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Has Anyone Had Problems Lately With Expedia or Orbitz?

Has Anyone Had Problems Lately With Expedia or Orbitz?

Old Mar 26th, 2010, 06:01 PM
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Has Anyone Had Problems Lately With Expedia or Orbitz?

We've been trying to purchase a round-trip ticket from Baltimore to London via Detroit for my step-daughter on Delta/KLM through Expedia and Orbitz after her husband cashed in his Delta Sky Miles earlier this evening for a similar ticket. The fare is advertised on Kayak at $962, but after trying to purchase the ticket through the Expedia and Orbitz websites, we are told that the fare is unavailable and the cheapest fare available is $1,300. Repeated calls to Expedia and Orbitz only resulted in lots of apologies and offers of tickets at higher fares. The only reason they're flying through Detroit is because the fares through that city were the cheapest we found. Anyone else out there been victim to this version of bait-and-switch? We've bought lots of tickets through Cheap Tickets, and never experienced anything like this with them.
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 06:38 PM
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I am going to be the first to respond to my own post. Now we've tried to buy a ticket through Priceline and Travelocity (both at $962), and they too give us the same message after entering all the required info when attempting to purchase - that fare is no longer available. Tell me, are they all in cahoots with each other? Maybe I just don't understand how that business operates. I need to be enlightened.
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 06:46 PM
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That kept happening to me when I was trying to book my tickets for my safari. One fare would come up on Kayak or Vayama, then I'd get an error message and the fare would never actually be available.

I gave up and had a travel agent friend book it all for me. She got it all done and got a decent price.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 04:58 AM
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Most probably the low advertised fare had certain restrictions, such as length of stay or days of travel, which after you put in your entire itinerary, did not apply. Just like taxes cannot be determined until the entire itinerary is selected. Or it could be something else.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 05:54 AM
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Two words:

Travel agent.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 06:07 AM
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I've never been able to get the actual fares listed on Kayak. I always look up fares on itasoftware and then book directly with the airline. You can't book through them as they are search only.

FYI - You should post your dates.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 08:33 AM
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Have been able to book on Obitz on exactly the itinerary that showed on the screen for the exact price on the screen. The airline suggested I should have booked directly with them so they would help if anything had gone wrong with the flight. My friend said she had been having trouble with other airlines lately.

I also booked two tickets on Expedia using ThankYouNetwork & it was the same price as the website advertised. Sometimes in the past when I was doing a sample booking (didn't pay), the fare would change while I was entering info or before I was able to get to payment page.

I have never had a great deal of success talking with the folks at the customer service desks. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find helpful LIVE agents either!
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 12:30 PM
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Thank you to everyone who replied. We sort of resolved the issue, but not as we had hoped. My step-daughter finally was able to book a flight through Cheap Tickets, flying from Baltimore to London via Detroit on the same flights as her husband. Her return flight from London was the same as ours (London to JFK), but then she connected with a flight to Baltimore, where she would meet her husband (their separate flights arrived about 45 minutes apart). That was early this morning. A few hours later, she gets an email from Cheap Tickets that her itinerary has been changed, since her flight out of Baltimore was no longer available at the price she paid. So, they moved her to an earlier Baltimore departure. That would have worked just fine, because we are driving from Maryland to JFK that morning, and could have dropped her off at BWI. But, on top of everything else, they had ticketed her incorrectly, even though they had her name. Cheap Tickets ticketed her with the name that they had on file with her email address, which was her maiden name and would not have matched her passport. Out of courtesy, Cheap Tickets allowed her to cancel her ticket without incurring any penalty. So, here we were back to square one. She went ahead and booked herself on our Delta flight out of JFK at $932, and she will drive with us to NY and back. Her husband, meanwhile, will be flying from BWI to Detroit to London, and the back the same way, by himself. He's a big boy, but still, it would have been nice if they could at least travel together.

I personally don't like using a travel agent because I feel they don't do as much research as I do when it comes to planning a trip. But sometimes, in dealing with airlines, I think they certainly have the advantage, especially when it involves all sorts of discounted fares and deals. I think the problem in this case was that we were tied to a flight because of the number of Delta Sky Miles my step-daughter's husband had, and trying to keep their expenses down. So now, we are all going, 5 of us together and one alone. But at least it's resolved, and hopefully I won't have to deal with the people from Expedia, Orbitz, etc., for another year.
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