EXPEDIA

Are “unpublished” hotel reservations too hard to cancel?

Question: I recently tried to book a four-star hotel in New York through Expedia’s unpublished rates section, which doesn’t reveal the name of the hotel until you pay for it. The hotel we ended up with was DoubleTree by Hilton New York Chelsea, which is only listed as a three-star hotel on other popular websites. I understood before calling that Expedia has a no-cancellation policy on the unpublished hotel rates, but I figured if I called right away I might be lucky enough to get it canceled.
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Unnatural disaster: What to do when your hotel doesn’t have room

The deadly storms that left large swaths of the East Coast without power just before the Fourth of July holiday provided an uncomfortable lesson to hotel guests like Ken White: Always call to confirm your reservation — especially when the place you’re visiting is reeling from a natural disaster.

White lives in Charlottesville, Va., an area that was hit hard by the hurricane-force winds. Many residents were struggling to stay cool in record-breaking heat, and checking into an air-conditioned hotel nearby was a popular solution.
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“I could have been murdered”

Danger in paradise? / Photo by http 2007 - Flickr
I’m not the first person Rose Caiazzo has told her story about the trouble she had in the Dominican Republic. You can find it elsewhere online.

But when she contacted me, she wanted to do more than talk. She wanted some action.
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So you have a screen shot of your Expedia booking — so what?

How much more proof does he need?
One of the cardinal rules of getting better customer service is keeping meticulous records. When you’re booking online, a screen shot of the purchase is your trump card.

Paul Towse thought he had that trump card when his Expedia UK reservation didn’t turn out as expected. Back in January, he booked a flight between San Francisco and Las Vegas on flights offered by US Airways and operated by United Airlines.
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153 comments

Help! Code-sharing confusion grounded my vacation

Maybe it's not better in the Bahamas. / Photo by H Butler
Question: We booked a ticket from Washington to the Bahamas recently through Expedia. It was a code-share flight Bahamasair operated by US Airways.

At the US Airways check-in counter we, and about 50 other travelers, were told by US Airways ticket agents that Bahamasair had not transferred the ticket information to the US Airways system and so none of us could board.
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Hey, that’s no four-star hotel!

Question: I recently booked a hotel in Prague through Expedia. While perusing the hotels online, I saw an advertisement for an unpublished rate hotel. I clicked the advertisement and was presented with three four-star hotels from which to choose.
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The Expedia ticket vouchers that never existed

Question: We recently canceled a trip from Minneapolis to Asuncion, Paraguay, that we had booked on Delta Air Lines through Expedia. We were issued two flight vouchers, which we are trying to redeem. But Expedia isn’t letting us.

The vouchers — one for $1,186, the other for $936 — were supposed to be valid until Jan. 15. But when I called Delta to cash them in, we were told the vouchers had already expired in September.
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52 comments