I recently booked a trip to Honolulu from Los Angeles. I have used Expedia many times in the past to book trips and was generally satisfied with the service and results. However, this recent experience changed all that for the worst. Due to circumstances beyond my control I arrived at LAX 50 minutes before my scheduled flight and rushed to the United counter to check-in but unfortunately they told me that they could no longer give me a boarding pass since we were past their 45 minute policy (we were maybe a minute or two past this deadline, they also were very rude but that's another story for another post). They told me to call Expedia since they booked the flight so I waited on hold for 30 minutes and spoke to a customer rep from Expedia who told me that she couldn't do anything to help me and that I had to forfeit the cost of my flight and purchase a new one. Needless to say this was unacceptable to me and I spoke to a supervisor who was very rude and told me basically I was out of luck, even after explaining to her my situation and that I was a loyal Expedia customer. She was apathetic about my situation and told me to try my luck talking to the airlines even though I booked the trip through Expedia. So now not only did I waste an hour of my time on the phone with a rude and unhelpful rep but now I had to rush to find another airline and pay an extra $1500 out of my pocket to book a flight to Honolulu later in the day which was also almost the same cost of my entire trip booking with Expedia! It was a horrible way to start my vacation with my fiance and left a very bitter taste in my mouth of how Expedia treats their customers. I understand it was my responsibility to get to the airport earlier, but the way their customer reps treated me was very unprofessional and left me feeling like they really could care less. I wrote them an email explaining my experience and when I received a reply they told me they would "work hard to regain my trust and business" by offering me a $50 discount for a future booking. That felt very insulting, basically they wanted me to forget my past experience and be OK to book another trip now that they're offering me a lousy $50 discount are you kidding me? This just provides further evidence that Expedia is no longer a trustworthy company that you can rely on to provide proper support if any problems arise from a trip booking and frankly I believe they no longer genuinely care about the concerns and needs of their customers if they ever did to begin with. I strongly suggest using a competitor like Travelocity which I've never had a problem with or booking through the airline directly. You might have to spend a few more dollars but the piece of mind of knowing you won't get screwed by inadequate and incompetent customer support is worth it.
Disappointed and former customer,
Mike
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