- Sep 20, 2007
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Just had my own little travel nightmare last weekend. Thought I'd create a thread for you guys to share your stories to make me feel better. 
First here's mine, dealing with Expedia.ca, Air Canada, and United Airlines.
I had booked a flight to Washington DC to visit my gf last weekend. You know where this is going... Well, of course that storm hit. Was supposed to leave Saturday morning but I get a call from United Airlines on Friday informing me that my flight has been cancelled. Of course I wasn't the one who answered the phone and the person that did didn't get all the info. United didn't leave a number either. So I check their website and it tells me my flight is still on. So I call Expedia and they said according to their info the flight was still on. The girl said the call was probably a mistake, and to call United. I ask her what I should do. She suggests I just show up at the airport and if there's any issues I can fix them at the desk. She gives me a 1800 number. Call United, yes, flight is cancelled, would you like to rebook. Yes, rebook. Get a call two hours later. That flight's been cancelled. Book on another. Yes. Another call... that's been cancelled! Call Expedia again. They keep telling me to call United. Spend two hours on the phone trying to get a hold of them. So I'm on the phone until midnight with United, they finally get me on this 8:40am flight on Saturday through Air Canada. Exchanges my ticket with them.
I get up at 5am the next morning after 4 hours sleep, check the departure boards and find that it's been cancelled due to weather. I phone Expedia, they tell me they have no info and to phone Air Canada. I phone Air Canada, and I'm on hold for half an hour. Then the idiot at Air Canada explains to me that United had just bought seats and I would have to phone them and that there was nothing he could do. Phone United again, sit on hold for 2 hours! Finally get a Saturday evening flight. An hour later, cancelled. Phone Expedia to find out what the hell is going on. Expedia keeps saying I would have to call United back. Me being the fool thinks that because they're my travel agent, Expedia should be arranging this stuff. I ask them to call United for me to see what they can do. They tell me that I would have to phone United's 1800 number again and sit on hold for two hours. I tell them I already did that and try reason with them, they must have some sort of direct line to the airline. Guy tells me no, I talk to his supervisor, get the same BS that the nation's largest travel agent apparently does bookings through joe blow's 1800 line. I ask them to please just handle it after all I was paying them to. Guy hums and haws. I ask if he has a direct line that I could speak to him if I run into any more trouble. Tells me he doesn't. He's lying of course. (I work in this industry btw) He tells me to go to the airport and sort it out at the United desk in person if I don't want to be on the phone.
So later that day after more hours on the phone, I get another flight on United for Sunday evening. Great, everything's fine. No phone calls all Sunday. Toronto Airport's departure board shows everything's a go. Get my stuff ready, drive half an hour to the airport so I can be there two hours before my flight as per protocol. Get in line at the United desk. They're checking people in. Then this lady walks out and and informs us that the Washington flight is cancelled. She then starts handing out sheets of paper and says we'd have to phone the 1800 number on the sheet to rebook. This is after Expedia told me, twice, that if I had any problems I could rebook at the United desk, at the airport, which is where I was! I just loose it at this point. I storm out of there, accidentally knocking over one of the rope barrier stands in the process. It gets better though.
I call my gf and tell her I just couldn't fight with these people anymore. I had to cancel my trip and let her down. I wasn't going to get out anyway because the snow was still bad in DC. I get home, and there's a message on my machine from United saying the flight was cancelled; they called about 15 minutes after I left for the airport.
Next morning, I have to go through the process of trying to get my money back. I had insurance thankfully that gave me up to $10,000 trip cancellation coverage. Insurance bought through Expedia. So I get my dad to phone them and get on their insurance line. He's in the contracting business and knows how to negotiate. So he's trying to get them to put the claim through since they're selling it. Guy on the other end refuses to give him any info on what to do and keeps saying that Expedia doesn't handle that. My dad's getting a little upset at the run around, asks who he's supposed to speak to then, and... Expedia hangs up on him!
So I finally track the insurance company down, call them. They put the claim through right away but now I have to wait two weeks to get forms to fill out (in the mail) before they can give me my $800 back for the trip. Thankfully my gf understood but now I don't know when I'll be able to see her again.
Ok, so yes the weather was bad and I certainly don't blame Expedia, United, or Air Canada for that. What makes me angry is the complete lack of customer service I received from my travel agent. Once they sell you the package and get your money, you can basically go f--k yourself for all they care. Nobody wants to help you. I can't believe they actually hung up on us. Secondly, United must have known that the other flights would likely have been cancelled so why did they not inform me of this? I only found out that DCs two airports had been closed all weekend after reading the (Canadian!) newspaper on Monday morning. If United knew this, why did they keep booking flights?! Dulles is their hub for gawd's sake. I work in this industry, at a car rental place. If this sort of behaviour happened there, well, we'd be fired for one. We also wouldn't be in business for vary long. If Expedia helped my move my vacation forward a week or two, I would have been happy. I'm off school till the 11th and there's hardly any customers at work so they wouldn't care. Instead Expedia chose to treat me like dirt. Talk about taking the money and running. I'm young (mid 20s) and this was my first time travelling on my own. It's soured me off doing it for a while. I probably made plenty of mistakes but in the end I think I'm fortunate in one way. I can't imagine how they'd treat somebody who had been stranded, as many were.
Moral of the story? Always buy travel insurance for one, and next time I go to DC, I'm driving. I don't care if it takes 6 hours to get there.
Maybe I just needed to vent. lol, though I would love to hear what nightmares you guys have had.
First here's mine, dealing with Expedia.ca, Air Canada, and United Airlines.
I had booked a flight to Washington DC to visit my gf last weekend. You know where this is going... Well, of course that storm hit. Was supposed to leave Saturday morning but I get a call from United Airlines on Friday informing me that my flight has been cancelled. Of course I wasn't the one who answered the phone and the person that did didn't get all the info. United didn't leave a number either. So I check their website and it tells me my flight is still on. So I call Expedia and they said according to their info the flight was still on. The girl said the call was probably a mistake, and to call United. I ask her what I should do. She suggests I just show up at the airport and if there's any issues I can fix them at the desk. She gives me a 1800 number. Call United, yes, flight is cancelled, would you like to rebook. Yes, rebook. Get a call two hours later. That flight's been cancelled. Book on another. Yes. Another call... that's been cancelled! Call Expedia again. They keep telling me to call United. Spend two hours on the phone trying to get a hold of them. So I'm on the phone until midnight with United, they finally get me on this 8:40am flight on Saturday through Air Canada. Exchanges my ticket with them.
I get up at 5am the next morning after 4 hours sleep, check the departure boards and find that it's been cancelled due to weather. I phone Expedia, they tell me they have no info and to phone Air Canada. I phone Air Canada, and I'm on hold for half an hour. Then the idiot at Air Canada explains to me that United had just bought seats and I would have to phone them and that there was nothing he could do. Phone United again, sit on hold for 2 hours! Finally get a Saturday evening flight. An hour later, cancelled. Phone Expedia to find out what the hell is going on. Expedia keeps saying I would have to call United back. Me being the fool thinks that because they're my travel agent, Expedia should be arranging this stuff. I ask them to call United for me to see what they can do. They tell me that I would have to phone United's 1800 number again and sit on hold for two hours. I tell them I already did that and try reason with them, they must have some sort of direct line to the airline. Guy tells me no, I talk to his supervisor, get the same BS that the nation's largest travel agent apparently does bookings through joe blow's 1800 line. I ask them to please just handle it after all I was paying them to. Guy hums and haws. I ask if he has a direct line that I could speak to him if I run into any more trouble. Tells me he doesn't. He's lying of course. (I work in this industry btw) He tells me to go to the airport and sort it out at the United desk in person if I don't want to be on the phone.
So later that day after more hours on the phone, I get another flight on United for Sunday evening. Great, everything's fine. No phone calls all Sunday. Toronto Airport's departure board shows everything's a go. Get my stuff ready, drive half an hour to the airport so I can be there two hours before my flight as per protocol. Get in line at the United desk. They're checking people in. Then this lady walks out and and informs us that the Washington flight is cancelled. She then starts handing out sheets of paper and says we'd have to phone the 1800 number on the sheet to rebook. This is after Expedia told me, twice, that if I had any problems I could rebook at the United desk, at the airport, which is where I was! I just loose it at this point. I storm out of there, accidentally knocking over one of the rope barrier stands in the process. It gets better though.
I call my gf and tell her I just couldn't fight with these people anymore. I had to cancel my trip and let her down. I wasn't going to get out anyway because the snow was still bad in DC. I get home, and there's a message on my machine from United saying the flight was cancelled; they called about 15 minutes after I left for the airport.
Next morning, I have to go through the process of trying to get my money back. I had insurance thankfully that gave me up to $10,000 trip cancellation coverage. Insurance bought through Expedia. So I get my dad to phone them and get on their insurance line. He's in the contracting business and knows how to negotiate. So he's trying to get them to put the claim through since they're selling it. Guy on the other end refuses to give him any info on what to do and keeps saying that Expedia doesn't handle that. My dad's getting a little upset at the run around, asks who he's supposed to speak to then, and... Expedia hangs up on him!
So I finally track the insurance company down, call them. They put the claim through right away but now I have to wait two weeks to get forms to fill out (in the mail) before they can give me my $800 back for the trip. Thankfully my gf understood but now I don't know when I'll be able to see her again.
Ok, so yes the weather was bad and I certainly don't blame Expedia, United, or Air Canada for that. What makes me angry is the complete lack of customer service I received from my travel agent. Once they sell you the package and get your money, you can basically go f--k yourself for all they care. Nobody wants to help you. I can't believe they actually hung up on us. Secondly, United must have known that the other flights would likely have been cancelled so why did they not inform me of this? I only found out that DCs two airports had been closed all weekend after reading the (Canadian!) newspaper on Monday morning. If United knew this, why did they keep booking flights?! Dulles is their hub for gawd's sake. I work in this industry, at a car rental place. If this sort of behaviour happened there, well, we'd be fired for one. We also wouldn't be in business for vary long. If Expedia helped my move my vacation forward a week or two, I would have been happy. I'm off school till the 11th and there's hardly any customers at work so they wouldn't care. Instead Expedia chose to treat me like dirt. Talk about taking the money and running. I'm young (mid 20s) and this was my first time travelling on my own. It's soured me off doing it for a while. I probably made plenty of mistakes but in the end I think I'm fortunate in one way. I can't imagine how they'd treat somebody who had been stranded, as many were.
Moral of the story? Always buy travel insurance for one, and next time I go to DC, I'm driving. I don't care if it takes 6 hours to get there.
Maybe I just needed to vent. lol, though I would love to hear what nightmares you guys have had.
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