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★★★★☆

“For those of you who are impatient, here's how I felt...”

written by on 13/11/2010

For those of you who are impatient, here's how I felt overall:



My trip was great, I will use Expedia again.



For those of you who want all the nitty gritty details:



I was thoroughly worried before I booked my trip with Expedia.ca, since all of the online rating seems to say that Expedia is a nightmare to deal with. For that I do not doubt, because their call center is so busy that if you wish to contact them, you better set aside an hour or two to be put on hold for. Anyway, rather than giving you what I think, I just want to share my story in bullet form (you be the judge):



- I am a cheapo (because I am no millionaire)

- 1st time booking a trip online

- 1st time going to Japan

- Minimal knowledge of Japanese (I survived with a dictionary!)

- Travelling with family

- ...and I am the planner (could you imagine if I screwed up?)



Summary: Hotel + Flight Combo from Expedia.ca satisfies my cheapo howls

Scared - $5000 at stake (this is my 10 years saving)

No return - foreign country + 0 language skills + screw up =

$5,000 short and dismayed family



My greatest fear was that I paid and show up at the airport / hotel and no booking was made and I am left stranded and family gives me a howl on how dreadful the trip was.



What did I do?

- called up all of my friends and family who used online booking

- emailed Expedia.ca for a verification of situations

- called Expedia.ca AND voice record all of our conversation



Outcome of contacts:

- friends & family:

they are good

try to avoid changing or cancelling trips (plan ahead in other words)

always confirm your booking with the hotel & airlines

- emailed Expedia.ca:

asked them about if the price and availability fluctuates after I paid in full

never got an answer back (probably because I used all legal talks)

- called Expedia.ca:

scared the cr*p out of me because I had to wait on the phone for an hour

people don't speak English very well and are a bit grumpy

they said changes are made based on the service provider (if they ever need to charge more or less than posted)



Alright, by this time, I was ready to cry because I didn't know what to do. I hated how I had to wait on the line for a customer rep to pick up just to get a grumpy person answering (I've worked at a call centre, so I do know how it feels to have customer yelling at you for 8 hours on end). They gave me the answer though. If the prices change, it's not their fault, but you can confirm with the hotel and airline you have the bookings with.



I went whining to my boyfriend about how confused I felt (he is a super careful person when it comes to purchases). He said like how you would confirm and reconfirm even with reputable hotels, just do that and everything should be okay.



That is exactly what I did. I asked Expedia how long it would take before I can confirm hotel and airline bookings after I have paid in full. Here's what Expedia said, once payment has been received in full:

- hotels are booked immediately

- airlines booking are processed within 24 hours



The staff kindly explained to me that hotel bookings are done online, that is why it is immediate. Airline bookings are done within 24 hours because of how each airline handle their processing. I didn't really care, but good to know why.



I decided to wait 24 hours before contacting both the hotel and the airline, so I can do both in one sitting. Both the hotel and the airline confirmed by booking in less than 5 minutes on the call. I also made special requests to the airline for vegetarian meals and the hotel for a specific floor level to sleep at. From both places, I also asked for an email confirmation so I now have 2 sets of paper on hand: expedia confirmation of payment and hotel & airline confirmation emails.



About a week before my trip, I emailed the hotel again to confirm my booking and advise them of my arrival time. I also made a final confirmation with the airline regarding my meal request.



A day before my trip, I printed out my e-ticket with Air Canada and completed my online check-in.



The result? My luggage check at the airport took literally 1 minute. Airplane meals were as I requested them to be. My room was ready to my request (with a nice view of the Government Building and the city scape).



It was an addictive trip that my family wants to do it again because of how hassle free it is (of course, they did not see how much research I have put into this).



All in all =) Thank you to Expedia.ca, you saved me enough money to buy meals and lots of goodies at the price of what a guided tour would charge me without even spending a dime in Japan.



I know, some of you might think I am hired by Expedia.ca to speak good of it. Quite frankly, being the geek that I am, I even tried to trace IPs and everything when I was in my research stage. No matter what I say, it may still seem fake to you. I felt better after I thought about the psychology of people on blogs:

- how often do you get out of a restaurant / service happy and say.. hmm I'll blog about it?

- do people really tell you what they did not check or did not do when they rant? (I understand, service sector should serve perfectly, but as a good 'boss' we need to do our checking, too, right?)



Anyway, I will stop showing off now. For those of you who suffered from Expedia.ca, I am sorry to hear about that. I know my situation was rather simplistic with no changes to plans etc and I understand how freakin' angry I got when I waited on the phone for 1 hour each time I called (I called 3 times by the way... I learned to just put it on speaker phone and do chores while waiting for a person to pick up).



For those who want to try Expedia.ca... Rule of thumb for using their service:

1. Make sure you are NOT likely to have to make changes to your plans

2. Make sure you have time to do confirming and reconfirming

3. Be prepared to wait on the line for at least an hour when you call the expedia call center (=D and watch a Harry Potter DVD meanwhile you wait? Sorry, a bit of a geeky side of me.)

4. Expedia reps are not lawyers =( don't do what I did and word your question in completely policially correct terms... (I scared the cr*p out of the first rep who answered my call and he froze... ended up not being able to answer my questions at all)



Last but not least, Happy Travelling!

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