mlozio

I recently had a VERY similar situation with United Airlines. I was booked, ewr-iad-dme, and was later contacted and was told that they could only transport me the day before or the day after because United was no longer offering service on Mondays. So, I called Expedia (who I bought it through), and said these were not acceptable but they told me that I had no other options but a refund, but the price was too good to let go and rebook on another carrier. So I accepted the next day flight (visa destination, could not go day before).
Called Expedia and e-mailed to say that I was unhappy with them as my travel agent, and that I was not informed of all my options....for a mere $15 more, they could have refunded and rebooked us on LH, but they did not offer this. They argued that they would only change now for a $150 change fee, and they argued the fee was United Airlines, but according to United, they were not charging me to change due to involuntary reroute, which lead me to believe this was an Expedia fee, that they were just unwilling to waive. So instead, I emailed United Executive offices, and received a phone call, and United protected us on LH (contrary to what Expedia told us), and reissued tix. Expedia itinerary doesn't show updated flights, and I am afraid to call them, thinking that they might try to hit me up with the "$150 Change Fee". Any thoughts? Will Expedia ever pick up on this? Does it matter if I tell them or not? Thanks in advance.

mbstone

I have noted a very large number of recent complaints in various online fora about Expedia, especially from people who were promised refunds and who did not get them in a reasonable period of time. Remember that Expedia is part of Microsoft and the terms of service would appear to make it very difficult indeed to obtain a favorable resolution of your complaint against them.

colmc

Expedia hasn't been part of Microsoft for a couple of years..

BLI-Flyer

I had Alaska rebook me for a similar schedule change issue. They just "took over" the ticket from Expedia. Although the itinerary on Expedia didn't show as correct, the itinerary on AS did. If United rebooked you, I wouldn't worry about it.

mlozio

Thanks BLI, finally bit the bullet and called Expedia. They said the same thing you did. Many thanks for the feedback.

Zarf4

In most cases the online booking sources don't actually issue the ticket. It was probably issued by Alaska in the first place and Expedia has very little control other than to act as an intermediary if you are looking for a change, refund, etc. once the ticket has been issued.

I've had very bad experiences dealing with: Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, et al. whenever anything unforeseen came up.

One thing to do after booking the ticket is to always get the actual ticket number(s) before flying (not just the PNRs) even if you have to call the online customer support office.

In mlozio's case I'm very sure the ticket # would start with "016" indicating it was printed on United stock. This also means that ONLY UA can help you out -- if you call Expedia you'll just get an unmotivated (insert calling center flavor of the month country here) rep who will just wind up putting you on hold while calling UA and taking their first option without explaining your situation. You will always have better results if you get a sympathetic rep & politely state your case (and if you don't, try calling again.)

This is especially useful if you have an "interlined" ticket (i.e., outbound flight on UA, return on AA). Your AA PNR may be invisible to the UA agent, only the ticket number is guaranteed to look up your flight.