Last week I had a flight in D class SOF to JFK through Prague on Czech Air. Expedia issued an e-ticket, so I duly arrive at the airport to find that the Czech Air flight due to leave at 0815 had been replaced by a Bulgarian Air (yuck!!) code share flight at 0800. Bulgarian Air would not accept the e-ticket. The Czech Air desk, which should have opened at 0700 did not open until 0715!! Bulgarian Air completely refused to help me.

As this was 5am UK time Expedia were closed so I had to buy a replacement ticket at the airport (in economy) and make the journey. As far as I can work out I have done nothing wrong, so I have 2 questions :-

1. How quickly do people think expedia will resolve this?
2. What compensation is reasonable for this?

I hate to sound dramatic, but really it was very stressful, as the airport staff were very unhelpful (actually they looked rather happy at my clear panic) and I almosty missed the flight due to trying to negotiate a resolution, and my trip to JFK was very important!

I had a problem with Expedia last week. I had booked a hotel reservation with them, which the hotel refused to honor saying they had no record of it despite my showing them the Expedia confirmation. When I called Expedia, they said it wasnt their fault either and that it was the hotel. In the meantime, I had to pay for cabs all over trying to find a hotel that had availability. When I called Expedia upon my return, they would only offer me a $75 coupon for future hotel purchase (which I told them am scared to make after what just happened). Unfortunately, my nearly $100 in taxi bills and wasted time means nothing. Guess they've never heard of the competition's Travelocity Guarantee!

They'll have some problems doing that in this case as the flight they booked me on did not exist on that day!

Still waiting for an answer!! Ho hum!!

Keep us updated what happens!

I received my response - basically the travek agent have passed it off to the airline. I am not sure how legal that is - I thought my contract was with the agent??

Anybody any idea??

I think this sucks!!


28/11/2006

Customer Relations Reference: xxxxx

Dear Mr xxxx

I have been in contact with Czech Airlines who have advised me that they are
unable to investigate this booking as it is over a month old, however I have
been advised to e-mail them your complaint and they will investigate this for
you, which I have done.

The turn around for this investigation is approximately 6-8 weeks as advised by
Czech Airline agent.

I have advised Czech Airlines to contact your directly I advised them off you
e-mail address and telephone number.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Elwood
Customer Relations Department
Expedia.co.uk

And so I kicked up a fuss about that response, so they sent me a different one, this time without the surname, which suggests that maybe they know I am posting this on FT .

It still sucks though...

30th November 2006

Customer Relation Reference:102158841

Dear Mr xxx

Thank you for your recent correspondence relating to itinerary xxx

We sorry to learn that the airline requested paper tickets. Expedia.co.uk
operates with a live reservation Global Distribution System that is linked
directly to the airline and it was them that advised us that the tickets in fact
were E-tickets.

As regards the change of schedule time, and carrier, the airline is at liberty
to make these changes at any time

Please be advised although you purchased your flights through Expedia.co.uk, it
is in fact the airline that takes the costs of your flights directly. We only
act as an agent on behalf of the airline. Because of this, we have to apply for
a refund directly from the airline. A full report has been made and sent to the
airline. Please be aware that the airline will be contacting you directly. From
our experience, this usually takes between 6 to 8 weeks.

May we take this opportunity to offer our most sincere apologies of any
inconvenience caused.

We trust that this clarifies the situation and assure you of our best intentions
at all times.

Yours sincerely

Gillian
Customer Relations Department
Expedia.co.uk

Wow - that stinks. Expedia is totally dodging their responsibility.

Question - did you receive any kind of flight change notification from Expedia? I believe when you booked through them, they are supposed to send you flight schedule change updates. It sounds like they didn't send that to you, since you did not know about the Bulgarian Air segment. I would ask for compensation from Expedia on the basis that they did not advise you of schedule changes. They will probably try to get around this by saying that it's a passenger's responsibility to verify flight times, but it's worth a shot.


Second question - did you use any portion of the original business class ticket? If not, that is fully refundable, and Expedia should be refunding it since they issued it. That doesn't solve the problem of compensation, but it gets you some money back.

Thirdly (and I'm not 100% sure about this point, but someone else can chime in if I'm incorrect), when the airline changes for a ticket, the new airline can request paper tickets since they can't check you in on an e ticket from a different carrier. So Bulgarian Air was correct in requesting a paper ticket from you. Czech airlines should have been able to print your coupons at the airport or reissue the ticket, but it sounds like that didn't happen.

In any case, in my mind, Expedia has some responsibility to you to inform you that because of the airline change, you would not be able to use your original e ticket, and additional action was required.


hope that helps - good luck!

Just for the record: I also had a big problem with EXPEDIA (read my case).
EXPEDIA denied all responsibilities and tried to scam me. YES: there was no mistake but a failure attempt to scam me. THanks to my credit card I could recover 1254.95 USD that EXPEDIA tried to steal from my credit card.

Point 1 - I didn't receive any notification. Furthermore when I checked the ticket the morning of the flight on the internet, the details on expedia's web-site had not changed. They still showed the original times. I have had changed schedules from expedia before and when you log on your account it tells you to call them regarding the changes.

Point 2 - this was a return leg that I was flying. I had started the journey from JFK without any problems. So all I lost was a return leg of the business flight, worth just over �700. This ticket was a cheap business class so not fully changeable. But once I had not boarded the Bulgarian Air flight on this ticket, Czech Air cancelled it from the system authomatically and it was thereafter invalid for travel. Czech Air did not allow me to reschedule it for the following day when I was begging for help at the airport.

Point 3 - Interesting. At the airport they offered no help at all. I'd be interested to know if this is true.

Great website you developed - thanks for the link. It's a shame that Flyertalk doesn't have a section on on line travel agents so we can monitor how good/bad they are. Perhaps something to think about as an idea to improve what is already an amazing website!

I have resisted going down the credit card route as, for me, expedia always seem to give slightly better deals than the other websites and don't charge for using Amex, which (in the UK at least) is common. So I would like to keep my account in order.

I also have a feeling Czech Air will resolve this as, in Prague at least, their staff are truly excellent and also I have been a Gold Card member of OK Plus for a few years.

I agree, this is a great site and a section to report problems with specific travel sites will be very helpful to decide where to buy a plane ticket.

If it were me, I would dispute the credit card charge as no services were provided. Czech Air is responsible for restoring you to the same position you would have been otherwise, by paying you cash for your economy flight minus the cost of the ticket you originally bought (assuming you successfully dispute it). If Expedia screwed something up, then Czech Air should get it from them.

Did you buy this from the U.S. Expedia.com with a U.S. credit card in the U.S.? Change as appropriate; it might be important information.

On careful reading I see that you are in the UK. In that case I would contact Trading Standards and get their advice. It is pretty easy to file a small claims lawsuit online as well.

I don't know if one of the mods is reading this thread, but maybe you could suggest this to the decision akers at FT. I am sure many of us use 4 or 5 of the big online travel agents (expedia, opodo, travelocity, orbitz, lastminute spring to mind as the biggies) - would sections on each not be justified?

This would be a useful barometer of value for money and customer service that each site offers.

Actually I did receive some service - these problems occured on the return leg. Outbound tickets had been honoured no problem a month earlier. So I think that this invalidates a credit card claim, but I guess I should call amex to clarify the situation.

Czech air should pay half a business class fare, less the cost of the one way economy, plus the lost airmiles and hopefully a few more airmiles for the inconvenience caused.

Still waiting though!!