I will NEVER use Expedia to book a hotel again.

I needed to shift a 5 night stay I booked through Expedia from Sunday-Friday to Tuesday-Sunday. The hotel had no problem with it (I contacted them directly) and they had availability at the same price. However, they told me I needed to go through Expedia to make the change because that's where I booked it.

Because of 'Expedia policy' this simple change that would not have resulted in a refund or cancellation of any kind... would have cost me the price of a nights stay, just as if I wanted to cancel the entire reservation.

Stupid. Yes, technically it was my bad, I tried to make the change within 24 hours of checking in which according to the Expedia contract means I forfeit the price of a night's room. However, good customer service would dictate that since there wasn't a refund/cancellation involved, it was a simple time shift and the hotel had no problem with it... skip the 'it's our policy' BS and make the change and make your customer happy.

As a result, I will continue using Expedia to identify hotel rates and then go to the hotel web site and book it.

Jim

So the policy is fine except when it applies to you.

I really won't book hotel or flights thru these sites again either. I once had a fully changable, fully refundable Y tix thru Expedia. I need to change the time. THey told me they have to charge me $50 fee to change, but no $$ to cancel. It's stupid policy. So I just cancel and buy from airline website.

I'm speaking just for myself, but my experience with Expedia was broken promises, reservation errors, missing refunds (also promised), and bad/rude service when I needed to talk to them.

This was years ago. Maybe they've gotten their act together since then, but I see NO reason to find out.

It's quite possible that the contract Expedia signed with with the hotel management/owner set that policy, and the person at the front desk had no right to waive it. They may even have been ignorant of the fact that such a policy exists.

I know it works that way with Orbitz. I've taken many calls where the night auditor has waived a policy that we've been told (by the manager of the property) time and time again that we must enforce.

Or the Expedia rep. may have been having a bad day.

I agree with the concept that there's no reason to accept restrictions if you're not getting a cheaper rate, but you did accept the restrictions by booking through them.

That's what I do. Only once have I found that Expedia had a better rate than I could get by booking directly with the hotel.

The hotel could have worked with you on this. They could have checked you in for the original dates, collected their money from Expedia, and then comped you for other nights. That has happened to some Priceline customers I've read about who got the wrong dates - the hotel fixed it without any involvement from Priceline.

As stated above, Expedia is really only good for hotel price comparisons and then book directly with your hotel of choice especially if you don't want to get stuck with those Expedia Special Rates. The only other feature I use them for is the hotel distance from a specific address.

If you had booked through the hotel directly, the same would have happened (if their cancellation policy were also 24 hours). While it's possible for a hotel to waive the charge if you had booked through them, that doesn't mean everyone else has to waive the charge. The rule for your rate was one night penalty if cancelling less than 24 hours out. Why does that make them "suck"?

It has nothing to do with room availability for the two nights you are adding five days later, and it has nothing to do with the total number of nights being unchanged. The issue is that you reserved a room for tonight and now do not wish to use it. Hotels have cancellation policies so that they aren't left with a bunch of empty rooms that people had reserved and then cancelled too late for the hotel to reserve for someone else (similar to airline tickets).

This is why I love FT, I wouldn't have thought of this on my own, but now, thanks to a fellow FTer I have this little strategem in my back pocket should I ever find myself in a predicament. My co-workers come to me asking for travel help, I look so smart because of what I learn on FT. ^

I completely agree. You may not like the terms of a deal, but you accede to them when you make the deal, and it's not fair to trash the provider because later on you want to upend the deal.

Actually, the point was that if I'd booked through the hotel, I wouldn't have been charged. And this has been my experience with hotels... if they have rooms available at the original rate you reserved at, I've never run into a situation where I've been charged a full cancellation fee for shifting the arrival date around by a few days. Even though technically such a shift might fall under a 'cancellation'.

And yes, I agreed to a contract with Expedia and I expected the same flexibility that I usually get with hotels. They weren't flexible, which is their right, and, IMO relative to how I'm usually treated by hotels, Expedia sucks. Lesson learned, I won't book through them again.

Actually, the point is that you didn't. Don't blame Expedia. It's called personal responsibility.

You don't get it, do you? Expedia does not write the rules! The hotels write the rules and Expedia does the advertising and booking for them in exchange for a fee. Expedia does not operate any hotels. If Expedia let people make all kinds of changes without fees that they had agreed to, the hotels would stop advertising through Expedia. Expedia doesn't collect the one night cancellation penalty and then pocket it.

The blame for a one night cancellation penalty lies 100% with YOU. Whether a hotel would have waived the penalty if you had booked through them is 20/20 hindsight.