Word of warning about expedia.ie

Naked Lepper

Booked flights worth €3000 on their site last week.

Typed in the last name of one of the passengers incorrectly (wong name completely)

Noticed straight away (noon saturday) and decided to call their Irish number (the only number anywhere online for them)

Kept routing my through to the UK office, apparently there was no answer in Ireland or something despite their offices being open until 10pm apparently)

Got through two one guy and explained the issue and he was going to sort it, he put me on hold for 30 minute before hanging up.. same thing happened second time around - I have been on phone for around an hour by now.

Eventually I got through to someone who would explain things to me on the third call and it was apparently a very big problem and they couldnt fix it because they were the UK office and had no access to the irish systems. They said to hold and theyd try ring ireland and someone might help. Again, after 30mins on hold the call dropped.

After much of the same for a few more hours I finally got someone who told me that I WOULD be able to change the name on the flight but the only way they could do it was to cancel the flight and for me to rebook (if i had rang up after 9pm that evening they would have not been able to do this as they money would have gone to the airline- thankfully i rang up on time)

They said theyd ring me back in an hour and took my number - they needed to get someone in ireland with access to their systems to handle the call.

An hour passed and no answer so I call up again, this time i am on the phone for 50 minutes (mainly on hold) and there is still no sign of a resolution or anyone in Ireland willing to take the call and help me fix this.

Finally got someone in ireland (this is 4.30pm btw, having been on phone since noon pretty much) who could fix it.. they cancelled the wrong name and i rebooked.

Thankfully I realised straight away of the discrepency and rang up to fix and thankfully I had nothing else to do for 5 hours on a Saturday afternoon but to sit around on hold all day (after 2 hours or so, the battery in my cordless phone died once and I had to call back, thats how bad it was)

finbarrk

I wonder would an email have done the same thing?

Naked Lepper

If the flight had not been cancelled and re-booked before 9pm on Saturday night then it would not have been possible to do so. Apparently you cant change details on the flights after they have been paid for (to the airline) and expedia transfer cash every night.

The routing is with three different airlines so it would have been a logistical nightmare to get it resolved had I not persisted for the whole day. Just a word of warning to double check everything and dont expect customer service.

travelguru

Wow!!Sounds like a horrible experience..make sure to check your spelling even,triple check just for safety. It sucks that you can be one letter off and it could end up costing you a lot of money. I remember I was booking a flight for my friend and was on the computer for so long that i typed in my name instead of his, least to say he was annoyed at paying the 50 euro change name fee...i felt like an idiot..