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Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Court Date Set with Expedia

So the Expedia saga that began a few weeks ago continues.  Melissa is determined to get some benefit out of the $750 in credits Expedia had promised but didn’t deliver.  Her last blog posting got some attention from someone at corporate, and they emailed to let her know they are very sorry for the email that stated she had a credit with British when she didn’t.  They continued their stance that they will honor the credit, but that the remaining fare rules still apply – we have to book a trip on British. Melissa asked to see a copy of the fare rules which Expedia then supplied.  They are nearly unintelligible.  Funny when you think about the fact that their original email said we were to “please carefully review the Fare Rules” which were not supplied with the email.  So if we the consumers are supposed to read and understand the Fare Rules, shouldn’t they be written in plain English?  Ok, that’s not Expedia’s fault – it’s a problem with the airline industry in general.  None the less – irritating.

Expedia continues to tell us to call customer service to book a new itinerary.  As the fare rules state that there are a ton of flights that can’t be booked by flight number range (i.e. you can’t book “BA FLIGHTS 8450 THROUGH 8497”) this makes it nearly impossible to figure out what flights we CAN book.  Moreover this is complicated by the fact that we could go dang near to anywhere from anywhere.  Like we could go on a sightseeing trip to South America from El Salvador in April.  If we could figure out what British flights Expedia has access to that originate in El Salvador.  The possibilities for us in the next year are nearly endless.  So Melissa asks Expedia for a list of British flights in their system.  They refuse to give it to her stating that it’s a constantly moving target.  Melissa says that this makes it impossible to figure out – can they just give her a hint – say like whether they have any Central America flights or not?  Again they refuse and tell her to call customer service to work on an itinerary.  Melissa then points out that they are asking her to make a phone call on her cell phone from Mexico that is likely to take HOURS as this is a hunt and peck exercise.  Expedia responds with repeated instructions for us to call the call center and “this matter has been closed with the Corporate Customer Service Department”.

Still determined, Melissa starts researching with the British Airlines website – they have some cool low fare finder tools.  Between searching on the British website and the Expedia website what becomes clear is that Expedia appears not to have access to any “code share” British flights - meaning that a flight that has a British flight number – but is operated by another carrier such as American Airlines.  These flights will only show up in Expedia with the American Airlines flight number.  Further research tends to indicate that this eliminates all itinerary possibilities within America, Central America, and the Caribbean.  Of course, we could fly from Central America to London on British – but for WAY more than the credit we have available.  This leaves us with only one choice for using the credit and not give Expedia any more money– to book flights within Europe.  So Melissa starts researching a “what if” scenario that would take us to Southern France and Northern Italy in the fall for the wine harvest.  After hours of research, she finally selects an itinerary which is available through Expedia’s system, and fits within the available credit:

We will have to figure out how to get to/from London later depending on where we are in September.  But some research on Alaska shows that we might get a flight using our miles to London around that time frame out of the Caribbean (one possible location we might be come September).

So Melissa calls Expedia now armed with a specific itinerary she knows is available and will fit dollar wise within the available credit.  The customer service agent looks at the case record and confirms we can use the credit on these flights.  The agent says that the cost of the flights will be $213.  Note that’s almost $100 per ticket less than the screen shot above from Expedia’s website.  Only because Melissa had spent hours on British’s website did she realize what the agent was doing – she was booking a fare with British that didn’t have any baggage allowance.  This would mean we would have to pay $240 in baggage fees for the two of us for two flights when we got to the airport and were informed the tickets were “carry-on only”.  Melissa cries foul to the agent who then found the $301 fare shown above that includes baggage.  This is a total scam.  The $213 fare isn’t available on the customer website, but the agent was going to give it to us without informing us as to the lack of baggage allowance – presumably because these flights are coming out of Expedia’s pocket due to their original screw up promising us a credit.  Unbelievable.  Talk about operating in bad faith.

So after the agent finds the right flights that are higher priced but include the baggage allowance, she informs Melissa that we will have to pay $120 in re-ticketing costs.  Melissa says, no way – take it out of our credit.  The agent informs her that they can’t use the credit – we have to actually pay more money out of our pocket – despite there being enough funds in the available credit to cover the additional fees.  Nowhere was it previously mentioned additional cash out of pocket was required.  Nowhere is there a reference to this additional ticketing fee in the fare rules that we can find.  Melissa demands a supervisor.  The supervisor tells her the same thing.  Melissa hangs up in utter dismay and disgust.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Melissa looked up what it would take to file a small claims lawsuit in King County.  According to her research, we can sue in small claims because Expedia is headquartered in Bellevue.  So this morning she called her Dad first thing and asked whether he was willing to help in this quest to get someone at Expedia to right this series of wrongs.  Dad responded that he was happy to saddle up Silver and head into town.  So we now have a court date of February 3rd in Issaquah - King County Small Claims Court.  We shall see what response we get when headquarters is served with the lawsuit next week.

 

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