Beware of an Expedia error message that tells you to ‘Please try your search again’.

JohnRA

In the small hours of the morning (yes, I know that’s an odd time to be doing this) I was trying to book a city break to Dublin on the Expedia web site. After selecting a hotel and flight I entered all my details, including my debit card details, and went ahead with the booking.
After quite a while, the website displayed the following error message:

‘Sorry we weren’t able to proceed with your booking. Please try your search again.’

I assumed that maybe the hotel I had selected was no longer available, or maybe my chosen flight was fully booked. I clicked on the ‘search again’ part of the error message and this took me back to the main search page so that I could select another hotel/flight combination.
Initially, I decided to try the same combination, but I was presented with the same error message and was, again, invited to try my ‘search again’.
On this occasion, I tried a different hotel and got the same error message for a third time.
Just then, I received a text from my bank. It had come from the fraud department and they were checking that it was actually me that was attempting the transactions. I was invited to reply to the text with a ‘y’ to confirm it was me.
‘Ah’, I thought, ‘that explains it.’ My bank had picked up on the fact that I was trying to carry out a transaction at an unusual time. After replying ‘y’ to my bank’s text, I was confident that I would be able to book the break.
I tried my original combination of flight and hotel. Still no luck – I got the same error message.
I called Expedia and the service agent told me that there had been some sort of error and no reservation had been made in my name. I asked if any charges would have been made and the agent confirmed ‘nothing will have been charged to my card’.
You can maybe guess what’s coming next.
The following day, I had reason to check my online bank balance. Straight away, I could see that something was very wrong. My available balance had dropped by over £2000.00, although my actual balance looked okay.
I called my bank. They told me that a ‘hold’ had been put on four separate amounts on my current account by Expedia. I explained what had happened when I tried to make the booking earlier that day. My bank’s customer support agent to me that although the Expedia website had displayed a message saying the bookings could not be completed, the requests for payments had still been made. The total amount ‘on hold’ from the four attempts to book was £2,077.09.
Now even though the amount was ‘pending’, and Expedia hadn’t actually taken the money, it was still over two thousand pounds of my money that I needed to use to live on, pay bills, buy food, etc.
My bank said that there was nothing they could do about it and that I should contact Expedia. Until the hold was removed, I would not have access to the amount on hold.
I called Expedia and, after a very long wait, spoke to an agent who confirmed that the amount was being kept on hold. I explained about the website’s error message and being told to ‘search again’. The Expedia agent said that there had clearly been some sort of a problem with the website. I said that I would no longer be making a booking, and that the hold on my money would need to be removed. The agent told me there was nothing he could do and that the hold would ‘expire in a few days’. I said that I could not go a ‘few days’ without being able to access such a large amount of money. The agent again said that, although he understood my frustration, there was nothing he could do because it was an automated system.
I checked online and saw that this was a common issue. One site advised getting the authorisation codes for the transactions from my bank, passing them to Expedia and asking for the ‘holds’ to be removed.
My bank gave the codes and I called Expedia back.
After another very long wait I spoke to another agent. He told me that even with the authorisation codes there nothing that could be done to speed up the process. I tried speaking to a floor manager and was told the same thing.
Well, at least I will regain access to my money eventually, but it could take a few days. In the meantime, I have had to pay my bills by moving cash from a savings account. I’m lucky to be able to do that. What if I was a family living from month to month with no savings to fall back on and the majority of my bank balance was being ‘held’ by Expedia?
I think the first issue here is the error message that appeared on the Expedia website:

‘‘Sorry we weren’t able to proceed with your booking. Please try your search again.’

The ‘search again’ part is a link that takes you back to the site’s search page so that you can select another destination, hotel, flight, etc. The error message and link actively encourages you to try again without making it clear that payment for the failed attempt might already have been requested from your bank.
Secondly, there must surely be some system put in place that allows Expedia’s payments system to remove holds that are put on a prospective customer’s money in error? My research on the web revealed that, depending who you bank with, it can take up to seven working days for these holds to ‘fall back’ releasing the money back to account holder. That’s seven ‘working days’ so almost two weeks in total.
So, at the time of writing this, Expedia still have a hold on £2,077.99 of my cash, even though I have nothing booked with them.
Please be careful on Expedia’s site and their app. If you see the same error message I did, or indeed any other error, DO NOT attempt to book again without checking with your bank first.

Archergirl

If you know the flight and hotel, why use Expidia? Just do it your self and cut out the middle man, must easier if you need to change anything.

Voyager2002

Archergirl wrote: »

If you know the flight and hotel, why use Expidia? Just do it your self and cut out the middle man, must easier if you need to change anything.

Expedia does sometimes offer better value than one can get by booking independently: whether that small gain justifies the problems the OP experienced is an interesting question.

Sshorley91

I’m kinda in the same boat at the moment. Did you ever get your money back and if so how long did it take

Westin

JohnRA was unfortunately just a One Hit Wonder.

He opened an account, posted his long tale and never returned.

getmore4less

Hold are a problem in plenty of scenarios

Don't use a debit card as that puts holds on real money.