Honestly, the number of people that give up must be staggering. Who wants to make all those phone calls? And even when you KNOW, you just KNOW you’ve been wronged, if you can’t get the right person to help you, you’re just, well, you’re f*cked. I have endless persistence, a high speed internet connection, and a handy sense of search. That’s how I found the National Geographic Travel Ombudsman who helped me get this resolved. But I’ll bet nine out of ten screwed consumers just give up. Here’s to the other ten percent.
Ms. Nerd’s Eye View
I apologize that there has been a delay in our response to this matter. I would like to assure you that your matter has been looked into and researched fully.
We have received your complaint made to Christopher Elliott, ombudsman for National Geographic, via our Public Relations department. I have personally researched your case and noted that, while our agents did provide you with correct information with regards to the usability of your reservation, they did not recognize that this information was not made clear to you prior to purchase.
After a review of our website and your itinerary, I can see that the fare rules for only one portion of your ticket was displayed; ultimately, the rules indicating that your ticket could not be changed were not made available. For this, I cannot apologize more.
It is never our intent to mislead or miscommunicate to our customers, nor it is our intent to cause such confusion or inconvenience. In light of this, I would like to assist you with making accommodations for your return flight from Vienna to Seattle, at no cost to you.
Administrative stuff here.
So. There. Ha.
I also had a horrible experience using EXPEDIA that I decided to run a website to alert travelers about how EXPEDIA cheats customers. EXPEDIA lied to me and tried to keep money for a service that was never provided.
Please read this: http://www.victimsofexpedia.com
Good luck travelers
This is the letter that I JUST sent to Expedia.com informing them of my HORRIBLE experience with them.
I just have to let you know that this was the FIRST time using Expedia, and it will certainly be the LAST!! I will not only run the Expedia.com name into the ground, I will be informing ALL of my friends, family, co-workers and any random strangers that will listen, to use Travelocity.com instead if they expect to have ANY type of customer service provided to them!!!!
I would have had a BETTER experience dealing with a third grader then to have dealt with the inexperienced, unhelpful, non-caring, semi-illiterate individuals that YOU call employees!!
I am SO outraged by the lack of professionalism and blatent lies that I receieved from Expedia, that I will be speaking with The Better Business Bureau about this matter!
A response to this email would be appreciated, but probably will not be recieved, since it seems that no one at Expedia.com can even UNDERSTAND the English language let alone be able to WRITE it!!!
I used Expedia to shop for flights from PHX to MSP around Christmas. I found a couple flights that showed good seat selection (i.e. about half the flight was unsold with good selection of aisle seats which is what I wanted).
I decided to purchase the flight, and as I did so, it was not clear to me how to select seats. So I bought the Northwest flight on Expedia and immediately switched over to the NWA.com site to get my preferred seats.
MUCH to my surprise, when I got on to the NWA site I found the flight to be virtually sold out. I finally had to select two center seats in different rows for my wife and me.
I immediately emailed Expedia to ask how their seat map could be dramatically different than the airline’s. I got the typical corporate Pablum about how sorry they were. I fired back three more emails in response (because each elicited the Pablum response that really irritated me), and I asked either for them to get the aisle seats, or refund my money so I could get better flights, or talk to a manager. Pablum, Pablum, Pablum, etc.
I am done using Expedia, although I have used them a lot over the years. This type of irresponsible, non-responsive behavior is insulting. I am furious!
I used Expedia to book a round trip ticket from Orange County, California to Birmingham, Alabama for travel on April 14, 2008. When I showed up at the Delta check-in they could not locate my records and told me there was no record of a ticket purchase although I had paid for it with my credit card. When I called Expedia, I was put on hold for 15 minutes, while I speculated if it I would catch my flight. After spending nearly an hour back and forth, Delta obtained my records from Continental which had my return tickets. Expedia was not much help in resolving this issue, as the operator while trying to be helpful was not well trained enough to handle the situation. I was lucky I had showed up 2 hours early.
My e-mail complaint to Expedia solicited the unintelligent response that my ticket was confirmed. I am not going to trust Expedia with my airline bookings again!
DO NOT USE EXPEDIA…I recentely had the worst travel and customer service experience I have had in my life with them. First I called to change my departing flight from Sunday April 27th to Friday May 2nd. The incompenent agent read everything back properly yet booked the flight for Friday April 25th. I did not catch this until I went to check in online the night before the flight. In trying to get this settled and have the flight change corrected, they first had me on hold for over an hour and would not admit that their error almost cost me my flight. Then I was told to contact Continental Airlines to rebook a flight and they would reimburse me for up to $200 of the rebooking fees. First, as this was a complete error on their behalf I would expect that they would correct the issue themselves. So I end up rebooking a flight through continental, who has a great customer service department by the way, and it cost an additional $250. Fine, that is do able. However, upon trying to obtain the refund that I was promised I was put on hold for 2 hours before anybody would even pick up the phone to talk to me. All I needed was for the refund to go the cc that was used when making the changes and not the card that was used to orignially book the flight. Sounds simple right? Not for the incompetent, ignorant and useless expedia customer service agents. I will never use expedia again and I urge you to heed my warning.
Booked and paid for 2 US Airways flights Acapulco – Las Vegas. 2 days later flights cancelled and alternatives offered by Expedia – I agreed to these but then US Airways said all they would offer was a full refund
Spent hours trying to sort refund today – cut off by Expedia after 1hr. 5mins – called again and promised email within 10 mins – 4 hours later no reply but did I really expect one?
Never again.How long will they keep my $2000?
Hello,
I was in charge of all complaints that came into
Expedia for the past 3 yrs.
via usps mail.
All complaints went to the Tacoma Wa. office.
If a complaint was addressed to Dara Khosroshahi,
it was delivered to him personally.
he took these letters very seriously.
if you have a complaint, send usps or registerd mail. address to Dara.
he is a very nice person, very, very interested
in getting people their refunds.
expedia is however a very disfunctional place
to work.
I have storiesssssssss….
Miss Oliver
Expedia eats a little diq. After several 3 hour phone calls, this place still cannot figure out what happened to my 1300 plane tickets and no refund is offered, just a credit that must be used within a year, what a jip.
I have a relatively low rent complaint but need to air it nevertheless. I have used the expedia.com.au website extensively and found my experiences quite positive. I therefore was quite relaxed making a booking via expeia.co.uk for a room at Novotel Heathrow. My initial try failed,(as far as I was concerned) the transaction did no complete and continued to loop back to the 3 digit number at the rear of credit card. (I used a friend’s credit card as we were in an internet cafe just in from the beach and I had no personal items on me). There was no confirmation of the booking which was aborted prior to completion, (the fault of the website rather than mine). I checked that I had received no confirmation via e-mail and was confident that the transaction did not complete. I then repeated the transaction successfully a couple of days later. I arrived at the hotel to be advised that I had two rooms reserved. I informed them that a mistake had been made and that I required only the one. No problem, they said but check with Expedia that you have not been charged for two? A couple of days later my friend advised that her credit card had been debited for the failed transaction as had mine for the completed transaction.
Herewith my response from them
Thank you for contacting Expedia.co.uk regarding your stay at the Novotel London Heathrow.
I am very sorry it has taken so long to get back to you however we have had to investigate your case in full. We have found that both bookings were made successfully on the website and as such the hotel reserved two rooms in your name.
I have explained this to the hotel but they said that they are unable to refund you or your friend as they were not notified of a double booking until you had already checked out.
Thank you for using Expedia.co.uk and I am very sorry we are unable to refund on this occasion.
ENOUGH SAID THEY DONT’T CARE IF THEY LOSE OUR BUSINESS THERE ARE ANOTHER MILLION SUCKERS OUT THERE…………
I also have had a bad experience with Expedia and will never use it again. Their customer serice is terrible! First you speak to someone in India, after several attempts to get someone to answer the phone. The Indian’s accent is nearly impossible to understand, it took two of us to translate what she was saying. When we requested a supervisor it took 20 minute to be connected. The problem arose after we made two separate round trip reservations on a single transaction. Apparently this is something the airlines do not allow. None the less Expedia accepted and confirmed the reservation, only to notify us a week later that it would cost an additional $350 to make two separate reserevations instead of the one they confirmed. They denied all respopnsibility for the mixed and even said it was our fault for trying to do something that is not allowed. When I asked if it isn’t allowed why does your computer system premit it and why would you confirm the reservation. I was told it is up to the customer to know what is allowable in making the reservation. My opinion is they acting as agent entered into a contract with me to provide airline reservations as I requested them. It is also their obligation as agent to know what the airline reservation rules are.
STOP ALL BUSINESS WITH EXPEDIA!
I can say, the company is not the bad man in this issue, it is the way the employees are treated, which is bad. The employees are slaves to them, and get degrading, disrespected, called names etc. The agents have to give you ‘standard answers’ and if we ever do give you actual customer service, they are penalized for it… speaking from experience. I was #1 agent, #1 in kudos from customers, and #1 recommended by customers and I got fucked. Why? Because I provided customer service? Who knows, but I got out of there so fast, and thank god for that. Bless the single moms, widows and young adults with no family that HAVE to take the abuse there for the time being in order to live.
I apologize to all of you, for having the misfortune of having to deal with us on a daily basis.
I purchased a 2 night hotel accommodation in Santa Cruz, for Jan 16-18th for my mother and myself. When we arrived we discovered the hotel to be in re-model phase (not mentioned by expedia) and the room we were in was crumbling and old, which in Santa Cruz near the beach was expected. However, because our room faced a covered walkway away from public view, a gang of homeless teenagers made it party central. They talked, yelled, drank and who knows what drug activity was going on all night. The hotel did not have after hours on-site staff, nor would anyone pick up the phone in the hotel office. We were actually scared to leave our room as after about 3 am or so, we could hear a fight. When we finally left at 5 am on Monday, there were brown bags with liquor bottles all over that walkway. I got home emailed expedia requesting a refund, they informed me they could not process my refund through email but i would need to call. i have called 3 times now, each time, getting the most lame answers i have heard to date. the best one being; They need authorization from the hotel and currently the power is out. One time they just transferred me without letting me know, then the hotel personnel hung up the phone.
So – here’s the rub, expedia collects my money but needs authorization from the hotel to refund my money? I too was on hold for over 20 minutes waiting for an answer, then spoke with Enid, who either english was her second languauge or had the most stuffed up nose and refused to speak slower or louder. She apologized for my inconvenience – I clarified for her that inconvenience is going to the store and have the store be out of milk, it is terror to be afraid to leave the room because you have a 70 year old mother traveling with you and there is a bunch of gang bangers outside your door.
I then asked her when i could expect a call from her with a resolution,(i wanted my money back) she told me she was not going to call the hotel again that i had to call expedia again and have another agent call the hotel.