thecoogan

Hey all, I need a little bit of advice.

So, recently I added my newborn to a BA flight booked through Expedia. The call handler made a mistake on the change of booking and added his name incorrectly, I haven't been able to get it fixed since.

I have so far called them 12 times (over 3 hours of calls) and have emailed them 7-8 times. Their last communication was that they have "As per our conversation we have reissued ticket with the correct name as the new ticket number is 125-XXXXXXXXXXX". I checked on MMB and surprise surprise it's still not fixed and I'm now at the end of my tether.

I have spoken to BA and they have confirmed that my baby son would not be able to fly until they fix the name correction. They have also told me that they cannot amend the name (which I understand).

I'm now at the point where I'm wondering what options I have. These are just random things flying around my head.

1. Could I claim on travel insurance as the baby can't fly and I'm bored of trying to get them to change it.
2. Could I get Amex (Lloyds) to refund me the money?
3. Could I get Amex (Amex) to refund me the cost of adding the infant?
4. Just give up on the trip...
5. Should I just keep calling Expedia until they finally fix it... tho I'm starting to lose the plot. And still don't get how they can't do it.
6. Is there somewhere else I can go to get this issue sorted?
7. Could I take them to court (after the trip cannot be taken)?

Also, what would of happened in the case I didn't check MMB, I assume we wouldn't of been able to travel right? Especially with a baby. As BA would of had zero power to do anything.

Often1

1. First, do a three-way call with Expedia & BA. When BA confirms that the ticket remains incorrect, have Expedia fix it with all on the line. Have BA confirm that it can see the properly spelled name.
2. Second, if not #1 , can you still purchase the adult + infant ticket for roughly the cost of the Expedia-issued tickets? If so, ask Expedia to cancel for a full refund and if it will not, handle through your CC's issuing bank. Then purchase the new tickets from BA.

For the benefit of others, unless there are extraordinary savings, it is almost always easier and better to book dorectly with a carrier. This would have taken a few minutes to fix if the ticket had been issued by BA.

PAL62V

Expedia simply need to sort it and it's time to go to the organ grinder, not the monkey. Try this for starters: https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-10861

All senior management have to either respond or get their juniors to do it and any snr manager worth his salt is going to be pee'd off that he has had to be bothered by an email from you - a mere member of the public - and will want to know what the hell is going on. Just make sure you state clearly and with no emotion exactly what you have had to do up to now, detailing dates and members of staff you have emailed.

thecoogan

It was booked with a hotel so the savings was close to £200 doing it separately at the time of booking. I would always book flights direct with a carrier otherwise.

Thanks for the idea on the three way call but Expedia only have a offline name correction team, so not sure how affective that'll be but worth a try.

Lucanesque

Have you tried pinging them on Twitter (@ExpediaUK)?

thecoogan

- No, but I assume they wouldn't be any different than calling/emailing Expedia customer support.

thecoogan

That's not a bad idea. I've just got through my email correspondent with them and here are 5 times Expedia claimed to of resolved/checked the issue.

​​​​​​"As per our conversation we have reissued ticket with the correct name as the new ticket number is xxx-xxxxxxxxxxx."

"We have reviewed the name on the British Airways and could find it is corrected. It is reflecting as per their format, however there will be no issue at the time of check-in."

"As per our conversation we have issued new ticket with the correct name on the offline PNR XXXXXX as the new ticket number is xxx-xxxxxxxxxxx for INFANT NAME."

"We have reviewed the name on the British Airways and could find it is corrected. The first and the second name is attachment due to character format, however there will be no issue at the time of check-in."

"We have reviewed the itinerary xxx-xxxxxxxxxxx and could find that the name is corrected. We have sent the updated flight confirmation to your registered email address. Please keep a check on junk/spam folder."

I assume it's worth mentioning them in the email?

bhbloke

Airing their dirty laundry in public, rather than in private via e-mail/calls, so you generally get a resolution very quickly!

Often1

It has a telephone customer service team. Call them, do the 3-way call with them, and then have it fixed. Who does what in he back room at Expedia is not your concern or problem.

Globaliser

I've got two questions:-

1. [*]

corporate-wage-slave

The Amadeus tool you can perhaps use is this one:

https://classic.checkmytrip.com/plne...&SITE=XCMTXXNS

PAL62V

Absolutely. I've had to do things like this with Vodafone, etc when things have gone completely wrong. A well written and clearly laid out summary of what's happened will help a lot. What a CEO's office or any snr manager doesn't want is a rant, but in my experience a properly worded (but not too long) explanation of the issue will work wonders.

Often1

There are hundreds of complaints about Expedia here on FT alone. Efforts to use social media, to write to the CEO and so on fail miserably.

Expedia makes its money through automated service. As soon as it interacts directly with a human being, it is losing money on a given transaction.

Backing someone at Expedia into fixing the problem by making it easier to fix the problem than continue to deal with it is the only effective remedy short of legal action. Legal action is rare because time is money and most people just want their ticket.

Everything is just fine with Expedia until something goes wrong, e.g. IRROPS, name, or the hotel closes. Then it is a mess.

Ldnn1

thecoogan

1. I cannot see his name on the ticket anywhere as he was added later (I guess I should get Expedia to provide me with that). I have just used the Amadeus tool provided above but I wouldn't know if the issue is fixed as they list this name as FirstName Surname Surname and mine as FirstName Middlename Surname. So I have no way to know if his name has been fixed (the below examples the issue further).

2. My son has 2 surnames with a hyphen in-between. They have made his first surname his middle name. BA MMB show his name as FirstNameFirstSurname SecondSurname where it should be FirstName FirstSurnameSecondSurname as I know they strip out the hypens and spaces. BA have told me this is incorrect and he cannot fly so I have no reason not to believe them.

His name is correct on all our other BA flights, Latam flight, Gol flight (funny enough booked through Expedia), etc booked this year.