Complaint Review: Expedia.com

I used Expedia's to book a round trip second honeymoon destination to Australia for my wife and I in December 2016. The flight was through Virginia Australia (handled domestically through Delta). Our entire trip was planned from there (rental car, hotels, airbnb, snorkel packaging). The ticket for my wife was incidentally booked under her legal married name, rather than her maiden name as reflected on her passport. I understand how this would not allow her to fly internationally without change, and I understand that there can be fees involved to address such a change. At the Delta desk on the day of our flight, we were told that to change her name, it would have to be through your service since the ticket was booked first party. Delta assured me this would be a simple, if not standard, change. 

I called Expedia's customer service representative and while there was a quick understanding over the change needed to allow us to honor our flight deal, I was put on hold while they worked to make the name change happen. It took over two hours of standing in an airport terminal with the customer service representative popping in every 40 minutes or so to tell me that they were now on hold with Virginia Australia. Your customer service representative sounded flustered and unprepared for the task at hand. Ultimately, she told us that the change could not be processed and we would lose out on the ticket and be unable to fly, effecting cancelling this trip for us. I cannot begin to describe for you the disappointment over your customer service representative's ability to adequately handle this challenge and save our trip. The blame game quickly started -- it's Virginia Australia's policies. I was told that the change couldn't be processed in time (we were three hours early from our first flight domestic; nearly 8 from our international leg with V. Aus). I asked how long before the flight could the change have been processed, and your customer service representative had no answer for me, further clouding the waters.

Standing at the Delta desk with the minutes ticking away, I arranged separate travel for my wife. She would now fly through Dubai, arrive over 12 hours later than me, and at the cost of over two thousand dollars for a last minute ticket. 

The thing is -- we actually did get to Australia together at great cost and stress. In person, we went to the Virgin Australia desk at the airport and explained the situation to see if, at the very least, they could adjust my wife's name on her return ticket so we could travel return together. Here is where I got two diverging answers. In person, I was told that having booked through Expedia's third party service, Expedia should (and could) make the change to the ticket themselves. That's quite different from my time with their customer service representative, where I was told it was V. Aus policies keeping the change from happening. Now, this could have been more of the blame game and the deferring I encountered on your end (visions of two hour hold time come rushing back) except for one single difference -- the helpful V. Aus representative then said that if Expedia didn't make the change, that they could then do it for a fee of $200 (due to it being an international flight). The villain they were painted out to be with staunch and immovable policies had but a price -- and a far more reasonable solution than having to get a second ticket at over two grand and missing out on entire day together.

You see, our ticket could have been saved. There's no question of that now. I even asked how early in advance the ticket could be changed (as your representative implied some cutoff after the excessive hold time) but this appeared to not even be the case. The fact of the matter is, this change at most should have been a $200 fee, and my wife and I should have been able to travel together.

I accept some fault in the matter, but it is clear that the original ticket could have been salvaged. The original ticket was worth $1,300, and if you subtract the fee for the name change of $200, that is still $1,100 that was the very direct result of your customer service representatives ineptitude.