I've got to agree with JS. You cancelled within 24 hours so you should expect to pay one night cancellation costs.

You could have booked through any other site and you would have had the same problem. Even when you book direct with the hotel increasingly you have to cancel before 6pm day before arrival. And often on special rates direct with the hotel there are no changes allowed at all!

That said, I do think Expedia sucks, but of course not for the OP's reason. I am continually baffled why people use Expedia. You can almost always get a better rate direct with the hotel. They have a nice website which I use to find out where I want to stay... Then I make a booking direct with the hotel.

This isn't the greatest example, but...

suppose John buys tickets to Jim's play from Jim and they enter a contract. John then sells a ticket to Mary and says it is non-refundable. Kater on, Mary wants to refund them so she goes to Jim and he says it's fine.

Even though it may be fine by Jim (the hotel), John's (expedia's) agreement may not allow him to refund the play ticket. Mary accepted the terms of the ticket and is not entitled to the refund no matter which way you look at it.

With that being said - I agree that expedia sucks

Cheers

A few years ago the third-party sites would buy blocks of rooms wholesale and set their own price. Frequently, especially close to travel dates, they were considerably less than the hotel direct. So you got something for the restrictions. That loophole got pluged years ago. Occassionally they have rooms left after the hotel itself has sold out, but that is about the only advantage left.

I have always found that the hotels have much better rates and deals than these third parties. We recently called a travel agent in Hawaii who had a "relationship" with the Four Seasons. They advertised a fifth night free for this fall even though the Four Seasons is not partaking in this deal because of renovations. We thought we had found something great until we called them. They called us back and said they can't honor that deal because the Four Seasons is not doing this deal this fall. This deal was on their website. They started asking us what other hotels we liked over there. It felt like a bait and switch. We ended up booking with AA vacations at a 5% discount. It was a special promotion for their 25th aniversary. With the Four Seasons, we do look for deals because it is so expensive. We book all other hotels through their website. I am always afraid something will go wrong and I will have trouble with a travel agent. We have had to switch hotels a couple of times. We had complete control when checking out early. Try calling a travel agent on a Sunday to have them switch you. It can turn into a nightmare. I have heard horror stories about the Travelocity guarantee. You can't reach a reservations agent when you want and then they find all the loopholes they can to charge you fee's.

It takes just a few minutes to go onto the hotel's website and book it yourself. It will actually cost you more in the end if you have problems and want to change hotels. (change fees, cancellation fees, etc.)

As a long time traveler, I generally avoid the third party sites for booking hotels. As other posters have pointed out, you can score better deals with the hotels themselves, while avoiding 3rd party contract bs.

That said I do use them for things like looking for flights (though I will often just book direct with the airline), and car rentals. They do seem to be exceptionally good at finding cars when other avenues fail.

As a side note, I've had Expedia reps be extremely helpful. Just another example of CSR Roulette..

I use third party vendors like Expedia in general for price comparison or if I want to book an all in vacation package (e.g flight, car, hotel) for fixed dates and don't want to piece it together myself. Otherwise if I need a flight or a hotel or a rental car by itself I will only book with the company (airline, hotel, car company) direct. If you have a 3rd party there is just one more person to screw things up or one more policy to follow.

My advice on this (and I've done it before) is Don't call Expedia. If you purchace air travel (as opposed to hotel and car rental) Once the ticket is bought you can bypass Expedia altogether, in fact I do this all the time and I've never had a problem.

Of course if you can book directly with the airline in the first place, why use Expedia?

cheers,

_m

Droopy,

Agreed, most of the time i just use Expedia, et. al. for quick pricing of a route. but often i find myself having to pinch pennies for a customer and doing multi-city routings on different carriers to save some dough... Expedia seems to do well with these.

That said, if i can book directly with a carrier, i do.. it's definitely much less hassle.

cheers,

_m

I agree with the posts that Expedia is a research tool. Why use it? IMHO, it's a great site for comparison shopping, but that's about it.

CF,

well, "I" use it for some of the weird multicity 2-3 carrier stuff i sometimes need to do to reduce costs. Expedia/Orbitz have been good for this. Luckily i don't have to do as much of that with my new gig.

I also sometimes use it to get cheap CO flights on NW metal :)

Lastly, sometimes it's just easier to quickly book a flight and go, especally when I find out i get to go home that day instead of the next. Trusted travel arranger is handy for this as well. Again, hopefully I'll not have do that as much.

On the other hand i like to crosscheck the third party prices from time to time. Usually Expedia is inline with the carriers (plus service fee, etc.), but i've found fares, some more than $300 less for the same dest (different itinerary tho) on the airline sites. I don't see this often, but it's happened to me as recently as this January on a SAN=>HOU for a CO flight...

Mainly for me it's used for weird multicarrier itineraries.

_m

Expedia's in the right, but I think the real complaint is that they're unwilling to bend rules when it's reasonable to do so. That's usually a test of good customer service.

For your reference Expedia also owns Hotels.com, so they may have equally bad service. I used Expedia ONCE -- they'll have to offer a ridiculously good deal before I try them again.

Expedia sucks!!!!!!
No other words for it. Leaving a customer completely in the lurch and severely &^%#@^*ED!

Due to Hurricane Irma, I've had to make alternate arrangements and I simply wont be hone for another week as a result.
I formed a plan, made all the required arrangements to fly from Ecuador to Costa Rica, to get a weeks worth of work in while I am delayed getting back to the US. Booked the flight with Expedia 3 days before travel.
Show up at the Copa check in counter and am told that Ecuador is the only country in South America that Costa Rica will not allow people to frly from, without their Yellow Fever docs. (MY dos was back in Chicago)
Expedia's response, tough titty, your on your own,.
The did inform me that it was entirely MY fault, that I didn't know about this, after all, COoa puts this up as a warning on their web site.
But Expedia simply doesen't bother with such issues, once they've got your money, you can go piss up a rope.
Now I'm stuck, no way back to the USA for at least a week, (due to Irma) no way to get to Costa rica, without first seeing a doctor and getting another yellow fever shot, and then paying full fare, for a day of flight cost ticket.

Now stuck with a ton of expenses and

Thanks Expedia,
I will definitely be taking action and fully expect to see you in court, win loose or draw, I guarantee you are going to spend ton on lawyers.
I will be telling everyone I know about you, warring as many as I can about you and definitely starting a web site shortly, ExpediaSucks.com, look for it.

You specialize in taking money for the easy and simple transactions, and then cut your losses and run like a little school girl hen things get difficult.

No one should expect any help assistance or even good advice from these people, they are complete charlatans.

Their standard response you can expect:
Our policy is: bla bla bla, (Its all your fault and were couldn't care less.)
Don't take the risk, book direct with the airline, they at least can help (although some don't)
:t d::mad :: td::td :

Umm, sounds like you didn't make all the required arrangements beforehand. Much like requiring a visa for certain countries, Expedia will not go out of their way to ensure that you're compliant; this has always been on the traveler to verify. I actually fail to see how they even goofed here.

Edit: This thread is over 10 years old. Probably not the best idea to revive it.