Weirdoalisa
Hollister,#2Author of original report
Sat, December 27, 2008
I couldn't sleep at night knowing Expedia had gotten me to give up. So I called again, not to customer support, but to the booking agents. I pretended to book another ANA flight (a restricted ticket) and I again asked the agent if the dates on the ticket were flexible, even a year later. He said YES. I asked if he was SURE. He said yes, I'm SURE. Livid, I hung up on him and got right back on the horn with customer support. I told them that if I hadn't been repeatedly reassured by THEIR agent that my ticket was flexible I would have bought a different, more expensive ticket. I made sure they understood that I was out several hundred dollars because their agents don't know what they are talking about. I talked to a peon, a supervisor, and then that supervisor contacted some "board" or something who called me back with their decision a half hour later- I got the refund for half my ticket that I was asking for. Things I learned: 1) Expedia has two kinds of people working for them on the phones: customer service agents and telesales agents. If you MUST use expedia, make sure you direct all questions to a customer service agent at 1-800-expedia and NOT a telesales agent (the number is different). The telesales agents will say anything to get that commission. 2) Don't give up. Even if they offer you some $50 dollar voucher and you take it (like I did) out of sheer exhaustion, you never promised to stop hounding them. Calling a different person could produce different results (And no, I don't intend to use that voucher) 3)Be clear about what you want. When the first agent was smart enough to ask me what I wanted to solve my complaint, I told her I thought a refund on half my ticket was fair. She put that in the notes and every agent I spoke to thereafter based their conversations with me on that framework. They're not authorized to bargain, so if you start by saying you want a refund, they probably won't try any BS about a cheap hotel voucher.