“I called them and told them to cancel everything”

August 27, 2010

Jim Stewart’s trip was a disaster before he even left for the airport. When he tried to reserve a package vacation through Expedia, the price mysteriously went up. He made another reservation, tried to cancel it, rebooked another one and — you guessed it — ended up with two reservations for the same trip.

He explains,

I booked a flight, hotel and auto with Expedia for $872. Three days later they informed me the “new” price was $1,091. I called them and told them to cancel everything.

I then booked flights, etc., on my own for the exact dates that Expedia had originally booked. They went ahead and billed us for the $872 [for the first trip]. When we called them, they said I did not cancel the original flight.

I’ve talked to at least four different people who seemed trained in talking in circles. I finally wrote the general counsel on Aug. 3 and again on Aug. 17, but haven’t heard anything.

There’s so much to learn from this case, it’s hard to know where to begin.

But before we do, here are the results of a quick poll I ran between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. this morning. There were more than 500 responses.

What went wrong here? We’ll get to what happened over at Expedia in a moment. But let’s start with Stewart. It looks as if he spent some quality time on the phone. Unless he recorded the call, he’d have no verification that he tried to cancel his vacation. I would have tried to at least get some kind of verification in writing. Appealing to Expedia’s attorney is fine, as long as you go through channels first. It looks as if Stewart didn’t.

I checked with Expedia. Here’s what it said in a response to Stewart:

Through reviewing your letter, we see that you purchased a vacation package and then received an email that the package was not booked and the price had increased.

We have reviewed the enclosed documents you have provided and found that you saved an itinerary online under the account of Jas Stewart on May 23, 2010. We then show that you called into our Sales Department and purchased an identical flight and hotel package under the account name of Betsy Stewart along with a car reservation on [your] itinerary.

The enclosed documents provided show that you received an email for the saved itinerary due to a price increase. With saved itineraries, our system will generate a standard email should the price increase to advise our customers should they still pursue to purchase the saved itinerary; however, you were already confirmed on the flights and hotel reservation purchased via [your second itinerary].

You stated in your letter that you contacted our Customer Service Department to cancel the reservation on May 26, 2010 due to the fare increase. We have no record of a cancellation being requested or processed on that date.

In other words, so sorry. The flights were non-changeable, non-cancelable, the rooms had a no-show penalty. Stewart is basically out of luck. However,

As a gesture of goodwill, we have applied a $50 Expedia Travel Coupon into your Expedia.com account under Betsy Stewart. This coupon is valid for one year and can be used towards a future Expedia Special Rate Hotel or Vacation Package purchase.

So if I’m understanding this correctly, it appears his first itinerary was saved but not confirmed. He then booked another itinerary through Expedia under a different name, and tried to cancel it, but didn’t.

If you’re confused about how all this works, and indeed, if this entire case confuses you (as it does me) then you can read up on how reservations are saved and booked through Expedia’s system here. Bottom line: Steward would have been better off canceling his request online.

There’s something funny about this case. Seems to me Expedia should either sell a vacation on its site, or not. “Saving” an itinerary that could go up in price and then somehow gets booked, is troubling to me.

If nothing else, perhaps its time for that proposed law that would allow us to access our call-center conversations?

Update (noon): When my Expedia contact called this case “confusing” he wasn’t kidding! I’ve reworked this post a few times, thanks to reader comments and re-reading all of the correspondence. Wow. What a mess!

(Photo: Jonathan C aves/Flickr Creative Commons)

http://www.thetravelinggiraffe.com Crissy

I voted that a company can change a price. However, if they do that the buyer should have to confirm keeping or rejecting the offer to prevent mix ups. Also, notification of the price change should be within a few hours.

Inventories can change and change prices of packages this would cover for those instances. But this should be quite rare. When you order tickets from ticketmaster and other sites they usually have a time frame for ordering, say 4 minutes. A similar funciton for booking trips could help keep the integrity of the original quoted price.
Robert Davis

Again, why do people bother with these third party sites? It’s just another layer for things to go wrong.
TTNtraveler

If you sell something at a certain price, and you can’t complete the transaction, the client should either get the opportunity to get a full refund and walk away whole, or the company should just eat the price difference and chalk it up to the cost of doing business.
SirWired

Minor correction here: It looks like he didn’t book the saved copy of the itinerary. Instead, he called in and booked a second entirely unrelated copy of his itinerary under a different name. This one apparently already had the price increase “baked in”, but he didn’t pay attention to the part where the agent read out the pricing for the new itinerary. (Or maybe he asked them to skip it?) I can’t imagine the agent would entirely forget to mention how much the package was going to cost. He then independently booked a THIRD copy of the journey.

I have no issue with them increasing a price after an itinerary has been saved. If I don’t sign on the dotted line, then there is no commitment from the other side unless they explicitly agree to one. Most agency websites let you “save” an itinerary before purchasing, and then when you do decide to purchase, they do another fare search, and with luck, put in big bold type that your fare went up.

What happened with the cancellation request? I don’t know, but I do agree that if you cancel any arrangement, INSIST on a confirmation e-mail. Was the booking even cancelable?
http://www.elegantcruisesbyjean.com Jean

Elliott,

I believe he should find a good travel agent and speak them him or her personally and make the booking while on the phone with the agent to avoid any change in price and the hassle of working with an online source. Have one person to talk to and not go through this again.
http://qbubbles.wordpress.com qbubbles

How in the world was a vacation purchased… but not purchased? How does a company charge you for something in your “shopping cart” without your consent? I think that’s the bigger issue.
Jesse

In today’s fast moving economy, it’s not reasonable for a consumer to expect 100% of the time that the price they click “purchase” next to is going to be the exact price they get. Especially with travel which is second maybe only to stocks in changing prices moment to moment.

That being said – I think companies could do a better job of “making it right” in these situations. Though this story is rather convoluted, at a more basic level, if the price goes up after “purchase” is clicked, Expedia could win a lot of customer goodwilll by offering a voucher for the difference good for future Expedia purchases.

A good note for everyone to remember – prices go up and *down* at any given time … I bet you’ll never see anybody write to Chris asking why Expedia ended up charging him/her less than what they clicked on!
Phil

On-line travel agencies, you need a lawyer to muddle through all of their “ifs/ ands or buts” they make it as difficult as possilbe for the general public to understand what they can and cannot do, and how to go about it. Once a trip is purchased, whether it be a package or a component that should be the price. If you buy a pair of shoes from a store at price A and then two weeks later price A increases, does that give the store reason to come after you for the difference? I think not, and this should be true of these rip off on-line travel agencies. Deal face to face with a person you can actually talk to, might cost you an extra buck or two, but in the long run it might be well worth it.
Shannah

Once I buy something, I expect it will remain the same price. If the airlines change prices so fast that Expedia can’t give me 5 minutes to decide, that’s what needs to be fixed.

I also think that the day when someone could pick up the phone and expect to find someone with a good command of English, much less the authority or skill to solve a particular problem, is long gone. I know there are people who love the phone (I have a friend who insists on CALLING me when she wants to give me a URL!) but one has to do what makes sense, especially when it’s hundreds of dollars on the line.

Also, anyone who will try to book under one name, then under another, is just asking for trouble. My husband and I don’t even share a last name, and yet, we would never try this maneuver. Every time you add some complexity, you add just one more way for the situation to get messed up.

I know there are a lot of situations out there where companies screw up, and this could well be one of those. I’m just saying that often, folks bring these things on themselves by booking things on a whim, not bothering to double-check what they’re doing, trying to get fancy (“I’ll book my flight with Expedia, my hotel with Priceline, and my car with Travelocity”) and not keeping an audit trail.

For those who want to take these kinds of risks, though, one thought is to have a credit card with a very low limit, and book these things on there. That way there is no pool for the company to double-dip into.
Charles

We just updated our heating and air conditioning. When we got the quote and paid the deposit, he told us it would take two days to install. Due to complications (a defective evaporator, old valves in our house the leaked, etc.), it took nearly twice as long as he expected, causing him no end of scheduling difficulties. Did we have to pay extra? No! He quoted a price and stuck with that price, though I’m sure he lost money on the project. And, he’s not a huge company like Expedia, just a small town heating and air conditioning contractor. Once you have committed (by paying or just by agreeing to pay), no company should be able to change the price.

That said, this was a complicated case that I don’t think anyone really understands very well and it was not conveyed to Elliot very well by the customer or Expedia. I think the customer made an ASSUMPTION about the email they got, which was a reminder that a saved reservation had gone up, something that makes sense if you save, but don’t book. It would be unreasonable to expect Expedia to hold a price forever if you’ve not committed to it. They assumed the email was for the other reservation they did book. They made a lot of mistakes here, not the least of which being using more than one name or account on Expedia. I don’t think Expedia did anything wrong here and they are getting flamed, anyway. They only changed a price on something that’s not booked due to the passage of time.

As for going to a travel agent, for this customer it likely makes more sense, since they are clearly less computer savvy, though the same thing could have happened for a live travel agent if the couple had gone in separately and spoken to different agents. Some people are going to make mistakes, no matter what.
Tanya

If I am reading this correctly, he was only charged for the first “saved” trip, of $872. So, my question to Expedia is this, if that trip was merely “saved” and not purchased, and he went ahead and purchased the trip after receiving an e-mail stating the cost had gone up, why wasn’t the OP charged the higher price at $1,091? It seems like something fishy went on, or a system malfunction. But the stories do not add up. Expedia would have a better argument had they charged the higher price, or a more believable story . . .

As far as being charged more for a trip after the purchase. No. I agreed to a certain price at a certain time. The company that had the wrong price can absorb the change that occured sometime during the processing. Because if I agree to pay $600 for a trip in the morning, then the company comes back in the afternoon, after I have given my charging information and paid, and says that the trip now costs $900 because of some reason, that is not the consumer’s cost to bear. Why did the trip cost increase? Was the price misquoted? Now, options that may have been available in the morning are lost to me and deals that existed may no longer. Now, if the trip cost rises while I am making up my mind and I have not yet purchased the trip, that is a different story. I am torn on whether once something is added to a cart whether the price should be available to go up while a person is adding other elements to their trip. I know there have been stories of this happening on the online sites, and that also is a different issue.
Chicky

So, if I go to a car dealership and pick out a car and negotiate with the salesperson on a price, then go to the finance office to sign all the papers, and the finance person says, “Oh, while you went to the restroom, the price of this automobile went up $2,000. Sorry,” I just have to deal with it because we have a fast-moving economy? That doesn’t wash.
Like SirWired, I don’t have a problem with a company changing the price if all we’re looking at is a saved itinerary. That’s just going to the showroom, kicking the tires and looking at the sticker price. No commitment. BUT, once I’ve entered my CC number and hit “Buy,” then to my mind, that’s a contract between me and the provider, my card is charged for the trip, at the price I bought it for, and I start packing. As long as you haven’t hit the “buy” button, they can change prices at will, although there should be some sort of auto-refresh in place to let you know if it happens. But three days later? Um, no.
I don’t know what happened to Mr. Stewart in this case. If he bought the package and clicked “buy,” then Expedia screwed up. If not, then there’s obviously room for argument.
In any event, like other posters, I agree that booking with the actual airline, car rental, hotel web site is very often the best way to do it. I’d rather not get the “package” deal and know that my reservations are booked and paid for.
Roberto

Wait, something doesn’t add up here.

Expedia explained the price increase by saying that Stewart saved the initial $872 itinerary but did not purchase it. But then Stewart said he was charged $872! What gives?

Oh, wait. I get it. He saved AND purchased the initial $872 itinerary. The system generated the price increase notification due to the saved itinerary, but that message was irrelevant because he had already confirmed at $872. In his confusion, he called to cancel (or didn’t… there’s no proof, after all) because he thought that his $872 price got jacked up after his purchase was finalized, and he wasn’t happy about it.

I’m not sure whose side I’d take on this one, but I’m leaning toward Stewart. After all, how come the Expedia CSR didn’t tell him he was confirmed at $872 and wasn’t being charged extra? That would have cleared up the matter right there.

Of course, for all we know that Expedia CSR *did* try to tell Stewart, but Stewart was too confused or bothered to understand. This would not surprise me, because he was already confused enough to book and save an itinerary and not realize what he was doing.

I don’t think I have enough information to take a side here, but at least I now can more or less understand what the heck even transpired.
charlie

I’m thinking he saved the itinerary much like one would save something in ‘favorites’ or such…to look back at it later? In that case, it would be nice to know…hey, while you’re thinking about this trip…if you’re still thinking about ths trip it went up. If he saved the info for … well, future info…then I don’t think he saved the price.
Perhaps he didn’t know he was saving the info?
Did he think he already paid when he only saved the info? Did he not read the update on pricing correctly and Assumed it was a response to his Assumed booking? Neither of which would have been the case.
And with all these Assumptions, did our pal not get a cancellation number?
http://www.lonestar-travel.com Donna Alkarmi

I don’t understand why people won’t call a travel agent, we can be your advocate in cases like this and explain in detail the price, taxes, etc…
.com companies have their place in the industy such as a plane ticket or a random hotel in the US, but when you are planning a vacation package, call a professional, chances are our prices are either lower or the same, but you get a real person in the U.S.!
Thalassa

Wait wait wait. He SAVED it, but did not purchase it. Is that not like asking a store to hold something for you over night, but then not coming back to get it? They don’t charge you for that! And the item is still available for sale to another customer as soon as the hold is released, which is generally during a given time.

I’m a travel arranger for my company. Quite often we “save” trips, but then plans are changed before they are purchased. We usually get an email telling us that if the ticket isn’t purchased by a particular time, it will be automatically cancelled – not purchased.
Elisa

Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t a bit stupid to use two different usernames? Seems as if the confusion was purely because the customer didn’t know who they were.
Mike Z

Boy am I confused here.

So on the first booking that he thought he made, it was really just a saved booking, not an actual purchase. He thought he made the first purchase, but since it never was actually purchased, the price went up.

So he now makes the second purchase, which he actually booked and paid for.

But now Expedia booked his first purchase and billed him without him approving that purchase? This makes absolutely no sense to me. Expedia is claiming that he never really booked the first purchased that was thought to have been made, but then they billed him. Talk about being confused.
SirWired

It’s pretty clear from Expedia’s explanation that the “saved” itinerary was NEVER purchased. Instead, he manually booked an identical one over the phone with Expedia (under a different name.) It’s not clear at all if they gave him the correct pricing over the phone when he booked it; I’m thinking they did (or offered to) but he didn’t want it or didn’t pay attention since he “knew” what the pricing was from the now-outdated web quote that he ended up not using.

I won’t venture a guess as to what happened to the cancellation.
charlie

Mike, I think that’s correct up to a point. Looks like he thought he booked his first package info.
Expedia says he only saved-for-future-referance his first booking info. But apparently he thinks he booked it at that time.
Looks like he Expedia sent him a price update just fyi on his saved info in case he was still considering pursuing it.
He cancelled because he thought he had booked already and they were raising the price on his reservations.
QUESTION: What did Expedia cancel if they are saying he did not book and only saved the ressies?
Then our guy booked it all again.
QUESTION: Why?
Now we’re being told he’s been booked twice.
QUESTION: Who is saying twice, Expedia or Jim?
QUESTION: How can he be booked twice if he already cancelled once?
QUESTION: How can he be charged twice by Expedia if Expedia says he only booked once, the first time only saved.
Charles

With some thought, you can figure out what happened from the Expedia email. Okay, let’s make this clear:

On May 23, they logged onto Expedia with the account name Jas Stewart. They searched for a trip and found one they liked for the price of $872. They saved that trip. Then they called Expedia on the phone and asked for the same trip, which Expedia found for the same price on the phone. They were likely not feeling comfortable using the online system to book and preferred to talk to a person. Expedia probably asked the name of the caller. When she said here name was Betsey Stewart, they created a new account in that name. They then booked the trip over the phone under the name Betsey Stewart.

The saved trip remained in the Expedia system under the name Jas Stewart. Three days later the price of the (unpurchased) trip increased. Saving a trip is not the same as reserving it and does not lock in the price. Expedia automatically sent an email to the Stewarts indicating the price increase. They panicked, assuming the price of the trip they had purchased had gone up. They called Expedia, who likely asked for details from the email, which would have codes for the saved trip, not the purchased trip. They said to “cancel everything”. Expedia probably just cancelled the saved trip in the system. The purchased trip remained under a different account. The saved trip was never purchased. Then they booked the same trip some other way, so they had two bookings.

Throughout this whole process I can’t see any mistake that Expedia made at all. They certainly did not raise the price on an already purchased package.

I’m not a fan of local travel agents, but for this couple they make sense. They are clearly not as comfortable with the technology (after all, they didn’t book online) and should deal with someone who is. They will probably pay a LOT more, but save on the losses due to mistakes like this.
Geoff

This is not at all strange. If you deal on a computer, you get options. 1 of which is to save the information beacause you may not be ready to pay, or your just looking and not read to commit. There is no guarantee of any travel industry price until $$$ is paid! Period! I have airline tickets go up ten minutes after I reserve them and have no choice but to pay or look elswhere. Human beings, ie real live travel agents, generally can hold packages for their clients whithout this threeat hanging over their heads. Travel agents use different fares than the public sees on the packages, called contracted, or bulk fares, that “generally” don’t change over night. I smaell scam from Jim or why would he use a different name on the second reservation…..that is what is strange.
West Coaster

Elliott: Is there any chance you can run your quick polls at times other than 5:30 to 7:30 West Coast time? It would seem to me running the poll so early does not give a fair representation of the views of those around the US, only East Coast people. I would have liked to chime in on this one as while I tend not to use Expedia and similar services, I am always trying to learn more and might someday wish to use them. I am still baffled by whether he had a first reservation or not (sorry I have not had my first cup of coffee for the day).

Thanks.
Christopher Elliott

@West Coaster — yes, I’ll keep the polls open longer from now on.
Mike Z

@charles

Nothing in the Expedia correspondence or in Mr Stewarts version suggests there were two booked itinerary and one planned, but not booked (saved) itinerary. Everything I am reading suggests a saved itinerary under his name, and the actual booked one under his wife’s name. Even Expedia claims in their letter that his first one was saved and that the second was the one booked in his wife’s name.

I have re-read this thing a half dozen times already and just keep getting more confused. Here is why: They claim that his original itinerary was just saved but then went on to say that when he booked the one under his wife’s name that he added a rental car to his itinerary. So if it was only saved, how did he book a car to it????

Was he actually charged twice for the trip? I see that he says he was charged the $872 for the first trip, but was he thinking that was the first booking when it was reallt his second chance? Did he get charged for the one in his wife’s name?
David Z

Seems to me Expedia should either sell a vacation on its site, or not. “Saving” an itinerary that could go up in price and then somehow gets booked, is troubling to me.

Probably a new thing for you, Chris. Some e-commerce providers call this “shopping cart abandonment”.

What happens is some people go to a company’s web site or online shopping cart to buy something, but don’t finish for whatever reason or “abandon” the attempt to purchase. Thus the terms “shopping cart abandonment”.

Some companies’ web sites or shopping carts would “save” a record of whatever the person tried to buy, then email that person with a “reminder” to buy it at that price if they can. (and that’s assuming they indeed gave an email address to begin with…)

In this case, some travel providers allow users to save a record of the trip they looked up on their online accounts without buying it yet. None of them likely guarantee or promise to book the trip at the stated price, especially since others might book the same thing elsewhere.

It’s a bummer no one’s willing to “promise” that, though at least it saves users the trouble of having to search for the trip all over. Then again, why make promises one can’t really keep?

I too am rather confused with all this. But based on what I understood from all this, it seems the OP actually has one confirmed and paid-for trip despite what’s happened?
yuit

I’m going to go with user error on this one.

1) He saved an itinerary online, but did not book it.
2) He then [i]called[/i] to book an identical itinerary (probably not referencing the previously saved itinerary number).
3) Expedia sends him price increase notice for saved itinerary from (1); he thinks the price increase is for (2).
4) He calls to cancel. Agent sees that the itinerary is not booked. There is probably some miscommunication here, but I can’t completely fault Expedia because he saved (1) and booked (2) under two different names.
5) He books another identical itinerary (somewhere else?).

Mostly Stewart’s fault for not actually reading / understanding what he was doing, and further complicating matters by calling to book things (under two different names!). When you go to “save” an itinerary in Expedia, they pretty clearly state that you have not booked anything, and are only saving the details, and are subject to price increases.

The moral of the story: If you use an online agent, do things online; if you want a real live person helping you, go to your local travel agent.
Arizona Road Warrior

@ charlie – “Looks like he thought he booked his first package info.
Expedia says he only saved-for-future-referance his first booking info. But apparently he thinks he booked it at that time.”
- – - – - – - – - -
I have never used Expedia to book a reservation but I work for a company that uses Egencia (it was called Expedia Corporate before changing to Egencia) which is the corporate travel division of Expedia. I usually book my airline tickets directly from the airline websites but for some corporate meetings I have book the tickets from Egencia.

I have reviewed the Expedia website and the Egencia website and it seems like they are very similar. Under Egencia (I was logged into my account), I have three options: 1) Continue to checkout; 2) Temporarily reserve flight and 3) Save trip and view itinerary. Under Expedia (I was just guest since I don’t have an account), I have two options: 1) Continue with booking and 2) Save this to my itinerary.

There is a difference between ‘continue with booking’ and ‘save this to my itinerary’ like entering a credit card number or selecting a credit card that is on file; getting a confirmation number on the spot; and e-mail with the confirmation number & etc. It is hard for me to believe that Mr. Stewart booked a reservation\package online.
MJ

I think Charles’ explanation above comes closest to the real issue here, as I understand it… The customer SAVED itinerary A, then called in and booked itinerary B with same parameters but a different name. The price then went up on A and Expedia sent an email about the price increase, at which point the customer called up and canceled A (and Expedia may not have any record of this since it was technically never “booked”) and booked a new itinerary C – leaving him with 2 itineraries B & C.

Expedia is not necessarily off the hook – they could have done much better in explaining things to the customer, but if the customer really did use different accounts to book, I don’t see how any customer support agent would have known about multiple bookings.
Steve

I re-read the explanation of this case and I’m still confused.

Regardless, count me in the majority who say there is absolutely no reason whatsoever a company should be able to raise the price after a *purchase* has been made. Companies who do should be penalized heavily – maybe fined 100x the amount of the attempted increase.

Raising rates after an initial quote is different. I still find it distasteful, and I form a low opinion of companies who do it repeatedly, but I understand that especially when booking travel, inventories and prices can change rapidly. If the price changes *before* I enter my credit card # and confirm the reservation, fine. If it changes after I enter my credit card # and confirm…totally unacceptable.
Salami

Until I pay for something I understand that the price can change. That’s how it’s always worked and I’d anticipate that common sense will dictate that it will continue.
Eric

Seems like user error, though its kind of silly to “save” your vacation package and not purchase it. And regarding the idea of prices changing while you’re in the middle of selecting your travel options as being fair and logical, I say pishhh. That’s like picking up a loaf of bread at the grocery store, noting the price. Then upon reaching the check out, the price of that loaf rings up higher. “Oh I’m sorry, the price of wheat on the Mercantile Exchange has gone up since you picked that up off the shelf.”
elliot hutkin

I’m with “Robert Davis”…I often query travel sites to get (an idea of) costs and itineries, but then book thru the airline, hotel, etc. or a “real” travel agent (one who isn’t a “trained monkey” somewhere in central asia). Going thru the sites is just asking for a he said-she said run-around! If you’re savvy enough to get to a travel site by computer, you’re savvy enough to book your trip directly, but best bet is still a live travel agent!!
charlie

Perhaps the poll might have been still more precise. “Should a company be allowed to change a price to the purchaser after said purchaser has paid for said paid for item”. I can’t imagine that anyone would answer yes if they understood fully that they themselves would then be charged additionally after they thought they were already finished paying. Sure. the company can raise the price to others newly purchaing.
Whew. This mess has me thinking differently now!
I think it’s a matter of normal booking site craziness and error which can occur….combined with Jim who…well, doesn’t know what he’s been up to at all. Neither of which options are unusual and they just happened to occur simultaneously in this situation.

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