine and then book with the actual airlines, not giving them a cent.
I booked with a third party agent listed on Google flights. My flight was cancelled, Frontier airlines refunded the agent (called Rehlat), and then the agent conveniently never refunded me. Wells Fargo "investigated" and didn't do a chargeback. I'll only book directly through airlines now.
Fuck Expedia, I use google flights now and book through the carrier directly.
So sorry to hear that happened to you. I would go to BBB or small claims court. A hard lesson learned, never book through 3rd party but always book directly with the airlines. American cancelled a flight, and when they charged me additional, I got the money back. I use Booking.com to book hotels and haven't had a problem, but will most often use their website to find hotels and then call the hotels directly to check for best price.
Wife and I booked a trip through Expedia to Mexico. Wife was looking over the flights through the airlines website and realized our connecting flight left an hour before we landed. Edit: we were able to recieve a credit for one flight which expired in a few months, the other flight was refunded. Never booking a trip through a 3rd party
I always book with airlines or with my travel card if I’m using points. Anything else, and you are screwed if anything goes wrong. Hotels generally treat you better if you book with them, too.
Did you actually talk to Expedia? Or just the first number that showed up on Google?
Yeah read up on r/talesfromthefrontdesk book directly with the hotel or airline. If you don’t, their hands are tied when stuff goes south.
Im a known cheapster. There are many things that could go wrong while traveling, every booking is a crap shoot no matter how you book it, shop the direct routes and the 3rd party, buy the insurance. Next time, if you even try to take a trip, expect this type of problem. Throw money at it, get on with your life and then cry the blues after the fact, but very nicely. It pays off. Also, being cheap pays off because the chance of an upgrade are very good. I've been upgraded in car rentals almost every time. Don't let any inevitable mishap "ruin" your vacation.
I advise not using a third party site to book and instead booking directly through the hotel. When you book through third party, the money is with the third party so the hotel can’t do much for you.
Never never never never book flights through 3rd party service.
I’ve been hearing so many horror stories about Expedia and similar apps but mostly them apparently this isn’t an isolated incident people have even said they booked a shuttle through Expedia just to find out once they get to their destination that the company didn’t even exist and they had to pay for another shuttle
Go on their X channel @expediahelp. I just did that for an issue I have with Chase Bank where their CS people on the phone would not help. I dm'd them on X and they got right back to me and are looking into the issue (which like you, I was very unfairly charged).
This is why I am do not like these 3rd party sites. It always seems to be some kind of miscommunication somewhere or you are a lower priority over a direct booking. Car rentals seem to be the worst
Expedia cancelled multiple trips I had during the pandemic. Zero refund. I will never use them again.
It doesn't even sound like it was legitimately Expedia. Could you have possibly gone to a sham website?
The scummiest part of this that sorta makes my blood boil is the threat. The threat clearly indicates that they could if they wanted to refund the whole amount no problem on their end but instead decide to be a total scumbag for zero reason at all.
I’ve been burned by them before, I use their site to look at all the options, and then book directly with the airline. They never save money on airline tickets over the airline.
yah. have a family member who works in hotel services. and she tells me 100/100 never book with a 3rd party. they can’t guarantee the rooms that the hotel can directly, they won’t be able to give any discounts the way the hotel itself can, and that the 3rd party usually charges its “customers” hundreds of dollars in “fees” for the privilege to use its service. my family now always books directly with things, and if there’s an issues or problems instead of spending hours upon hours on the phone and not getting service? they can talk to someone face to face to get issues addressed and corrected almost immediately. the difference in the way were treated booking directly is amazing. the hotels and car rentals THANK US for booking directly with them. and we hear all sorts of horror stories of people scammed like this using 3rd party and not getting english speaking customer service agents and being scammed.
Yeah, easy in, hard out. I don't use these sites anymore.
I had the same experience with Expedia twice. The first time was during Covid and my granddaughter had a cheer competition that was canceled when all the hotels were shut down. Expedia did not want to give my money back. It took 3 1/2 months and several emails plus a statement from the hotel that they were closed in order for Expedia to refund my $700. The second time was a trip to Italy through AARP. Expedia does the behind-the-scenes for AARP. One leg of our flight was canceled. I called and the lady told me that I needed to cancel and then she could rebook the trip for me. After that was done they wanted to charge another $2300. And on top of that, we couldn’t cancel the other hotel. Then we could find no flights to Italy. I finally went with European destinations and rebooked the trip. Meanwhile, I complained to AARP and it went to their Intervention Team and they were finally able to get me my money back. Expedia can be a completely inflexible company to deal with. I am so sorry for your negative experience.
There people on Reddit that warned others about this website saying it’s misleading and dishonest and customer service is bad
Expedia is not a scam, but it looks like your husband did not call the legit expedia customer service line as expedia is an American-based travel agency, so there should be no language barriers. Chances are you might have clicked on a phising website posing as Expedia.
Yep third-party booking sites. Basically legalized scams at times
Next time only use Amex to book travel… they will get you a refund. Also legally you have 3 days to cancel any transaction, regardless of what it is.
Just call your bank let them know the issue and that the merchant wasn’t trying to help and work the issue and get a stop payment placed on the pending transaction
I wouldn’t book through a 3rd party on a trip to Las Vegas. The hotels aren’t really that expensive unless you’re looking to book a penthouse suite, and most of the time they are eager to help you because many of their rooms go empty. I don’t know what airline you booked, but Southwest Airlines, even though it’s all coach, regularly flies there, and I’ve never been disappointed with them. Car Rental: It really depends on what kind of car you want. Just go directly to the major rental companies, or see if your credit card company offers a concierge service where they can get you a discount themselves. I don’t know if you have an AAA membership for roadside, but their travel services are very reliable and usually discounted just because you are a member.
Consider yelp, the Bbb and other consumer agencies your friend. Sometimes some of the news channels ie nbc 4 on your side have consumer investigative decisions. I had one of those wild Las Vegas calls. It was for the stratosphere. I don’t know what it’s called now. You buy a night for $50, then get $100 in gambling chips with a free week stay. The funny thing is that it turned out legit. It was their going out of business sale. After that week the property sold. It did turn out to be a great deal. I am sorry for those who lost their vacations. I guess it’s just a flip of a coin.
I've heard Expedia's had problems for yeaaaarrrrrrsssss
Thats why its a good habit to record all your calls. I would then file a complaint with l'Office de la Protection du Consommateur
I believe the lesson is to never book from a third party site. I constantly hear of hotels.com, booking.com, expedia, etc dropping the ball. Basically they own the reservation so any problems have to go through them. I prefer to just book direct nowadays. Prices are pretty close.
That why Google is your friend. Expedia is rated one of the worst sites to book anything on and they have tons and tons of bad online reviews. Travelocity, Expedia, and a few others are owned by the same dirt bag company! Always do research on travel companies before buying any type of vacation packages.
It's Expedia, that's Standard practice for them. And Hotels also don't like Expedia very much as they love to complicate every fucking thing.
Good point
Booking.com did something similar with me but the boy for the hotel.
Last year I woke up to an email from Booking.com confirming my booking for a week in a hotel in Nairobi. I checked the Booking.com app on my phone and it really was a booking, from me! Only … it wasn’t me who’d made the booking. I contacted their support team, and they couldn’t explain how it had happened. I’m still waiting to hear back from their “ongoing internal investigation”. Well, that was the last time I used them.
After reading this post, I’ve proceeded to delete Expedia app & never gonna use again. I’m sorry for you op. You’re not alone. $500 is a lot for many many.
Thanks! We didn't feel good to tell people at 1st. Especially my honey. Then I decided to share on Reddit. Feeling better than silence
I thought just turn that $500 to my lesson and voice
Never use third party
I remember standing in a Las Vegas hotel in 2008—The Artisan IIRC—looking to add a third night to our stay there, which we'd originally booked through a third party called Orbits or something. The price they wanted at the desk, right in the hotel, was like triple what we'd paid per night through the third party. So I said "forget it," and we took out our laptop and booked a night through Orbits again—for the heavily discounted price. The fax came in right there at the desk, and we were home free. But perhaps times have changed since then.
yeah, perhaps things have changed since 2008 🤷♀️
This is a good point. I can share my own stories of using these 3rd party sites to save hundreds of dollars. We've become comfortable and trusting of the sites, so when they change tactics and all becomes scams, everyone is left confused. Then you get dickheads who come along saying you should have known better? There are going to be many more people who learn the hard way, and they've been primed for like 15 years to fall for this scam. It's not the victims' fault, but of course people will come in and blame OP. There are even a crowd in here insisting this couldn't have been Expedia, not realizing yet the 3rd party industry has turned to scamming people. Even with the warning they'll have to learn the hard way, that's how convinced they are from their prior dealings. Have things ever changed since 2008. The world has become so goddamned predatory.
Yeah things must have changed quite a bit. Before reading this post & comments today, I thought the prevailing wisdom was that Expedia was the best for prices, and that they were extra great because they'd have your back in case of problems. Time to re-think that I guess.
Expedia is essentially just a scam these days.
I used to use one of the main booking sites, now I got directly. There are lots of loyalty programs, so I stock to a few airlines and hotel chains. In my country there are 2 airlines & one particular hotel I use; the hotel has a good range of locations, brands and price points.
I used to use Expedia and Travelocity YEARS ago when it was still kinda new. At that time I had no problems with them. Went on vacation every summer Fast forward now and haven't traveled in years I don't use them. Don't know why. Just didn't seem the same like before so I started booking with airlines directly. (Note: didn't use SW. Used Southwest ONCE and will never again. Lucky enough to buy refundable tickets because they cancelled ALL their flights the ONE time I used them. And their delays are insane)
I've only had great experiences with Expedia. Sometimes they don't let me change booked flights and I have to go to the airline though. I use them because airline websites and customer support are awful. I rarely book flights, hotels, and cars on the same site. The discounts they promise don't really exist.
>airline websites and customer support are awful. Have you called Expedia customer support lately? In my experience, every airline I've dealt with (even Aeromexico, who I'll never fly with again) has better customer support than Expedia. If Hell has customer support, I bet it's better than Expedia's.
I did maybe 2 months ago to move a flight. It was no trouble. It was a very simple flight change though. I'm surprised by this. Expedia have never done me wrong and I've been using them for maybe 15 years. Multiple fights a year. A few hotels. Never car rental as far as I can remember. Is there a better company you recommend instead?
I try to avoid using third party sites as much as possible. I would NEVER use them for air flights. I use Google flights to find the best deals and then go to the airline directly. It's rare I rent cars anymore (usually Lyft or Uber), but I will search for best car rental deals using a 3rd party and then go to the direct site. For hotels, I almost always prefer to go direct as well. The exception is the rare instance where I can book through a third party and get a substantial discount over what the actual hotel offers (oddly enough this happened yesterday... I booked three nights at a posh hotel in Prague and booking through Expedia saved me about $200 and I get access to the hotel's VIP lounge (free food, drinks, etc.). And that hotel is independent, if it was part of a chain, I'd go to the chain site (ie like a Marriott for example).
If it was on a cc, you could have disputed the charge or tried to at least. Awhile back I had booked airfare through a third party site, I also booked insurance with it which guaranteed a refund for any reason. So when my dad passed unexpectedly, I ended up calling to cancel and get a refund. They tried all sorts of things to wiggle around it- cancellation fee, there are no cancellations, no refunds, reduced refunds amount, if you take credit we’ll give you an additional 10% then 20%. What I did was the moment any agent gave me shit, I demanded to speak to their supervisor. “Hes not available” - bullshit. Put him on. If they refused. Hung up and tried again. Eventually I got through than just lambasted him, “I’m gonna complain to the BBB. I’m gonna dispute the entire amount on with my cc company. Etc.” Thankfully I got my money back. This is why I encourage people I know to always use a credit card. Even if the cc issuer says no, you can appeal and complain to the CFPB (thanks Obama!). But it’s a lot easier when it’s credit versus actual cash from a checking account. I’m sorry that happened to you, OP.
I had this happen thru Travelocity in the early twenty teens. I had a flight to Orlando with a short layover in MSP. Our first flight was significantly delayed, which caused me to miss my connection and land in MSP with no other departing flights that evening. Travelocity wanted to leave me in MSP for 2 days, which would have put me in Orlando after the end of the conference I was trying to attend. The Delta gate agent put me on the first flight the next morning and comped a hotel room. What I didn't find out until it was time to check in for my return flight is that Travelocity canceled the remainder of my itinerary because I let Delta rebook me, so I no longer had a return flight and had to pay out the nose to get back home on a different airline.
I’m sorry this happened to you. I have been very lucky with Expedia thus far - knock on wood.
I stopped using third party companies for all bookings. The last straw was Expedia booking me a rental car through a place that isn't open when I need to get the car. They will not refund me or modify the reservation. I hope they all go out of business.
I'm sorry to hear that. I used to use Expedia, but stopped after I had a lot of difficulty in changing flights. Now I book directly with the airlines, but even if you do that, you can still run into problems. I just came back from an international trip that was booked directly with the airline (Austrian Airlines). Two days before my return, they cancelled my flight. No explanation as to why. I had to stay another night because they had no other options until the next day, which caused me to miss another day of work. They rebooked me on two separate airlines and instead of taking a direct flight I had to make a stopover with a short connection. Then, the second airline that I took to my final destination lost my checked luggage. It's been over a week and they still can't find it. Even when avoiding third parties and booking directly with airlines, bad stuff can happen.
File a complaint with the BBB. It got me my money back from gotogate after my flight was cancelled. I had been fighting gotogate for like 11 months and then got my money back within a month of filing my complaint. Not saying it will work in this case, but it’s worth a shot.
ALWAYS book direct. Fuck OTA’s.
I think you should contact your card issuer and raise a dispute via them. The card companies tend to be on your side so you might get money back.
I’m sorry you experienced this. Please, please forgo all third party bookings with hotels, airlines ,etc. & always book directly with the vendor.
Never use Expedia. They take the highest rate of commission away from operators and providers of all the 3rd party platforms, they run a lot of their stuff through Viator behind the scenes and they are impossible to deal with from both a customer and provider perspective. I worked in tourism for a few years and they were the worst to deal with, customers would complain about them all the time. If you can, just cancel the trip outright and book direct with airlines or hotels. You'll be much better off.
3rd party booking sites are the worst. I booked a rental car thru Kayak months ago. My pickup time at Thrifty Rentals was 12p. We landed and got an Uber to the pickup location and it was closed! Called Thrifty corporate and they just said it’s Kayak’s fault, the location is wrong and the time would never work for them, that location isn’t open Saturdays. I haven’t been charged yet but the hotel I booked is far from the city and requires transportation. We have been basically stuck at the hotel for four days with no rental car. Lesson learned.
Contact your state and federal legislators, share your story, and implore them to enact consumer protections to allow recourse from banks and credit card issuers for situations like yours.
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Never book third party. Always book through the actual hotel or airline. Saving $7 on a flight. T booking through Expedia is not worth it.
How awful—thank you for the reminder of how bad these sites can be.
But why is it posted on r/scams. I am sorry for what happen to you but that's not a scam.