Report: #395443

Report: Expedia

Category: Travel Agencies

Expedia lied to me about being able to change my flight, and tricked me into buying insurance to boot! Internet

...got a refund for half the ticket... after several hours on the phone

Rebuttal Box
Respond to this report! What's This?

Victim of this person/company? What's This?

Expedia

Phone: 800-397-3342
Fax:

www.expedia.com
, Internet
U.S.A.

Submitted: Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Last posting: Saturday, December 27, 2008

Hollister, California

I called Expedia a few months ago to arrange a flight to Japan. I knew once I got to Tokyo I wanted to find a job and get a work visa, but I knew that not entering the country with a valid return flight (tourist visas are 90 days), could get me in trouble with immigration. Therefore, I wanted a very flexible return date.

I called expedia and a VERY friendly woman repeatedly assured me that my flight could be changed a month, three months, or a year after my flight date. She suggested that I buy the $30 travel insurance to avoid change fees later. I was pleased with the experience.

So I traveled to Japan and found a job and got a visa. Now I was all set to change my flight date to a random point in the future, knowing I would probably need to change it again. The first agent told me that I had already departed on my first flight, meaning expedia could no longer change flights for me and I should call the airline. The airline told me that I had a 3 month fixed ticket and it could not be changed beyond that.

A few more calls and a few hours of stevie wonder later, expedia determined that there was no way to get me a refund or flight credit, and they were only willing to take responsibility for their agent by refunding my insurance and tossing me $100 in hotel coupons.

This is nothing compared to the cost of booking another flight, not to mention how cheated I feel by all of this. My flight home I guess is going to be a one-way ticket, NOT booked on expedia.

Weirdoalisa
Hollister, California
U.S.A.

Click Here to read other Ripoff Reports on Expedia

Search for additional reports

If you would like to see more Rip-off Reports on this company/individual, search here:

Search Tips

Rebuttal Box
Respond to this report! What's This?

Victim of this person/company? What's This?

Repair Your Reputation
What's This?

Updates & Rebuttals:

Updates & Rebuttals

got a refund for half the ticket... after several hours on the phone Weirdoalisa [12/27/2008]

Submitted: Saturday, December 27, 2008

Posted: Saturday, December 27, 2008

Weirdoalisa

Hollister
U.S.A.

got a refund for half the ticket... after several hours on the phone

I couldn't sleep at night knowing Expedia had gotten me to give up. So I called again, not to customer support, but to the booking agents. I pretended to book another ANA flight (a restricted ticket) and I again asked the agent if the dates on the ticket were flexible, even a year later.

He said YES. I asked if he was SURE. He said yes, I'm SURE.

Livid, I hung up on him and got right back on the horn with customer support. I told them that if I hadn't been repeatedly reassured by THEIR agent that my ticket was flexible I would have bought a different, more expensive ticket. I made sure they understood that I was out several hundred dollars because their agents don't know what they are talking about. I talked to a peon, a supervisor, and then that supervisor contacted some "board" or something who called me back with their decision a half hour later- I got the refund for half my ticket that I was asking for.

Things I learned:

1) Expedia has two kinds of people working for them on the phones: customer service agents and telesales agents. If you MUST use expedia, make sure you direct all questions to a customer service agent at 1-800-expedia and NOT a telesales agent (the number is different). The telesales agents will say anything to get that commission.

2) Don't give up. Even if they offer you some $50 dollar voucher and you take it (like I did) out of sheer exhaustion, you never promised to stop hounding them. Calling a different person could produce different results (And no, I don't intend to use that voucher)

3)Be clear about what you want. When the first agent was smart enough to ask me what I wanted to solve my complaint, I told her I thought a refund on half my ticket was fair. She put that in the notes and every agent I spoke to thereafter based their conversations with me on that framework. They're not authorized to bargain, so if you start by saying you want a refund, they probably won't try any BS about a cheap hotel voucher.

Video Spotlight