To all persons considering using Expedia,

This is just a brief synopsis of the issues, lies, deceit and theft that I have suffered at the hands of Expedia when booking and making a change to some flights.

The original flights were booked, as usual, with no issues other than the usual 'fare recalculation' that seems to add the mandatory few percent to the initial cost estimate. We were then faced with Visa issues that forced me into making a change to the flights originally scheduled for the 25th June.. The change was made on the 21st June to the 1st July and I accepted the additional £600, asked about payment, but was told they 'had my credit card details already'.

On the morning of the 28th June, I received a phone call to say 'the airline had made a change' and my flights on 1st July were no longer available- instead offering me the 4th July- the first day with availability. Having lost 5 days in the Visa delay, from a 21 day holiday, I wasn't too keen on the additional delay so asked Expedia to investigate further with 'Iberia being on the line'. Meanwhile I was looking at Expedia and found flights not only on the 1st July but also on the 2nd and 3rd, admittedly at a increased cost. The girl from the Indian call centre maintained that all Iberia could offer me was the 4th July. She also claimed that I was 'lucky' as I could be offered a full refund for the original flights.

I took it upon myself to call Iberia, who advised that Expedia made the change but the tickets were never issued. I have since found out that the credit card 'on file' had expired at the end of May. Instead of calling, e-mailing or putting their customer first, Expedia chose to ignore the issue and try and offer me flights at a day that was most cost effective to themselves, when they made the ticketing error in the first place. Expedia failed to process the tickets and were now blaming the airline for a schedule change to cover up their error, and offering me the cheapest tickets they could find. Iberia also confirmed flight availability on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd July..

This was confirmed when I spoke to someone slightly less prone to lying, who agreed it was Expedia's error and pushed it to the 'escalation' department.

Several other arrangements had been made round the new travel date of 1st July, so I was keen to dig my heels in for this day.

The original liar, called again at around 3pm saying that Iberia only had flights for the 4th July. I sort of lost it at that point, she said she would call back in 10 minutes, but after nearly 2 hours I called again.

After being promised again a resolution before 7, I called at 7 having received nothing, and spoke to someone else who I decided to negotiate with. He admitted that it was their error but told me it would cost around £2000 to change the flights to the 1st July. I'm fairly sure at this point the original tickets had cancelled and these were in fact new flights. When I asked how much Expedia were going to pay for their error, he seemed a little surprised. I do not think I should have paid anything more than the original £600 change but I agreed if they paid half, I would pay half, such was my desperation to ensure travel on the 1st July. At 10pm I had tickets, and no mention of payment.

Next day, I received a call as expected saying that the card was declined (the expired one again) and I gave them my new details. The sum negotiated the night before was just over £1000.

I have since travelled on the 1st July, quite a few spare seats there as well.

However, I have just interrogated my credit card details and found that I have been charged around £1600. Needless to say this was a little hard to stomach. Since then I called and have been promised yet again, a resolution by the end of the day that never happened.

Anyway the moral of the story is - trust no-one in Expedia. The people are very polite but they strive to mislead, cover up, deceive, lie and steal. If it is all done through the website then it will probably be ok, luckily automated programmes aren't clever enough to stoop to the lows that the human element can.

You have been warned.

Colin James Gordon 4th July 304ad76