Volcano-stricken travelers pen love letters to Expedia

Since the Icelandic volcano with an unpronounceable name erupted last month, I’ve covered the questions and the resulting fallout on this site.

But what about the other side? You know, the heroic stories of customer service that went above and beyond expectations?

They do exist. My friends at Expedia recently sent me a few love letters.

Here’s one:

I called to fix my brother’s ticket during this recent chaos in Europe. The customer representative — her name was “Tisha” — helped me find the best ticket possible. She spent a lot of time and answered all my questions and addressed all my concerns. I really appreciate her help and satisfied with the customer service. Thank you.

How about this one?

I wanted to give recognition to your customer service representative, Celeste, who assisted us with canceling our vacation package. Because a family member was affected by the ash clouds, we were unable to go on our vacation. She went above and beyond to help us get a full refund.

It’s understandable that there would be a lot of wait time and frustration associated with all the chaos going on, but she was very courteous and kind in handling our situation. Due to her excellent customer service, we have decided to stick with Expedia for our future travel needs. (As a side note, we have booked with Orbitz in the past.) Please recognize Celeste for her outstanding customer service. Thank you.

Here’s another one:

I wanted to ensure complements by managment were extended to Sheree in the customer service department. I had issues with my reservation and she was not only kind and attentive, but also gave sound advice and over-the-top customer service.

I’m the last one to write such comments as I have such a busy schedule, therefore, I have to emphasize how pleasent it was to speak with her. I was calling long distance from Brussels and a bit frustrated by the wait…and Sheree was able to assure me that I would be taken care of and apologized for the delay.

I’ve been an Expedia customer for some time and have always had great service…but Sheree’s assistance today assured me Expedia was the company I should continue to do all my travel services with. Thank you!

Very impressive. If everyone’s travel experience were this good, I’d have to look for another job.

Celeste, Tisha and Sheree — nice work.

(Photo: Dagga Billa/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Sarah Di

    I’ve always received very good customer service from Expedia. All of them that I’ve spoken to when I needed to make changes for our company’s business travel have been very helpful,friendly and knowledgable. So much so that I had no qualms about using them to book my own personal travel.

  • http://praguepartmentsonline.com Martin Smith

    Rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. Expedia never even notified us of the cancellation of the flights. Never and still haven’t. They were not reachable by phone. They put nothing on their website about the delays. If we had not gone to the airport and cajoled the nice people at Delta the flight would never have been completed. I don’t who these people talked but that is not my experience at all with Expedia which I find singularly unhelpful even when you can reach them. Everything is basically your problem and you have to deal directly with the airline. I think Expedia made up that stuff and sent it to you.

  • sameer

    I’m with Martin. This stuff does sound made-up.

  • Mike

    Guy, I can believe the letters. Just because one person wasn’t satisfied that doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t be satisfied.

    I normally loathe big banks. Charging you for every service in the book and even more if you screw up. Well my local branch had a girl who went above and beyond for me a while back. Not only did she get me my old statements within a day, but she neglected to charge me the normal fee they have in place and saved me $100+. Because of this girl I continue to bank with the company, even though previously I had thoughts of switching.

  • Bill

    I’ve only had issues a couple of times that I had to call customer service for..and both times, expedia resolved them very well and in a timely manner.

    I don’t think Expedia made that stuff up at all. When you travel, read the news and don’t wait for someone to contact you about problems…be proactive.

    Anyway, I have nothing but good things to say about the service I’ve received from Expedia.

    I haven’t dealt with the other online agencies, so I have neither compliments nor complaints for them.

  • Bill

    I might add that I just came back from a trip to Orlando. United handled the flights just fine, Hertz did a good job of the car, Marriott was just fine with the hotel. The bank machines worked, the restaurants served me food, the lineups were not too bad at Disney. Disney did NOT run out of umbrellas when it rained a lot and for a long time.

    I went through airport security at Orlando Airport, they were efficient, and the lineups were not too long.

    All of this went very well despite severe weather problems at two of the three airports and tight connection times made even tighter due to the weather. They didn’t lose my bag either.

    I did pay the upgrade fees for United Plus, and it was worth it…for me and probably for the airline. It is not a lot to pay extra for that legroom.

    I also understand that during the volcano ash interruptions, many Orlando area businesses offered discounted hotel rates, free or discounted admission for delayed travellers etc.

    The prices I paid when I was there were exactly the prices quoted in every case.

    Okay, I’m done with the compliments now. But when I travel, I generally deal with the same companies, and they tend to be pretty consistent. I don’t try to save 5 bucks dealing with someone I don’t know.

  • http://noaddedsalt.blogspot.com Elisa

    Hold on Martin! Expedia might have had a very good reason not to notify you that your flights were cancelled, actually. Blame the airlines! I watched several of the European airlines’ handling of the first bunch of ash and it was sadly lacking. Not only were they not updating their own public announcements accurately (Official Facebook channels, Twitter, their own WEBSITES were either wrong or hours out of date) some of them were telling their own customers the wrong thing on the phones. Customers were being forced to track down the websites of their departing and arrival airports, hoping desperately that they’d find some kind of announcement on their flight. One poor customer went to the official counter of his (Dutch) airline in South Africa, and the staff there were completely unaware there was even an ash problem, more than 24 hours after European airports began to close.

    I do understand that in a catastrophe like this, the Expedia phone lines are too busy to get through. It was unforseeable and phone systems can’t just magically expand hugely to cope with the calls, nor can they employ 100 more people to deal with complicated booking systems on short notice.

    I will note something nice which was repeatedly pointed out. Over and over again people praised Delta for their handling of the situation. Their reps were even advising & assisting customers of their EU partner airlines correctly while the EU airlines themselves weren’t.