If you read my article yesterday it seemed that Expedia cancelled many of the reservations booked via their Tuesday coupons. They claimed that those coupons were only meant to go to Discover card holders however they worked for pretty much any card. You can read more about this in my previous post here.
Personally I had booked two reservations under my parents names for a holiday in Crete. As I am also following the comments on Miles to Memories article about the issue I saw that some people had successfully called and re-booked their holidays with Expedia. I decided I had nothing to lose and just gave it ago.
Oh boy! It turned out to be even better than the Discover coupon. After waiting on the line for an hour again I spoke with two customer service people who said they couldn’t do anything about it. I politely asked to speak to the supervisor who after checking the account said it was Expedia’s IT mistake rather than my mistake since the coupons were working with any card.
He proactively said he will go ahead and apply a $200 coupon to my account for future bookings. I can use this not only for hotel bookings but pretty much for any other Expedia product, such as flights, hotels and car rentals. It seemed that only one of my reservations was cancelled however he did mention it was better to manually cancel the second one so he can apply a coupon to it as well. This way he saved me time from calling again! Which means I ended up with $400 over two accounts.
What I gather from my conversation and the comments of other people, It looks like supervisors are aware of the issue and they are proactively rebooking or applying coupons to people’s accounts.
I honestly didn’t expect this from Expedia, I was only thinking of emailing them. I am so glad I did call them. If you had your reservation cancelled then I would suggest you give them a call and ask to speak to a supervisor. Be polite and just let them know that you would like to re-book your hotel, it might all work OK after all.
Now my dilemma is- Do I rebook my parents or I use the coupons myself. 😉
Update:
JT, a reader commented with a very interesting story about Expedia’s response as of today for the thousand of people who called. It might be worth checking in the comments section before giving them a call.
Hotel Review: Holiday Inn London Heathrow Airport
JK
My friend and I got my booking canceled by Expedia as well… However, when I called them, they offer me a $100 coupon so that I could rebook it…. For my friend’s booking, they said nothing they can do. The supervisor said she cannot give him a $100 coupon…. He is going to call again a while later hoping to find a better supervisor…
Muslim Travel Girl
This is very interesting. I would assume if they approve one they should approve the other one.
JK
The supervisor who handle my friend’s booking is different from mine. I did try to call Expedia on my friend’s behalf and quoting my itinerary number to proof that the supervisor who handle my reservation did offer me a $100 coupon as a compensation but they still don’t approve my friend’s one. I questioned them why does some supervisors are willing to offer a $100 coupon or some even $200 as compensation but they only say it is company policy. They said they are not allowed to offer coupon but some supervisors may not following the rules…
By the way, I am recommended by the others to file a complaint to BBB (Better Business Bureau), does this help?
Ed
I still have not received my money back from the reservation Expedia cancelled. I opened a dispute with my credit card. If that leads to nothing, I will sue Expedia. And THAT will gonna cost them way more than a few hundred.
Chad
I sent them an email. Frankly, I will use AirBnB over Expedia in the future. It will take 2-3 weeks for my refund to be approved. Crazy.
Muslim Travel Girl
@ Andrew Unfortunately the only email I have for them is the [email protected].
@CB I think what happened is that those who called early on managed to get the refund of coupons. However once it went out on the blogs and it has been few days the amount of calls they received was overwhelming and they decided not to entertain it anymore. I am not the only one who received compensations but I called straight away after I read it.
I don’t agree with what they are doing. I would have preferred if they emailed all those who did book their cancellation email and $50 or $100 coupon. It would have saved them so much time and energy to cover it up and it looks much better.
From my conversation with the supervisor they did seem to know about the issue and have the ability to fix it. Now why they are applying double standards for those that are calling currently is a mystery.
JK
I just talked with Expedia again and they confirmed that this is a system error. The supervisor also told me that the management team order them not to give out any discount coupon regarding this incident. He will get a warning if he give me a coupon without management approval…. I should have asked the supervisor to change my friend’s booking as well during my first call which he is willing to offer me the $100 coupon.
CB
I got disconnected the first time and I am currently trying to resolve the issue. I will let you know what happens. I have about 40 minutes invested as of now.
CB
Never got anything but the refund. Looks like you got lucky.
Andrew
i would like to have the contact information for their legal team.
Team, please include it in the comments below, thank you
MarkM
After an hour on phone, went through 2 layers and got to someone from the Vegas office who said I violated their T&C and that I was aware of the Discover card requirement. Is there any thing we can send in email back that shows the original t&c?
Muslim Travel Girl
MarkM
They are in violation of T & C and the only thing you can sent them is he previous screenshot with the the conditions published. You can find it in the link above. https://muslimtravelgirl.com/expedia/
JT
I called this morning.
(1) The first agent could not help me, so I was transferred to a supervisor. During the transfer, my call dropped.
(2) I called back. When the first agent picked up, their headset seemed to not work (I got nothing but static). I was disconnected again.
(3) I called back. I explained to the first agent that I was supposed to be connected to a supervisor in my last call. They transferred me.
The supervisor gave me bullshit about how my booking was in violation of the Terms & Conditions. I disagreed and explained that I had saved the Terms & Conditions at the time of booking. They still refused to help. I requested a manager.
The manager was the first native-English speaker I had all day, and she came out firing. She said that the booking was in violation of the T&C. I explained that it wasn’t. Then, she gave some crap about how the website’s T&C allow them to cancel bookings due to “pricing errors” – so they are justified. I explained that this was not a pricing error, as the hotel’s price was correct. She angrily said “well, you and the thousands like you are not going to get anything from me”. I asked for her supervisor.
Her supervisor had nothing productive to say, saying that she can give me the address for their legal team, but that “Expedia management has decided that this was a mistake and that there would be no compensation offered to those who ‘improperly’ used the coupon code”. She referred any further inquiries to their legal team.
So, save yourself a couple of hours and just deal with the cancellation.
Muslim Travel Girl
JT this is so rude! I can’t even believe someone will actually speak like this to a customer. I understand they are probably swamped with calls but at the end of the day it is their fault.
I am sorry for your experience.
JT
Seemingly in retaliation for my call (based on the timing), they cancelled the booking I made through a guest account. So, it is really best if you don’t call if you have any uncancelled reservations.
Parag
I’d suggest using gethuman.com. It’s free and you give them your number, they have a robot call Expedia and when expedia finally picks up, they call you. It’s awesome.
Jay
@ Elena:
I called Expedia customer service number 1-877-787-7186 and then pressed 1 for booking, but the automated message asked me to enter my itinerary # (was it the same to you too?) so I inputted it and then it said to hold if want to speak with customer service, with estimated hold time of 3 hours (wow!?? seriously?) …. so I have been on hold for 20 mins now with the background music. Is there anyway to shorten the wait time? what did I do wrong here?
Elena
@Jay
I had to do the same, however I decided to put the phone down and start again. I called and went through the new booking option 1. And asked for a supervisor. I think the long delay is because they started to get too many calls. I read some people did have to wait 3hrs or you can ask for a call back. I waited about 45min and spent 15minutes withc supervisor.
Let me know how it went for you.
Jay
Thanks for sharing, mine also was canceled and I am clueless now.
What did you say at first time talking to them, did you say “my reservation got canceled and I believe it was Expedia IT mistake rather than my mistake since the promo worked on any card?”. I am really bad with phone so need your help on this, what to say to brought up your issue to the point without offending them and make them really want to help and rebook you….thank you…it really means a lot for me.
Muslim Travel Girl
Jay I would ask to speak to a supervisor directly. To be honest he seemed to be aware of the issue.
-I told him I booked on Tuesday however last night it got cancelled and Expedia stated it was my mistake since I didn’t use Discover card. However on Tuesday your T&C’s didn’t state anything like this and my card worked. On Tuesday I had also made a booking via phone and their staff took an hour to make sure I was within the terms. -I also mentioned this. He agreed and said I can’t rebook you on this coupon however I can apply a different coupon on your account that you can use with any card within a year. Of course I said yes to this. 🙂 And that was it really he was very nice and it took less than 15min to cancel -refund and apply the coupon.
I hope this helps 🙂
Jay
thanks a lot! I am at work now and will call them as soon as I got home. Which number did you call and which prompt that you pressed to get transferred to special division who handled cancellation or customer care department?
Muslim Travel Girl
I called their 0800 number and option 1 for new booking (wait is shorter) however after I asked for customer service it took them 30min to answer. I was still an hour on the phone with them
Jay
Wow! still long wait time but I think it’s worth it as long as they can rebook you. I’ll try that and will update you, hopefully they can also rebook me or re-apply discount code into my account!