Expedia swallowed my money for 4 days!

hisholinessthepope

Tried to book a late holiday with Expedia yesterday. Got to the booking, fed in my card details, next screen says we have a problem please call. I call, no flights available.

So I start again find something else, get to booking, fed in card same thing! I call, no flights Excel Airways slow at updating systems.

So being really dumb I try again but now my card will not authorise, strange. So I try another card but again a problem please call.

In the meantime wife calls bank why will you not authorise? because you have no funds cos we have authorised the first two transactions. They give us the authorisation codes we call Expedia - it takes 4 days to unauthorise and "release" your money!!!!! Then I find out that third attempt has also been pre-authorised.

Now Expedia have £1650 of my cash pre-authorised on three holidays they can not provide and it will be 4 days before the money is available again from my bank! Both accounts have the money in but the available balances are £1650 less.

Call Expedia and needless to say they ain't interested. Requested three times today call from a manager - no call back. Obviously busy dealing with more people like me.

So have checked terms and conditions that you have to "tick" as you go through the process of booking. No where does it say we "pre-authorise" your payment then check if you can have the holiday.

So tomorrow will continue attempts to get hold of a manager. Will keep log of calls. Will make a complaint (for what it is worth). I suspect then next step will be to contact some newspapers (like Sunday Times money section). But have a feeling that only thing that will be left will be to threaten court action.

So what are chances of winning a case for compensation? My bank account now has £20 in it till Thursday, can not buy tank of petrol let alone book a holiday! The holiday I wanted to book was for next Saturday so thats unlikely to happen now.

doe3001

EXPEDIA.com tried to scam me once. There is no other possible expalnation for what they did after they failed to arrange one of my trips. Read a lot of horrible stories (including mine that proves EXPEDIA is a scammer) at http://www.expedianews.com

dmg24

So what are chances of winning a case for compensation? My bank account now has £20 in it till Thursday, can not buy tank of petrol let alone book a holiday! The holiday I wanted to book was for next Saturday so thats unlikely to happen now.

For goodness sake, Expedia made a mistake, and are getting it back to you as quickly as possible. Have you asked if they can credit this amount against a new booking?

Yet another 'compensation' thread ... maybe we should start a new Board for all the compensation chasers? What did budgetflyer call one of them last night?!!

dmg24

doe3001 wrote: »

EXPEDIA.com tried to scam me once. There is no other possible expalnation for what they did after they failed to arrange one of my trips. Read a lot of horrible stories (including mine that proves EXPEDIA is a scammer) at http://www.expedianews.com

I have never seen such rubbish as that website. The first article that greets you is 'Learn how to p*** off Expedia'. Grow up!

budgetflyer

dmg24 wrote: »

What did budgetflyer call one of them last night?!!

I am now proud owner of said domain

Although I must admit, If my CC was cleaned out and no holiday, I wouldnt be too happy either:eek:

hisholinessthepope

dmg24 wrote: »

For goodness sake, Expedia made a mistake, and are getting it back to you as quickly as possible. Have you asked if they can credit this amount against a new booking?

Yet another 'compensation' thread ... maybe we should start a new Board for all the compensation chasers? What did budgetflyer call one of them last night?!!

Did you actually read what I typed? I tried to book a holiday and it failed. But expedia have locked up my money. Expedia pre-authorise your payment. Then they tell you you can't have you holiday. Then it takes four days to unlock your money. I only learned all this after three attempts to book a holiday. Now my account says it has £1107 in it. But cleared funds are £20!

Expedia's systems are crap and I am now broke till Thursday. So please explain to me dmg24 what exactly I did wrong?

dmg24

You did nothing wrong, Expedia did. I stated that earlier. However, they are getting the money back to you as fast as they possibly can. If their/ the banks systems mean it takes a few days to go through, there is nothing they can do about it. I actually think four days is pretty good, many other companies will quote upwards of twenty eight days!

No doubt if you ask politely, they will give you a bit of a discount on your next booking with them, or maybe £20 on top of your refund. If you choose not to use any offered discount, that would of course be your prerogative.

Start threatening them with court, and you will most likely get nothing from them.

But compensation? What for? Trauma, death, serious injury?!

You'll have your money back in a few days. Look at the bigger picture, much worse things happen.

hisholinessthepope

I think the bigger picture is expedia's system are wrong. It has happened to me and no doubt lots of others. I have spoken to them 12 times on the phone and they couldn't care less. Wouldn't even offer an apology let alone anything else. Being polite to them got me nowhere, perservering got me a Manager on the 12th call. being a pain in the !!! got the name of her supervisor who doesn't talk to customers.

I will test out their complaints procedure and see where that takes me.

Not to sure why I would stupid enough to book anything with them again?

budgetflyer

http://www.expedianews.com/ WOW, forget chain yourself to railings. This person has "Fatal Attraction " tendancies. This is an obsession with ruining Expedia.
As far as Im concerned, this dirt digging doesnt really cut it. A lot of these things are PRO RATA. More customers = more complaints.
I remember "The Sun" doing an Everest Double Glazing horror story a day for 9 months (about 200 odd complaints) pretty sensational. It actually represented around 0.1% of their yearly custom. So 99.9% were ok.

Expedia are the same. Huge company, mostly satisfied customers. Its the 0.1% they need to deal with better.
The problem may be fraud safeguards stop them immediatly refunding the money- or the banking system

hisholinessthepope

If so why not take the time to explain it, instead of acting like we don't care?

And I doubt I am 0.1% - like I said they get your money authorised then see if you can have your booking. If you can not your stuffed for 4 days. Perhaps I should be glad it wasn't £5K on trip to Disneyland.

I am not interested in a one man crusade to rubbish expedia. But the treatment I have received is appauling.

M4RKM

yet another reason never to book with your DEBIT card, then you always have access to you money in your bank account...

again... expedia are already doing what they can, you have no grounds for any compensation, as it was YOUR CHOICE to use your debit card