I was looking for flights on expedia in Oct/07 and couldn't book due to a "technical error" when confirming the flight at ~$200. I phoned expedia and they tried to book over the phone without success and told me to try later.. Later the price increased to $630 and I did NOT attempt to book.

A week later I get a call from Continental to tell me I need to check into NWA at the airport. I again did not book anything, phoned expedia and they said nothing is booked and my credit card won't be charged.. 2 days before the flight my credit card gets charged $630. I phone continental and they say it was booked through expedia, I phone expedia and they say it shows up as "Not booked". I phone my credit card company and they say there is nothing they can do.

After several late phone calls and waiting hours on hold I get a CSR in expedia that I convince to call continental to see my credit card is charged... They do and offer me credit for future flying, but then look into it more and offer me a refund of $620 in 7-10 business days to my credit card...

It has been 15 business days and no credit back... soon I will be charged interest...

Don't use Expedia website! It may charge your card for no reason whatsoever on itineraries you saved and did not book!

I booked a flight and everything was confirmed then I get an email to call 1-888-397-3342, I did this yesterday, waited on hold for an hr then had to leave. Today have been on hold for OVER 2 AND 1/2 hrs.

It is crazy ,my neck is sore and that music is enough to drive a person crazy. When you ask that I call re a flight change have some why do I need to wait for hrs. Waiting is one thing but over up to 3 hrs is not right.

Darlene

DO NOT BELIEVE HOTEL RATINGS AND TRAVELER REVIEWS POSTED IN EXPEDIA!

For 6 month my husband and I were preparing for a vacation in Europe, a trip of a lifetime. We booked all the details of our trip (hotels, plane tickets, etc) via a travel agency based in US and everything was organized perfect by my agent. However, our last stop of the Eurotrip was Vienna, Austria, and as our agent told us she did not work with hotels in Austria, I decided to choose a hotel via Expedia. It was my first and last time to have business with them! I picked hotel Ambassador in Vienna that was listed as a 4 star hotel, and had a very high rating based on the published customer reviews in the Expedia website.

My experience in the hotel was horrible and after I came back in US (Aug 5, 2007) I wrote my customer review about the hotel. I have sent them several reviews and they refuse to publish them on the web, I talked several times to their customer service. Their response was that Expedia has the final decision which customer reviews to publish and which to reject. They did not want to explain the reason for rejecting my review. I guess they did not want to publish the review because it was totally negative.

The hotel review I sent to Expedia is attached below:

Hotel Ambassador, Vienna

This hotel is hardly even a 3 star!

Expedia refers this hotel as a 4 star, others refer it as a five star. However, the only high star thing in this hotel is its price! Once we entered the room it had a bad smell that made us immediately open the window to just hear the noise of the construction going on across the street. There was an ashtray on the table but the staff confirmed this was a non-smoking room. The room looked exactly like the single room of the Expedia virtual tour. We have paid for a double room. The DOUBLE bed consisted of two single mattresses put next to each other; so do not plan a honeymoon in this hotel! The carpet looked old and not that clean, same for the bathrobes. The bathroom was very small, and we had doubts if the fan was working. It had a shower cabin only, a curtain around the shower actually. The curtain was couple of inches shorter than it was supposed to be, so while my husband was taking a 5 min shower the whole bathroom floor was getting wet. Not to mention that when my husband tried to take shower for the first time the drain was clogged and we had to call for a technician. Also, the shower gel bottle was not renewed like it is done in the other hotels, the "Ambassador" staff apparently thought that a single 1 oz bottle is enough for 2 people for 3 days. The breakfast was not included in the price like in the most of the other hotels. Also, it did not have a concierge desk and the receptionist was having these functions as well. I definitely do not recommend this hotel!

Damage Resulting = Consequences:

I do feel discriminated when my review was being rejected multiple times. If you look on the Expedia web page and the traveler reviews about hotel Ambassador in Vienna, you will see 14 out 15 positive reviews.

It seems to me that in order to sell a hotel better Expedia publishes the positive reviews, and rejects the reviews of the unhappy customers.

The damage was:

I paid a 4/5 star price for a hotel that could hardly be rated 3 and the last 3 days of my "Dream Vacation in Europe" left me with a bad taste in my mouth for the whole trip, as Vienna was supposed to be "The Grand Finale"... It was... in a way... but not the way we thought!

Damage for the other potential Expedia customers:

By carefully picking which review to be published Expedia creates false image of the travel destinations and misleads customers!

I also feel very much hurt from their customer service attitude. I was told Expedia decides which reviews to publish and which to delete even without informing the customer who wrote the review.

Tonight we had one of the worst customer service experiences that we can remember, with expedia and united airlines . I've been a longtime customer of both, but after this, will avoid using either again.

Our family missed our flight this evening for a quick family vacation to san diego. We'd booked a relatively inexpensive, 1 hour flight thru expedia, with alaska on the outbound and united for the return flight.

When calling expedia to try to rebook our outbound, we were put on hold for a while. Then spoke to an agent who said we needed to call alaska to rebook, they couldn't do it for us. First of all that is not what i expected from the 'expedia promise - we're here for you every step of the way', at all. What a pain.

Then we called alaska , and were told they couldn't rebook us. United owns our tickets so we'd have to go thru united, or thru expedia.

We called united, hold again, then they said they couldn't help us and we needed to call expedia. We then called expedia again, hold again. When we finally got to an agent she said our record is locked because we missed the flight so they can't help us!!

We finally convinced the agent to call alaska and try and coordinate. We got alaska, but they couldn't confirm anything because united owned the ticket. Then we had to conference call with united. Even with united and expedia on the phone, the agent could not figure out how to rebook our flight. We decided to hang up and call back again to see if another agent could help us.

We finally gave up trying to get expedia to help us. We spoke to 4 different agents on 4 different calls. On the 4th call i asked to be elevated to a supervisor but after 20 minutes on hold i hung up.

Then i spent over an hour on the phone with united. The first agent told us they can't help and we need to call expedia. We finally found someone from united who said they could help us rebook. He said he could put us on a united flight tomorrow afternoon. We'd been hoping to fly out earlier if flights were available, since this is a short family vacation and we were traveling with others already in san diego.

We checked expedia online, and saw an early am alaska flight available to book. It cost $150 one way, about what we paid for our original alaska outbound flight - so it shouldn't be a cost problem for either united or expedia to book us on this flight.

But the united agents told us they couldn't book us on the flight. When we pressed, they put us on hold. Then they said they could but we would have to wait 12 hours to find out if the reservation is confirmed. Hello, the flight is in 11 hours. The agent hears this but says that's the policy, we have to wait 12 hours, sorry.

We asked to talk to a supervisor. Longer hold. When we finally talked to her, she was able to book us on the early am alaska flight. After 2 hours of being on the phone.

To top it all off, the agent also said there would be a $100 change fee and other fees, so a total of $150 per person fees. All this to fly on a flight which clearly has availability, 11 hours from now. Yes we screwed up and missed our flight, but do they really need to put the screws to us so badly? The flight only cost $150 per person, now plus $150 in fees!

Ps we checked online, and found southwest flies first thing tomorrow morning to san diego $130 each way. After the pain of being given the run around and being put on hold repeatedly, we considered just ditching the outbound and booking on southwest. But we wanted to check with the agent to make sure our return flight would still be valid. And of course, we were told if we did not rebook the outbound and pay the fees, the return flight would be cancelled, even though it's paid for. Extortion - $150 in change fees per ticket, for a ticket which cost $150 to begin with.

As my mother said - no wonder united is almost bankrupt and expedia is having such a hard time. If they would just pay a little more for better customer service training, train them to elevate certain situations to someone with more skill and authority, give them the ability to actually fix things, not screw their customers in fees - they would be come out ahead profit wise, imho. They wasted not only 2 hours of their service agents' time, they wasted 2 hours of mine. And frustrated me to the point of wanting to tell everyone i know - plus go online and rant about my terrible experience. Which can't be good for their reputations or businesses.

THis case is too gruesome in details i'm running a website: http://www.victimsofexpedia.com to alert people.

I bought (online from USA) a roundtrip from Europe to South America. For this trip I needed a paper ticket (not e-ticket) that EXPEDIA failed to deliver to me (one ticket was lost and the second was sent me to a wrong address - I provided the right address- ). I have proof of this (tracking number from UPS). Anyway, one of their representative advised me by phone to go to Europe and they will arrange with the airline I get a ticket at the airport. They never did it. I called to EXPEDIA many times from Europe and the airline that I was supposed to travel with (KLM) also contacted EXPEDIA. EXPEDIA never did anything to solve that problem that EXPEDIA generated and they didn't give me another solution. I had to buy (in Europe) another ticket from a different travel agency and I had to spend 15 extra days in Europe plus one extra week in South America. I've also lost many days at my job. I had lost a lot of money and my trips were useless because I had to use the money I had to solve this problem instead of enjoying my trips. TO MAKE IT SHORT, I WAS ABANDONED IN EUROPE BY EXPEDIA AFTER THEY FAILED TO PROVIDE ME A TICKET I HAD ALREADY PAID WITH MY CREDIT CARD.

EXPEDIA claims that it was my fault (It is a lie because I have e-mails from the airline telling me that EXPEDIA never arranged my trip). EXPEDIA claims that they had put all the information in the airline system. But when I asked where and when they cannot give me that information. I have documentations showing how many times I called them (and copies of e-mails I sent to them), I also have an e-mail from the airline telling me that EXPEDIA never contacted them and never put on their system the information necessary to issue me new ticket from Europe. I showed that documentation to EXPEDIA but EXPEDIA just ignore it and never made an attempt to contact the airline. Why? because EXPEDIA can lie to customers but it cannot lie to the airline.

In summary, EXPEDIA charged my credit card for 1,254.96 U$D for a ticket that was never delivered. They advised me to go to EUROPE. Once I was in Europe, EXPEDIA abandoned me there at my own with no ticket. I had to re-schedule my trips by my own and I had to buy a new ticket from another travel agency in Europe to complete my trips. EXPEDIA ignored my complaints when I was abroad. After I came back to USA, EXPEDIA tried to keep the money EXPEDIA charged in my credit card for that ticket I never had a chance to use. EXPEDIA lied to me many times and tried to keep money from my credit card in a fraudulent way. Thanks to my credit card I could recover (after almost 7 month) the full amount of that ticket but I suffered huge monetary loss due to that trouble that EXPEDIA generated.

This was EXPEDIA's official response to my case:

During my trip (before returning to USA). One of EXPEDIA's supervisor "admitted" that it was EXPEDIA's fault and told me to submit all the receipts I had for "extra expenses" . This was done by phone, however he also sent me an e-mail confirming the address where I had to send it. (read that e-mail). I sent to EXPEDIA all my receipts and a detailed amount of all my expenses. But it was another lie, EXPEDIA's "customer advisor team" (a higher level than supervisors) denied all responsibilities.

1) First, EXPEDIA try make it look as if it was my fault and they reimbursed me part of the ticket (800 U$D) they never delivered (read the e-mail EXPEDIA sent to me). Is this fair? Does it make sense? Why EXPEDIA will reimburse money if it they are sure it was my fault? They just tried to make me happy with 800 U$D and actually steal part of my money (> 400 U$D) because EXPEDIA actually never provided the service (this is simply fraud).

2) EXPEDIA tried to steal the rest of the money. It didn’t work: With the help of my credit card (VISA) I recovered another 429.99 U$D.

3) At this point, EXPEDIA still kept 59.99 because EXPEDIA charged my credit card in a way to cheat me and my credit card (see details). It didn’t work again. With the help of my credit card I recovered the rest 59.99 U$D. This was after almost 7 months. Does an honest company keep customers money for seven months? This long delay only showed that EXPEDIA tried to steal (and failed) my money no matter what. I could recover that money because my credit card fought for me and because I showed them overwhelming evidence of EXPEDIA’s lies.

4) EXPEDIA claims that I could not use the ticket I bought because the airline gave me wrong information. If this is true, EXPEDIA can provide me with names and dates when EXPEDIA contacted the airline to arrange for my trip. If I have that information I can stop bothering EXPEDIA and complain to the airline. Moreover, EXPEDIA can show that is an honest organization that care about their customers. I asked many times for this information but EXPEDIA was not able or did not want to give that information. Why? Because in fact, EXPEDIA never arranged my trip, thus, EXPEDIA has no proof of what they claim. EXPEDIA can contact the airline and clear this point with them: EXPEDIA never attempted to contact KLM.

5) I forwarded to EXPEDIA e-mails from the airline where the airline tells me that they tried to contact EXPEDIA and EXPEDIA never responded (Read the e-mail from KLM). EXPEDIA responses were several “automated” responses (since early april-2006) telling me that someone “in the appropriate department” is working on my case. But no one from EXPEDIA called me or e-mailed me after that. Even after showing them another letter from KLM telling me that EXPEDIA never attempted to arrange my trip EXPEDIA ignore my complaints.

6) When I asked for proof that EXPEDIA indeed contact KLM to arrange my trip I received THIS E-MAIL (more lies)
7) The last thing EXPEDIA did was to disable my account I had with them (and I used to send e-mail to them) and completely ignore my e-mails I sent using another e-mail address.

This was the very last message from EXPEDIA:
From: Expedia Travel Support <[email protected]>
Mailed-By: customercare.expedia.com
To: [email protected]
Date: Jul 19, 2006 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: Other questions, comments, or feedback - Case ID: [REQ:26607842]
Dear XXXX
Thank you for contacting Expedia.com.
I wish to apologize for the fact that you have not been contacted. I have once again forwarded your request to the appropriate department and have earmarked it with high priority, within 72 hours you should have a response.

If you have further questions regarding this concern, feel free to reply to this e-mail or contact Expedia.com customer services at 1-800-397-3342 and reference case ID 26607842. You can also visit the Expedia.com "Customer Support" page (http://www.Expedia.com/daily/service/default.asp) for more customer service information.
Thank you for choosing Expedia.com.
Melody
Expedia.com Customer Support Team

In response to my message: :
From: xxx < [email protected]>
Mailed-By: zmail.com
To: Expedia Travel Support <[email protected]>
Date: Jul 19, 2006 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: Other questions, comments, or feedback - Case ID: [REQ:26607842]2
Dear Sir/Madam

(Case ID: [REQ:21826350]
It has been around one month since I received this e-mail from you regarding the e-mail address or postal address of your CEOs and regarding documentation proving that EXPEDIA indeed provided the information to KLM (as you claim).

Why are you denying me that information?

Comment: I was updating my web site: (http://www.victimsofexpedia.com), as usual I'm asking you to tell me if something I put there is wrong. Please visit the site regularly and just tell me if you find something that is wrong or untrue.

Sincerely
XXXXXX

Of course, they never contacted me again.
I If you that think that what I'm writing here is not true. Ask EXPEDIA by yourself ([email protected], [email protected]) and/or read carefully all the documentation in related websites.