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Expedia: Bad for the Traveler, Bad for the Hotel

467 points by ValentineC 14y ago

snogglethorpe 14y ago
Outrageous if true, though I'm inclined to blame Expedia's incompetence rather than intentional misdirection... A bit of a shame because I've found Expedia to be pretty decent for booking flights (though that's mostly by way of comparison with other sites; most flight booking sites are jaw-droppingly horrible...).
- win_ini 14y ago
  Try Hipmunk.com.... best flight search I've seen. It the refers you to the airline's page to complete the booking. No sketchy third-party to buy from. It's visualization of flights schedules is awesome!
jiayo 14y ago
I see Expedia as no different from traditional middle-men (travel agents). If I search a flight+hotel deal on Expedia, I can always get the exact same price by booking directly with the airline and hotel, and without the potential hassles described in the article. Perhaps it's naive, but I feel safer booking direct, because then if I have any problems, I'm dealing with a first-party and it's harder to be given the three-way runaround.
- stoolpigeon 14y ago
  One thing I learned on a trip this summer is that Delta will charge an extra fee to change tickets if they were booked through expedia. I don't know if other airlines do this too but if I'm flying Delta it is a motivator to book directly. Which I'm sure is the point.
  - OafTobark 14y ago
    Interesting to know. I personally avoid Delta, United, American, and a few others if at all possible. My main airlines are: Virgin America Southwest Alaska Airlines In that order with JetBlue mixed in somewhere in there. Helps to have a narrow set if you are racking up air miles and I've had HORRID experiences with the others. I only take them if I have to now
    - jowiar 14y ago
      The best strategy with flying I've found is to pick one Legacy carrier/alliance if you're a frequent traveler (because they treat their folks with status quite well, at the expense of everyone else). If you don't fly >25k miles/year, do what you do.
      - ubernostrum 14y ago
        Pretty much this. Pick an airline based on convenience, and sign up for the frequent-flyer program. So many of the negatives associated with air travel typically boil down to shopping based solely on base price, with zero brand loyalty, and then being surprised that the airline doesn't treat you as well as a repeat customer who buys (or has an employer who buys) full-fare tickets. And so much of the difference between the full and discounted fares typically gets made up one way or another; either you're paying about the same as someone who bought "discount" but now is getting socked with fees left and right to check bags, use power outlets, etc., or often it just evens out over the course of enough flights.
      - monksy 14y ago
        I'm a Gold member on United, and Silver on Delta. United treats me fairly well [when they have an issue they pass me on to US Airways]. I've had massive issues with Delta. Honestly, I'm not thrilled about Southwest. They'll get you there... but eh.
        ubernostrum 14y ago
        I have flown pretty much all the legacy carriers, including the ones that merged out of existence. Delta is by far the worst I've dealt with. No other carrier even comes close on that score. I'm currently with US Airways (Platinum) for various reasons; they've treated me pretty well, their hubs are decent enough, routes are convenient, and they fly real planes rather than cramped CRJ lawn darts in and out of my home airport (Kansas City). And it's comforting to know, at the moment, that if they do screw up horribly I have other options within the alliance, though the looming prospect of the AA merger is going to lead to some serious thinking about whether I should just do it pre-emptively. Among the low-cost carriers I don't mind Southwest so much. They're kind of the Chipotle of airlines; you know what you're going to get, you know it's not the greatest but also not the worst, and they have some quirky branding and service aspects that inspire loyalty among their regular customers. If I were going to fly an LCC, though, I'd probably pick Frontier just because they give a bit more bang for the buck on the routes I'm most likely to fly.
- Nagyman 14y ago
  You might have been somewhat fortunate finding the same direct price. I'm aware that Expedia is large enough to get bulk discounts from airlines that aren't always publicly offered to direct passengers.
  - jiayo 14y ago
    It probably has to do with being located in Canada.
- aj37 14y ago
  The rationale for the discounts is that you don't know (or at least it's non-obvious), whether the discount is coming from the flight or the hotel. If the "Book together and save" amount is positive then you'll generally be getting a better deal than direct. You might see the same total price occasionally but it certainly won't be the case the majority of the time.
jrockway 14y ago
A classic "small business is mad" blog post. It even contains the a quote about how much money they spent on their business, "We put all of our money, time and heart into making it work," as though that's a criterion Expedia uses when deciding how to respond to customer service inquiries. I'm also surprised that the links broke and Expedia's "IT department" said they'll "never" be fixed. That doesn't really make any sense. I can't help but think that the images are hosted by the hotel itself and that they broke the images. I don't know. The story sounds plausible but unlikely to me and has all the classic "crazy person" literary features. (Some sources to back this up would be good: emails, screenshots, etc.)
- adambenayoun 14y ago
  Ditto. Some more proofs would be great in order to establish some trust with this post. If everything written here is right then I would say they have a pretty good case in suing them. I would also argue some lawyers would even take this case (granted the proofs are solid) based on a success fee. EDIT: I strongly recommend to read the comments, someone wrote that he witnessed this personally (of course comments could be fake but it's still something). David Beau. said - December 4, 2012 at 11:29 pm We can verify parts of this. We have stayed at the Luna Blue almost every year since Tony and Cheri have opened. In late 2011 I was checking on availability of the Luna Blue for our vacation. I was surprized to find expedia said they had no room available. I then checked a couple other small hotels in Playa and was told they were also full. I then contacted Cheri and found that they did have plenty of rooms. Which we did book thru the hotel. Deanna said - December 5, 2012 at 11:03 am I know first hand about this. I had booked a room back in Feb. to travel in November. I got an email mid Oct. from Hotels.com that Luna Blue no longer had any openings for that time. It didn’t make sense to me. After calling Hotels.com and them wanting me to book elsewhere I got hold of Cheri. She was in San Francisco at the time but took the time out to make sure I was able to rebook through their website directly for the time I had originally booked. I was also able to save 10% off what I had originally expected to pay. We went and stayed at Luna Blue and it was truly a wonderful experience. Cheri was out of town when we came so I was not able to meet her but Tony made us feel welcome and we wish you guys all the luck fighting this horrible thing that has happened. I would certainly stay here again if I return to Playa.
shadowmint 14y ago
First of all they have a well-deserved reputation for bad customer service. Google the words “Expedia bad customer service” and see what comes up. Yes. Anecdotal I know, but I've used Expedia twice, and will never use them again. It took a year and an offer to take the case to court before they issued a refund, and the second time they just screwed all the bookings up with no apology or comment upon complaint.
- easytiger 14y ago
  To add something contrary to this, i had the opposite experience. I had to cancel a flight/hotel booking at short notice because I couldn't go. They said normally they charge for that but this time would let me do it free. Replies were fast and prompt at awkward times of day etc.
  - adambenayoun 14y ago
    I have experienced pretty good customer experience with Expedia as well. However we're not talking about the end customers here but rather the suppliers (of services). I wouldn't want to use a company (no matter how good they are) who have been known for crushing smaller players to maximize their bottom line.
adambenayoun 14y ago
I wonder if we can repay them and play the same game they are playing. Maybe if many of us reblog/post and link to that amazing detailed blog post with the anchor text being "advertise with expedia" - maybe when new hotels who will want to advertise with Expedia (and google about it) will be able to read about that horrible experience.
impendia 14y ago
I am a typical travel customer. I often go to conferences and book hotels in unfamiliar cities. I am very sympathetic to this story. And yet -- at the end -- >either use the internet to do the research or go to a reputable travel agent. Let's look at these alternatives. Use the internet to do the research? Expedia makes it very easy, that's the point. Are its competitors better? Maybe. How am I supposed to be able to tell? Is Hipmunk also evil? Orbitz? Some other random website I find which compares hotels? If I use these websites to do my research and then book directly, I'm avoid some of the problems -- but probably not all? Go to a reputable travel agent? No, sorry. That's a pain in the ass. I'm disappointed in this article. It makes a very convincing case that we should avoid huge internet travel monopolies, but yet doesn't compellingly suggest what I should do instead.
- adambenayoun 14y ago
  The main problem is that Expedia is really great for customers like us since they really help us in making better and (cheaper) decision when booking a flight. I think this should be fixed with either suing the company and the people involved (granted everything they wrote is true) or talking to a high level manager who could look into the case and make the right decision (ie. Fire the people who were involved).
- whydee 14y ago
  Sounds like a problem calling out for a solution.
- lotsofpulp 14y ago
  www.roomkey.com is the hotel franchises attempt to get control back of online reservations. Also, the best method is simply finding out the hotel's phone number via Google or TripAdvisor, and speaking with someone at the hotel. This way, you can guarantee yourself a certain room at a certain location in the hotel, away from traffic noise, on the 2nd floor, etc. I recommend TripAdvisor for reviews, they have an option where hotel managers can sign up and respond to guest complaints.
  - calbear81 14y ago
vlenin 14y ago
I've never booked with Expedia because they have never offered a better price than I can get from the travel agent in my neighbourhood.
dotBen 14y ago
Travel hack: as the article points out, Expedia take 25% cut of the booking rate, which is usually the same a the hotel's direct rate. Because the hotel will make more profit from you, you have a higher chance of getting a room upgrade at the property, better amenities or even just better service if you book direct rather than via Expedia.
- fmavituna 14y ago
  Here is the funny fact, whenever I check the hotels' own websites, prices are almost always higher than Expedia's listing. Does anyone know why?
  - nayanga 14y ago
    some time with Air tickets also
  - gniv 14y ago
    That's been my experience as well. The article claims it isn't true, but I know for sure it is, since I remember researching a particular hotel extensively -- I really wanted to stay there -- and Expedia was by far the lowest price. This was an overseas hotel, so I was not fond of calling them up and asking for a discount from somebody who might or might not speak English.
  - ebiester 14y ago
    It make it look like a more expensive hotel. Much of the time, you can get them to match Expedia's price by asking. Think of it as price discrimination.
  - lotsofpulp 14y ago
    It's due to competition, and price discrimination. In highly competitive areas, other hotels will offer their rooms at a discount to Expedia/Travelocity/etc, to catch the market that visits these websites (due to the websites' marketing and reputation as being the place to go for online bookings). If a hotel doesn't offer their rooms on the third party websites, then they effectively lose those sales. I know some of the agreements will make it so that they can't advertise rooms at the rates given to travel agents, so that may be why you see it cheaper. Priceline has a different system, where each hotel provides three price levels, and if a person bids at or above a price level, then Priceline gets the difference between the price level and what the person bid. At hotels that don't have problems selling rooms, they have no reason to offer rooms to travel agents, so you won't see any price discrepancies there. In fact, you probably won't even see the room offered on third party websites.
antonpug 14y ago
I disagree with this post. Never had any issues with expedia. Always use them for air/hotel bookings and they are awesome. They do a really good job filtering out the junk "non-chain" hotels and making clear to the buyer that what they are getting it high quality.
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  Nothing in your comment explains why you disagree with the post, however. Nothing you are saying is contrary to the original article.
- Hates_ 14y ago
  You disagree from the point of an end customer. If you have no hotel preference and are mis-directed away from certain partners to those that pay better commission then to you it has been a good experience. Just because they have got you good bookings, does not mean they haven't lied and screwed people over in the process.
- jowiar 14y ago
  What the post is saying is that they also do a really good job filtering out the non-junk "non-chain" hotels, making life difficult for the independent hotelier.
frqunttraveller 14y ago
I see few posts where people are in doubt. This behavior is unfortunatly their business model. Mark "non participating" hotels as full and listen against their will and trick users to more expensive/hotels they get more commissions from. Not long ago they even lost in court around this in Norway http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2011%2F11%2F03%2Ftema%2Freise%2Freisesokemotor%2Fdom%2F18876877%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...
ghyhh 14y ago
I had to use expedia to book a last minute trip on aeromexico because they were the only ones with seats available for the date I wanted. I have to say that the whole experience stinks like a ripoff. Something that Really raised flags was the fact that according to their terms if you miss your flight you completely loose your ticket. Also, you cannot make any changes. They are really not worth it.
mikecane 14y ago
Why should anyone be surprised? Do you really think abuse of power is absent because a business is on the Internet? How many times have publishers had their Buy buttons removed from their books at Amazon? How many stories are there of small devs getting ripped off by Apple and Microsoft? What about late payments to devs from the Google Play Store? I will never use Expedia now. Better that I should be inconvenienced than be jerked around by smug companies out to crush small businesses. EDIT: Typo fixed.
irahul 14y ago
> For the most availability, best prices and service, always book directly with a hotel. It has never been the case with me. Expedia, or any other travel site, always had better deals. In fact, I once called the hotel in question to ask why there is a big price discrepancy between their site listing and makemytrip. I was concerned makemytrip is selling me rooms that doesn't exist and the hotel won't honor my reservation. The hotel staff told me the hotel sells rooms to makemytrip well in advance, and whatever the price that is listed on makemytrip will be honored(doesn't really matter; you pay directly to makemytrip). Also, I am a bit paranoid. I would hate it if some hotel overbooked and told me "lol sorry" when I arrive. I know travel sites aren't really on my side, but at least I will have someone to appeal to. I didn't have any bad experience with Expedia but then, I had very limited interactions with them(I didn't even modify or cancel my bookings). I would advice against agoda and booking.com as they forward your credit card info to the hotel as security. In what world does forwarding a customer's credit card info to a random hotel makes sense? Imagine the surprise when you are at the hotel counter and the staff shows you a printout of your credit card info(nothing obscured; everything in plain text). > If you would like to know more about our hotel just visit our website at www.lunabluehotel.com. I tried, and the link is down. Most of the hotels don't even have websites, let alone online reservations. There is a reason customers go to expedia in the first place. EDIT: Random travel tip. If you are in a foreign or an unknown location, a hotel which provides airport transfer generally ends up cheaper than a hotel which doesn't + cab fares. You would be surprised how wrong your assumptions about transport might be. "You have a flight to catch at 8, it's 5, you are in the lobby and there isn't a cab in sight and looks unlikely there will be one for another 2 hours" isn't a pleasant situation to be in.
- sorbits 14y ago
  I concur! When you book via Agoda.com you get points that can be used toward future bookings. It’s effectively a 4% rebate, so even if the hotel can match the Agoda price, it’s still a better deal to book it via Agoda, that said, in the past I would often ask the hotel, before booking, if they could match the Agoda price, and more often than not, the answer was no. Despite my best efforts, I did not succeed in getting an explanation of this policy. In the case of Agoda, they do not buy the rooms in advance.
raverbashing 14y ago
Dear small business hotel Yes, Expedia sucks, but here's what you should do YOU make your website and booking system available on the web. Make people able to google your hotel and get there. (Edit: this seems to be already in place) If I search your hotel on Expedia and it shows no dates available, I begin to suspect Expedia, or your integration of systems with them. And if they really say your hotel is going out of business, get a lawyer. Edit: get a lawyer NOW
lotsofpulp 14y ago
I know people in the hospitality business, and all third party travel websites (and travel agents) are bad for the traveler and hotel, for a few simple reasons. 1) Middlemen always need their cut. In this case, you pay the website, and then the website pays the hotel less. 2) By bypassing the middleman (call the hotel directly, and speak to that specific location's on site employees), you SHOULD be able to get a better deal. Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off. Any competent manager will do this because it costs much more than 5% to get your reservation from a travel agent. Obviously, they will have to verify that third party price, but in the case of Expedia, they can just search it. 3) Additionally, it's good to book directly with the hotel for the following reasons too (or at least call them directly after booking online to confirm): -In the fine print of travel websites' T&C, it will say you are guaranteed A room, not THE room you want. This means if only smoking rooms are available, the third party site will still sell it to you as a non smoking room. Also, there are many incompatibilities in the GDS/Central reservation system software, so there is a chance there can be an error in your reservation. -Third party reservations don't go to the hotel with the guest's contact information. This means if the hotel wants to contact you about some issue, they cannot reach you, and the websites won't give out the guest's information. This was a big problem during Sandy a few months ago. All in all, third party websites are a relic of the times when hotels did not have the technical expertise to implement internet reservation systems. Nowadays, you can just look up the hotel's reviews on TripAdvisor, call the hotel directly, and make sure you get the room you want by speaking with someone directly at the property, with actual knowledge of the place. The ONLY benefit these third party websites can provide, seems to be with the bundling of hotels/flights/rental cars, but I still wouldn't use them. Going straight to the vendor has been the more pleasant experience for me. Edit: I should have noted that my knowledge comes from US and British hotels, mostly franchises like IHG/Hilton/Choice/Wyndham.
- irahul 14y ago
  > Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off. I did. The staff told me they sold a number of rooms well in advance, and the travel site does the pricing with a guaranteed return to the hotel. To the hotel, it doesn't matter how much they are selling it for, but they can do only what is listed on the site. Also, many 3 star rated hotels don't have online reservations.
prostoalex 14y ago
>>> "a long, detailed list describing our rooms" Hint: a red flag right there. You're selling what's perceived as standardized commodity. If a long and detailed list made the job of corporate copy-and-paster hard, imagine potential customer confusion.
cyberp 14y ago
I stopped booking with Expedia when there was a problem with an incorrect flight time. Delta said they couldn't do anything and I'd have to resolve with Expedia. Expedia said they couldn't do anything, and I'd have to resolve with Delta. I had a clearly nonsensical flight plan (I was scheduled to be at the destination for 1 hour), and no way to resolve it. I gave up on both businesses.
gritsscholar 14y ago
Given the owner's complaint, I find it odd that when I clicked the Room & Amenities link at the bottom of lunabluehotel.com, the link was dead, or at least, timing out repeatedly.
woof 14y ago
This is a known problem and I see no reason not to believe every word Tony & Cheri writes. Check out this (poorly tranlated) article from Norway: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Freise.aftenposten.no%2Freise%2FHotelscom-tilbyr-hotell-som-de-ikke-har-35865.html%23.UNnECaWwfZs http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...
greghinch 14y ago
Here's my reason for avoiding Expedia. A few years ago I booked a trip to the UK to visit some friends. The morning I was supposed to leave, I get an email from one of my friends saying that I should check if my flight is still on, because there is "something going on with a volcano in Iceland". Turns out it's the start of that major eruption and all air traffic in Northern Europe is grounded with no foreseeable reopening. I first called the airline, Virgin Atlantic. They were very friendly, apologetic, and as helpful as possible. They said they could reschedule me, but given all the unknowns they weren't making any new bookings for at least 2 weeks. Now this was a two week vacation I was taking, with lots of other things scheduled, so I couldn't really just up and shift the whole thing two weeks on a whim. They would have gladly given a refund, but since I booked through Expedia, I had to talk to them. That's when things started going downhill. First of all, even on what I'm sure was a crazy customer service day, the people at Virgin answered the phone in minutes and were quite friendly. The Expedia call took almost an hour to be answered. Every agent I spoke too was borderline rude and confrontational, and had the worst broken English of any oversees call center I've dealt with. From the start they only wanted to argue, that because it was the day of the flight, I could neither cancel or reschedule. Finally, after about 90 minutes of arguing and being transferred, I got to a high enough manager who actually seemed to listen to what I said and not just be reading a script, and got my refund authorized. And I thought it was over. Months go by and the credit never appears back to my card. I call Expedia a couple times, each time they say it is being processed by the CC company, but it can take up to 90 days. I check with the CC, they have no record of the credit. Finally after 90 days, I get a hold of Expedia and they say it is fine if I just have the CC company cancel the transaction on their end (as a dispute), as there must have been a "glitch" somewhere. And that flipped the trouble switch. Apparently there is an automated system in Expedia, if you dispute their charge with you CC company, they automatically flip it to a collections agency. A few months after I did, I got a very threatening letter and phone call saying I owed the charge plus penalties and interest. If I did not pay, they would flag my credit rating and possibly take further legal action. I contacted Expedia again to ask WTF is going on, and their response was that they are not allowed to communicate with the collections agency once the matter has been given to them. They were confident that if i just explained why I didn't owe the money, the collections guys would drop it. But they couldn't provide me with any documentation to give them. After another month of letters and phone calls with the collections agents, and quite a bit of stress on my end, I stopped hearing from them so I guess it was resolved. Keep in mind, all told this is about 8 months down the road from when I was originally supposed to travel. In fact I rebooked the entire trip for about a month after the original, and had already gone and come back. But definitely not with Expedia.
calbear81 14y ago
> It wasn’t cheap, as Expedia takes 25 % of every booking made through their sites–a fact that hotels are forbidden by Expedia to disclose to guests. This is forbidden to be disclosed because business contract details are covered under an NDA they signed with Expedia. 25% is their negotiated commission but it will vary by partner and hence they don't want that being disclosed to be used as leverage in negotiations with other hotels. > For the most availability, best prices and service, always book directly with a hotel. This may be the case with the Luna Blue, but is definitely not what we at Room 77 see in the marketplace. We're connecting with the GDS and pretty much every major OTA in the US (Expedia, Orbitz, Booking.com, Priceline, etc.) and what we're seeing is increasing price fragmentation in the marketplace. This is why we fundamentally believe that metasearch is a better model for the consumer since prices and availability do vary. > Secondly they do not offer discounted rates as many claim. As someone else mentioned, even if a rate is not discounted against the rate the hotel has directly, it may be a promotion against the regular rate and you have to factor in the loyalty programs that exist on many OTA sites (Hotels.com book 10 get 1 free, Agoda 4% rewards, etc.). The most probable reason that an OTA has a lower rate is that the room availability has changed. For example, a hotel has two types of rooms (A & B) may have presold a percentage to Expedia and if the hotel has sold their own allocation of room type A and only has room type B left, the lowest price the hotel has for ANY room is the price of room type B. Expedia may then show a lower price for a hotel because they still have room type A available to sell to travelers since they own that percentage of inventory that was presold to them. The core value proposition of booking through an online agency wasn't really addressed by Tony and Cheri which is that people by and large don't want to shop a single hotel's price and availability. When I want to go to Playa del Carmen, I want to see ALL options I have in an area and compare hotels and rates and the easiest way to do that is through an OTA or a metasearch engine. Booking directly through a hotel has it's own advantages which include: 1) payment is usually not required until you arrive at the hotel, 2) you earn the hotel's loyalty points if they have a program, and 3) the hotel will prioritize your booking for upgrades, etc. since they didn't have to pay a large commission. From my perspective working at a metasearch company, we want to provide maximum choice and availability of options/inventory so we show both direct hotel inventory and OTA inventory and let consumers decide which one they want to choose.
coditor 14y ago
I work for an OTA and this is likely not Expedia per se, but the local office trying to up the value of their sales. Small hotels are always going to have more problems than a big chain, as they don't have any real time data connection to provide availability and room information. Either they send in their information and hope someone enters it correctly, or they are provided with access to a portal they can manage their own data in. If the local property manager is only interested in getting credit for high value sales and the small property owner doesn't have access to the portal, then likely the manager can screw them over so that people wind up at the more valuable properties. OTA's prefer data connections because that way the data is more up to date. It also means any errors are the fault of the chain (unless the hotel system itself has bugs). By making Expedia aware of how their local managers are operating they might actually get this fixed. No OTA wants this kind of bad publicity. Just the US alone my employer (and its parent company) have nearly 300,000 hotels available. Keeping the data current is a massive pain at that scale since at the other end are individual people. Also note that for most OTA's there are only a couple providers of hotel photos and one dominant one, and we all hate them as they suck terribly. Unless you are a speciality provider like Oyster or Hotel Tonight and can take the few photos you need, or are Tripadvisor and can get customers to take them, you are at the mercy of the photo provider. So a quality bitching can get you better service (as a hotel provider) from an OTA. Even better is make a deal with someone who provides small hotels with data management (which does cost money) so that your room availability is all electronic. The hotel business is all about filling rooms. The average hotel hopes for 70% rooms filled tonight. OTA's do provide a lot of hotel bookings so you can't do without them. But if the local OTA hotel property manager sucks there are 4 major players you can deal with (plus all the speciality ones). Yes you have to give them a commission (20%+ usually) but if you work with them correctly they can fill your rooms.
- dchinyee 14y ago
  What's the name of the dominant hotel photo provider? Any particular reason why they suck so terribly? Just curious to see if it might be an easy problem for a new player to solve.
aneth4 14y ago
I don't use Expedia as I've found their service to be horrible, and their technology in the early days had all kinds of issues with losing session and the like, so I abandoned them 10+ years ago. I do use Orbitz. I'm not sure if they are guilty of the same sins, but I've generally found their service to be adequate. I book directly with airlines when it makes sense and doesn't take too much effort - but most hotel booking sites are horrible and prices are usually higher. It would be great if an open platform like AirBNB emerged for hotels - perhaps AirBNB itself.
buster 14y ago
To be honest, i'll still book where it's cheapest. Usually i use a lot of those sites, including tripadvisor, etc. to check for accomodations and in the end i'll book where it's cheapest. I'll check on google maps for hotels, check online pricing, but in the end.. when the hotel itself is more expensive (plus expedia and co offer me a good meta search not only one hotel!).. why should i pay more for "less"?! Never had problems with expedia&co myself but i rarely need to cancel/change reservations. It's not my fault that the whole hotel business doesn't seem to be capable enough to do this on their own.
avar 14y ago
> For the most availability, best prices and service, > always book directly with a hotel. (Full disclosure: I work for Booking.com an online hotel booking website and Expedia's competitor) I think it's a gross misrepresentation to say that the customer is always best off booking directly with the hotel. You get something you wouldn't get when booking directly through the hotel. When you use an OTA you have collective bargaining power; If the hotel screws you around in any way it's now the OTA's problem. They'll call up the hotel on your behalf (in their native language, which you may or may not speak) and either sort it out with them or make sure you have somewhere else to stay because you're now their customer. Of course the service you get differs a lot by OTA. But from the customer's perspective there's usually a net gain by booking through one.
- krenoten 14y ago
  FD: I'm at an OTA/Central Reservation System specializing in boutique hotels. When you book with a respectable OTA, it is basically like purchasing comfort insurance, but you pay nothing for it. You are being backed by their brand and your problems become theirs to solve. OTA's sometimes offer perks to people who book through them like free or discounted transportation and comped room upgrades. Also, it is often in the contract between the hotel and the OTA that the hotel will always advertise the lowest rate available through that OTA. If the hotel works with several OTA's, then the hotel must offer the same room rate to each one that they have this arrangement with. They sometimes offer the same rate on their own, too. If you contact the hotel and ask for a room directly, and they offer you a lower rate, there is a chance that they are in breach of contract. So the customer should definitely be getting value from their decision to book through an OTA. For hotels, they usually have contracts with several OTA's. To let them know which rooms to sell, a hotelier will periodically update the availability and rates using a CRS that distributes the information to several OTA's, simplifying the process. But there are some really nasty CRS's out there, built in the 70s on mainframes that have not changed much since. They can be complicated to work with, and discourage smaller properties from putting in the effort. It sounds like the writer likely had a problem updating availability information through the CRS that expedia uses, leading to them not showing any availability.
  - 14y ago
jonknee 14y ago
It sounds like they aren't very savvy business people, but when I'm looking to stay somewhere that does not matter. A 16 room boutique hotel is never going to get a ton of attention from a large travel agency, there's no profit in it. They'd be better off marketing directly to their target demographic and trying for word of mouth / repeat business. I have had great luck with Hotwire (an Expedia subsidiary) and have discovered many neat hotels with it. I live in Florida and frequently book hotel room on the various beaches for easy short vacations, the only motivator is location and price (if nothing is available, I don't go). I have booked directly at some of the places I found, but if it weren't for their being on Hotwire I never would have found them. Also, the cost savings with Hotwire is frequently massive (50% off is not uncommon)--I haven't been able to book directly for cheaper (the trick is Hotwire doesn't tell you the exact hotel before you book, so if you want to ensure the same property you need to direct book and pay more).
- zevyoura 14y ago
  I also have had good experiences with Hotwire. One helpful note: if you do a little looking around on the internet, it's usually pretty easy to figure out which hotel they're offering based on location and amenities.
specialist 14y ago
Not using hotels.com is harder than you think. There are front entities pretending to be the hotel and are actually booking thru hotels.com. Background... We booked a hotel in Key West FL. Fair deal. Show up, no reservation. Turns out they gave us the wrong hotel info. It was super late and we couldn't resolve the mess with hotels' customer service over the phone so we just crashed where we arrived. Took months to get the charges for the other booking reversed. People at hotel where we arrived said it happens all the time. For our next trip, resolved to not use hotels.com ever again, I found hotel via the web. Called the number. Turns out both the website and phone number were SEO optimized front companies that book thru hotels.com. Which we did not discover until we arrived and there was a problem with the booking. We paid $40 extra per night for the privilege of being lied to. Rant... Personally, as a consumer, I'm very grumpy that I'm constantly being lied to. I work hard for my money. I try to be diligent about how I spend it. And I'm sick of being robbed by legal means. It seems to be getting worse (ISPs, banks, phone companies, mortgages, etc). I'm now more reluctant to spend money. Because now my transaction costs are getting too high. Too much friction. If my wary consumer experience is widespread, it has to be dampening the economy. Free market! Woot!
- beagle3 14y ago
  Same story here. Called a number I thought was the hotel. They replied with "Hotel name, what can I do for you". I made the reservation, based on wrong information in just about every department, the wrongest being that the hotel has room (but also wrong about cancellation policy and other stuff, as I later found out). Got to hotel, only to be told that hotels.com screwed up and confirmed 30 reservations when in fact the hotel in fact had 2 available rooms for the day. Went to a friend's house, as no other hotel around was available. Called hotels.com; waited an hour on the phone, no answer. Disputed charge with credit card company (took less than 10 minutes), and emailed them that I've disputed, and if they want it to NOT go through they are welcome to contact me. They emailed me within 24 hours with some credit, saying it will take them 72 hours to resolve. After 120 hours, I email them; they say it's going to "take them more time". After 4 more days, I email them - still no response. The next morning, credit card company gave me my money back. Haven't heard from hotels.com since, but I have a paper trail saying they will check and contact me, and then silence. And so does the credit card company. Never booking through hotels.com again, even if it means I have to work much more to figure out a direct phone number.
white_devil 14y ago
This is fucking disgusting, and these scumbags (together with tripadvisor) have polluted Google's search results. No matter what hotel you're googling for, your search results will be chock-full of these bastards.
- gniv 14y ago
  Don't lump them together. Tripadvisor has lots of high quality hotel reviews. I can forgive a lot of annoying ads for that.
parasubvert 14y ago
Been using Expedia for 14 years, though not exclusively. Contrary to the post, they often post discounts unavailable elsewhere, particularly for combos. For example recently, the regular rate at Wynn Las Vegas was around $200 a night in December but with an Expedia flight it worked out to $140 a night. This is the discount they usually give their mid level Red Card members, if I recall correctly (upper get RFB). I've also used Expedia to book a stay in Cancun a few years ago; they had a number of mom and pop hotels listed with rich details, but Ultimately I got a great combo rate at the Ritz Carlton (like $240 - it was about a week before the season really began); this rate was not available on the Ritz website. I have had some bad experiences with Expedia when requesting refunds or changes, though this has improved over the past 2 years with more software features and slightly better call center agents (ymmv). Ultimately I'll book direct with the hotel or airline if I have a specific reason to (schedule, FF points, upgrades, etc), but for easy price comparison and research I tend to rely on Kayak and Expedia almost exclusively. This posting has not changed my mind that they offer a good service - they seem to have issues with their Latin American offices.
lucian303 14y ago
Since their rep double booked the room I had already booked online (which I told him) and I released expedia points weren't worth shit, I've been using hotels.com. Free night every 10. That's pretty sweet. (Note, I have no affiliation w/ hotels.com or whatever, it's just what works for me). Wish I hadn't wasted all those nights getting expedia points worth what $10 bux maybe after 20+ nights? Fuck that.
usaphp 14y ago
I will NEVER book from Expedia, the end!!!
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_delirium 14y ago
> Secondly they do not offer discounted rates as many claim. In Denmark at least, I have found that they typically do offer discounted rates that the hotel's own website doesn't offer, especially for smaller hotels during periods of lower demand. If you're booking off-season at the last minute, I've found discounts on hotels.com of 40-60% relative to what the online-booking system of the hotel's own website was showing. One example where I've stayed a few times (http://www.hotel-maritime.dk/ http://www.hotel-maritime.dk/) was offering €50/night via hotels.com in late January 2012, at a time when their own website was listing €80/night. It's frequent enough that I advise my friends visiting Copenhagen to always check a hotel's rate on hotels.com before booking through the hotel's website, in case there's a substantial difference.
- lessnonymous 14y ago
  The price advertised at a hotel is called the "Rack Rate". Never pay that. Phone the hotel and get a real price from them. It's a weird system, but you'll get the same price as an OTA is offering. Often less, if you ask and quote the OTA price.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    I guess I could do that, but I generally prefer to book on the internet. Phones tend to result in dealing with international phone calls, being on hold, reading credit-card numbers over the phone, and that kind of hassle. Plus, the discovery/comparison-shopping experience is considerably worse. Some hotels offer the same discounted rates through their own websites, and I do book with them directly if they do. If they don't, but somewhere else on the internet does offer the discounted rates, then I prefer that option to calling.
duopixel 14y ago
I worked in the online booking industry for a couple of years, coincidentally I also live in Playa del Carmen now. What most likely happened was this: Expedia and other big players buy wholesale room inventory from large hotel chains. Expedia might come up and say that they want to buy 30% of the rooms of a hotel for a certain period at a steeply discounted price. This might be something that the hotel itself can't fill, so the happily sell to Expedia et al. To Expedia, selling these rooms might be something like 80% profit, against 25% for a small hotel such as the Luna Blue. Expedia then promotes the hell out of the hotel through their website: they make it appear on top of search results, they "pimp" they profile of the hotel, and such. They are not allowed to undercut the price, because other retailers might ask for the same price. Then, the office managers of Expedia Cancún are most likely on some sort of incentive to sell most of these wholesale rooms (travel is dominated by such economic incentives). The hack is is pretty clear: "closing" smaller hotels causes users to book another hotel, and it will most likely be one of these pimped out hotel profiles that provide much more profit than other hotels. I'm guessing this is a regional issue, just some dim witted office managers at Cancún that are trying to game the system in order to get a big incentive.
- mistermann 14y ago
  This sounds very plausible, and this type of thing should be closely watched by corporate and punished harshly when it does occur. The older I get, the more I think government should get involved in business, because it seems increasingly common that corporations will not police themselves - "oh, we had no idea this was happening!" Personally, I am getting tired of hearing lie after lie from corporations. I have always been right wing or libertarian, but I am starting to adopt the political opinion that I would like to see the government step in and start punishing these companies so hard that they will very seriously regret that they didn't self-police.
drpgq 14y ago
Well that explains some of the weirdness I've seen for hotels that Expedia said were booked out where it didn't seem likely (dead season).
bhntr3 14y ago
It would be great if this blog post were picked up by a legit news organization, researched and fact checked, cross referenced with other stories (like the French one) and published more widely as an expose. This is bad for consumers and bad for hotels. I like small local hotels. I want them to succeed. I want an easier way to connect with them. They are hard to find on hotels.com, etc. and I always assumed it was because the owners didn't maintain the listing, but it seems it's because expedia doesn't care.
- desult 14y ago
  Here you go. http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3809328/one-small-hotels-long-nightmare-with-expedia http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3809328/one-small-hotels-...
michaelhoffman 14y ago
Since this was posted on 5 December and has a fair amount of attention now, I'm surprised that Expedia hasn't officially responded yet. Maybe because so much of the attention has come in the past couple of days. I sent them a Tweet asking what was going on, and I notice someone posted this on their Facebook Page.
- benatkin 14y ago
  One does not simply post something on a business's Facebook page. Either the page has to share it or the viewer has to make two clicks to see it.
  - michaelhoffman 14y ago
    Well, it's there[1] and a bunch of people seem to have seen it. Expedia has replied to posts made by others after this one but they seem to be ignoring this. [1] https://www.facebook.com/naptown/posts/295460857241207 https://www.facebook.com/naptown/posts/295460857241207
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LunaBlue 14y ago
Thanks to all the folks offering support here and sharing their own stories of frustration with Expedia. We also wanted to note we are aware that our site is down. Our host server is having real troubles today and tell us things won't be fixed for 24 hours. If you need to contact us before then please email us at info@lunabluehotel.com or via our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/lunabluehotel https://www.facebook.com/lunabluehotel. Again thanks for the voices of support. Tony & Cheri Owners, Luna Blue Hotel
kqr2 14y ago
What are good alternatives to expedia that provide good customer service and are also friendly to small businesses?
javajosh 14y ago
When the cost to enforce a contract is higher than the value of the contract, then there is no justice. Small businesses are left with what is effectively vigilante justice, writing blog posts and appealing to the public directly. Frankly I'm biased against large organizations in general, and so I'm tempted to take this post at face value, and get angry with Expedia. And perhaps that's the right thing to do (although, as someone else pointed out, some e-mail quotes, screenshots, or other corroborating evidence would make for a more convincing story). But I can't help but think that we're all missing the big picture: that the high price of justice creates an enormous advantage for large companies. That justice is priced out of most people's ability. I used to hear about how 'litigious' American society has become. And yet, is that really true? Personal injury is no doubt quite popular. What what about simple fraud and breech of contract? What about conspiracy to commit fraud? Unless the justice system is priced for people to actually use it, then it's useless. So the question arises: what cheaper options does the OP have for pursuing this case?
ilaksh 14y ago
If Expedia is misrepresenting the status of the smaller hotels and cutting them out then I think that is a type of fraud or collusion with the bigger hotels. It is at the least, a policy that is antagonistic to competition.
monksy 14y ago
You don't want to book airline tickets with Expedia. If they are cheaper, they are only slightly cheaper, and you'll have to deal with Expedia when things go wrong. The airline gives a minor discount due to pushing over customer service to Expedia.
sethg 14y ago
Expedia is (allegedly) lying about one of their “partner” hotels in a way that drives customers away from the hotel. Isn’t this the kind of thing that a lawyer would call “tortious interference with business relationships”?
liranja 14y ago
Well, that's exactly why we created http://live.Roomixer.com http://live.Roomixer.com A Guest Exchange marketplace where Guest Rejections can be bought and sold. If hotels would cooperate with other hotels there would be less work for Expedia!
saosebastiao 14y ago
Friendly PSA from someone who has dealt with lying businessmen and customer service reps: record all your conversations. Be careful to notify them that you are recording the conversation if you live in a two-party consent state. In fact, letting them know you are recording them is a great way to get them to take you seriously. I've gotten a phone call from a VP of a company, wishing to "settle our differences" to my satisfaction once word got to him that I had recorded a conversation with a beligerent rep.

467 points by ValentineC 14y ago

Outrageous if true, though I'm inclined to blame Expedia's incompetence rather than intentional misdirection... A bit of a shame because I've found Expedia to be pretty decent for booking flights (though that's mostly by way of comparison with other sites; most flight booking sites are jaw-droppingly horrible...).

win_ini 14y ago
Try Hipmunk.com.... best flight search I've seen. It the refers you to the airline's page to complete the booking. No sketchy third-party to buy from. It's visualization of flights schedules is awesome!

jiayo 14y ago

I see Expedia as no different from traditional middle-men (travel agents). If I search a flight+hotel deal on Expedia, I can always get the exact same price by booking directly with the airline and hotel, and without the potential hassles described in the article. Perhaps it's naive, but I feel safer booking direct, because then if I have any problems, I'm dealing with a first-party and it's harder to be given the three-way runaround.

stoolpigeon 14y ago
One thing I learned on a trip this summer is that Delta will charge an extra fee to change tickets if they were booked through expedia. I don't know if other airlines do this too but if I'm flying Delta it is a motivator to book directly. Which I'm sure is the point.
- OafTobark 14y ago
  Interesting to know. I personally avoid Delta, United, American, and a few others if at all possible. My main airlines are: Virgin America Southwest Alaska Airlines In that order with JetBlue mixed in somewhere in there. Helps to have a narrow set if you are racking up air miles and I've had HORRID experiences with the others. I only take them if I have to now
  - jowiar 14y ago
    The best strategy with flying I've found is to pick one Legacy carrier/alliance if you're a frequent traveler (because they treat their folks with status quite well, at the expense of everyone else). If you don't fly >25k miles/year, do what you do.
    - ubernostrum 14y ago
      Pretty much this. Pick an airline based on convenience, and sign up for the frequent-flyer program. So many of the negatives associated with air travel typically boil down to shopping based solely on base price, with zero brand loyalty, and then being surprised that the airline doesn't treat you as well as a repeat customer who buys (or has an employer who buys) full-fare tickets. And so much of the difference between the full and discounted fares typically gets made up one way or another; either you're paying about the same as someone who bought "discount" but now is getting socked with fees left and right to check bags, use power outlets, etc., or often it just evens out over the course of enough flights.
    - monksy 14y ago
      I'm a Gold member on United, and Silver on Delta. United treats me fairly well [when they have an issue they pass me on to US Airways]. I've had massive issues with Delta. Honestly, I'm not thrilled about Southwest. They'll get you there... but eh.
      - ubernostrum 14y ago
        I have flown pretty much all the legacy carriers, including the ones that merged out of existence. Delta is by far the worst I've dealt with. No other carrier even comes close on that score. I'm currently with US Airways (Platinum) for various reasons; they've treated me pretty well, their hubs are decent enough, routes are convenient, and they fly real planes rather than cramped CRJ lawn darts in and out of my home airport (Kansas City). And it's comforting to know, at the moment, that if they do screw up horribly I have other options within the alliance, though the looming prospect of the AA merger is going to lead to some serious thinking about whether I should just do it pre-emptively. Among the low-cost carriers I don't mind Southwest so much. They're kind of the Chipotle of airlines; you know what you're going to get, you know it's not the greatest but also not the worst, and they have some quirky branding and service aspects that inspire loyalty among their regular customers. If I were going to fly an LCC, though, I'd probably pick Frontier just because they give a bit more bang for the buck on the routes I'm most likely to fly.
Nagyman 14y ago
You might have been somewhat fortunate finding the same direct price. I'm aware that Expedia is large enough to get bulk discounts from airlines that aren't always publicly offered to direct passengers.
- jiayo 14y ago
  It probably has to do with being located in Canada.
aj37 14y ago
The rationale for the discounts is that you don't know (or at least it's non-obvious), whether the discount is coming from the flight or the hotel. If the "Book together and save" amount is positive then you'll generally be getting a better deal than direct. You might see the same total price occasionally but it certainly won't be the case the majority of the time.

jrockway 14y ago

A classic "small business is mad" blog post. It even contains the a quote about how much money they spent on their business, "We put all of our money, time and heart into making it work," as though that's a criterion Expedia uses when deciding how to respond to customer service inquiries. I'm also surprised that the links broke and Expedia's "IT department" said they'll "never" be fixed. That doesn't really make any sense. I can't help but think that the images are hosted by the hotel itself and that they broke the images. I don't know. The story sounds plausible but unlikely to me and has all the classic "crazy person" literary features. (Some sources to back this up would be good: emails, screenshots, etc.)

adambenayoun 14y ago
Ditto. Some more proofs would be great in order to establish some trust with this post. If everything written here is right then I would say they have a pretty good case in suing them. I would also argue some lawyers would even take this case (granted the proofs are solid) based on a success fee. EDIT: I strongly recommend to read the comments, someone wrote that he witnessed this personally (of course comments could be fake but it's still something). David Beau. said - December 4, 2012 at 11:29 pm We can verify parts of this. We have stayed at the Luna Blue almost every year since Tony and Cheri have opened. In late 2011 I was checking on availability of the Luna Blue for our vacation. I was surprized to find expedia said they had no room available. I then checked a couple other small hotels in Playa and was told they were also full. I then contacted Cheri and found that they did have plenty of rooms. Which we did book thru the hotel. Deanna said - December 5, 2012 at 11:03 am I know first hand about this. I had booked a room back in Feb. to travel in November. I got an email mid Oct. from Hotels.com that Luna Blue no longer had any openings for that time. It didn’t make sense to me. After calling Hotels.com and them wanting me to book elsewhere I got hold of Cheri. She was in San Francisco at the time but took the time out to make sure I was able to rebook through their website directly for the time I had originally booked. I was also able to save 10% off what I had originally expected to pay. We went and stayed at Luna Blue and it was truly a wonderful experience. Cheri was out of town when we came so I was not able to meet her but Tony made us feel welcome and we wish you guys all the luck fighting this horrible thing that has happened. I would certainly stay here again if I return to Playa.

shadowmint 14y ago

First of all they have a well-deserved reputation for bad customer service. Google the words “Expedia bad customer service” and see what comes up. Yes. Anecdotal I know, but I've used Expedia twice, and will never use them again. It took a year and an offer to take the case to court before they issued a refund, and the second time they just screwed all the bookings up with no apology or comment upon complaint.

easytiger 14y ago
To add something contrary to this, i had the opposite experience. I had to cancel a flight/hotel booking at short notice because I couldn't go. They said normally they charge for that but this time would let me do it free. Replies were fast and prompt at awkward times of day etc.
- adambenayoun 14y ago
  I have experienced pretty good customer experience with Expedia as well. However we're not talking about the end customers here but rather the suppliers (of services). I wouldn't want to use a company (no matter how good they are) who have been known for crushing smaller players to maximize their bottom line.

adambenayoun 14y ago

I wonder if we can repay them and play the same game they are playing. Maybe if many of us reblog/post and link to that amazing detailed blog post with the anchor text being "advertise with expedia" - maybe when new hotels who will want to advertise with Expedia (and google about it) will be able to read about that horrible experience.

impendia 14y ago

I am a typical travel customer. I often go to conferences and book hotels in unfamiliar cities. I am very sympathetic to this story. And yet -- at the end -- >either use the internet to do the research or go to a reputable travel agent. Let's look at these alternatives. Use the internet to do the research? Expedia makes it very easy, that's the point. Are its competitors better? Maybe. How am I supposed to be able to tell? Is Hipmunk also evil? Orbitz? Some other random website I find which compares hotels? If I use these websites to do my research and then book directly, I'm avoid some of the problems -- but probably not all? Go to a reputable travel agent? No, sorry. That's a pain in the ass. I'm disappointed in this article. It makes a very convincing case that we should avoid huge internet travel monopolies, but yet doesn't compellingly suggest what I should do instead.

adambenayoun 14y ago
The main problem is that Expedia is really great for customers like us since they really help us in making better and (cheaper) decision when booking a flight. I think this should be fixed with either suing the company and the people involved (granted everything they wrote is true) or talking to a high level manager who could look into the case and make the right decision (ie. Fire the people who were involved).
whydee 14y ago
Sounds like a problem calling out for a solution.
lotsofpulp 14y ago
www.roomkey.com is the hotel franchises attempt to get control back of online reservations. Also, the best method is simply finding out the hotel's phone number via Google or TripAdvisor, and speaking with someone at the hotel. This way, you can guarantee yourself a certain room at a certain location in the hotel, away from traffic noise, on the 2nd floor, etc. I recommend TripAdvisor for reviews, they have an option where hotel managers can sign up and respond to guest complaints.
- calbear81 14y ago

vlenin 14y ago

I've never booked with Expedia because they have never offered a better price than I can get from the travel agent in my neighbourhood.

dotBen 14y ago

Travel hack: as the article points out, Expedia take 25% cut of the booking rate, which is usually the same a the hotel's direct rate. Because the hotel will make more profit from you, you have a higher chance of getting a room upgrade at the property, better amenities or even just better service if you book direct rather than via Expedia.

fmavituna 14y ago
Here is the funny fact, whenever I check the hotels' own websites, prices are almost always higher than Expedia's listing. Does anyone know why?
- nayanga 14y ago
  some time with Air tickets also
- gniv 14y ago
  That's been my experience as well. The article claims it isn't true, but I know for sure it is, since I remember researching a particular hotel extensively -- I really wanted to stay there -- and Expedia was by far the lowest price. This was an overseas hotel, so I was not fond of calling them up and asking for a discount from somebody who might or might not speak English.
- ebiester 14y ago
  It make it look like a more expensive hotel. Much of the time, you can get them to match Expedia's price by asking. Think of it as price discrimination.
- lotsofpulp 14y ago
  It's due to competition, and price discrimination. In highly competitive areas, other hotels will offer their rooms at a discount to Expedia/Travelocity/etc, to catch the market that visits these websites (due to the websites' marketing and reputation as being the place to go for online bookings). If a hotel doesn't offer their rooms on the third party websites, then they effectively lose those sales. I know some of the agreements will make it so that they can't advertise rooms at the rates given to travel agents, so that may be why you see it cheaper. Priceline has a different system, where each hotel provides three price levels, and if a person bids at or above a price level, then Priceline gets the difference between the price level and what the person bid. At hotels that don't have problems selling rooms, they have no reason to offer rooms to travel agents, so you won't see any price discrepancies there. In fact, you probably won't even see the room offered on third party websites.

antonpug 14y ago

I disagree with this post. Never had any issues with expedia. Always use them for air/hotel bookings and they are awesome. They do a really good job filtering out the junk "non-chain" hotels and making clear to the buyer that what they are getting it high quality.

jasonlotito 14y ago
Nothing in your comment explains why you disagree with the post, however. Nothing you are saying is contrary to the original article.
Hates_ 14y ago
You disagree from the point of an end customer. If you have no hotel preference and are mis-directed away from certain partners to those that pay better commission then to you it has been a good experience. Just because they have got you good bookings, does not mean they haven't lied and screwed people over in the process.
jowiar 14y ago
What the post is saying is that they also do a really good job filtering out the non-junk "non-chain" hotels, making life difficult for the independent hotelier.

frqunttraveller 14y ago

I see few posts where people are in doubt. This behavior is unfortunatly their business model. Mark "non participating" hotels as full and listen against their will and trick users to more expensive/hotels they get more commissions from. Not long ago they even lost in court around this in Norway http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2011%2F11%2F03%2Ftema%2Freise%2Freisesokemotor%2Fdom%2F18876877%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

ghyhh 14y ago

I had to use expedia to book a last minute trip on aeromexico because they were the only ones with seats available for the date I wanted. I have to say that the whole experience stinks like a ripoff. Something that Really raised flags was the fact that according to their terms if you miss your flight you completely loose your ticket. Also, you cannot make any changes. They are really not worth it.

mikecane 14y ago

Why should anyone be surprised? Do you really think abuse of power is absent because a business is on the Internet? How many times have publishers had their Buy buttons removed from their books at Amazon? How many stories are there of small devs getting ripped off by Apple and Microsoft? What about late payments to devs from the Google Play Store? I will never use Expedia now. Better that I should be inconvenienced than be jerked around by smug companies out to crush small businesses. EDIT: Typo fixed.

irahul 14y ago

> For the most availability, best prices and service, always book directly with a hotel. It has never been the case with me. Expedia, or any other travel site, always had better deals. In fact, I once called the hotel in question to ask why there is a big price discrepancy between their site listing and makemytrip. I was concerned makemytrip is selling me rooms that doesn't exist and the hotel won't honor my reservation. The hotel staff told me the hotel sells rooms to makemytrip well in advance, and whatever the price that is listed on makemytrip will be honored(doesn't really matter; you pay directly to makemytrip). Also, I am a bit paranoid. I would hate it if some hotel overbooked and told me "lol sorry" when I arrive. I know travel sites aren't really on my side, but at least I will have someone to appeal to. I didn't have any bad experience with Expedia but then, I had very limited interactions with them(I didn't even modify or cancel my bookings). I would advice against agoda and booking.com as they forward your credit card info to the hotel as security. In what world does forwarding a customer's credit card info to a random hotel makes sense? Imagine the surprise when you are at the hotel counter and the staff shows you a printout of your credit card info(nothing obscured; everything in plain text). > If you would like to know more about our hotel just visit our website at www.lunabluehotel.com. I tried, and the link is down. Most of the hotels don't even have websites, let alone online reservations. There is a reason customers go to expedia in the first place. EDIT: Random travel tip. If you are in a foreign or an unknown location, a hotel which provides airport transfer generally ends up cheaper than a hotel which doesn't + cab fares. You would be surprised how wrong your assumptions about transport might be. "You have a flight to catch at 8, it's 5, you are in the lobby and there isn't a cab in sight and looks unlikely there will be one for another 2 hours" isn't a pleasant situation to be in.

sorbits 14y ago
I concur! When you book via Agoda.com you get points that can be used toward future bookings. It’s effectively a 4% rebate, so even if the hotel can match the Agoda price, it’s still a better deal to book it via Agoda, that said, in the past I would often ask the hotel, before booking, if they could match the Agoda price, and more often than not, the answer was no. Despite my best efforts, I did not succeed in getting an explanation of this policy. In the case of Agoda, they do not buy the rooms in advance.

raverbashing 14y ago

Dear small business hotel Yes, Expedia sucks, but here's what you should do YOU make your website and booking system available on the web. Make people able to google your hotel and get there. (Edit: this seems to be already in place) If I search your hotel on Expedia and it shows no dates available, I begin to suspect Expedia, or your integration of systems with them. And if they really say your hotel is going out of business, get a lawyer. Edit: get a lawyer NOW

lotsofpulp 14y ago

I know people in the hospitality business, and all third party travel websites (and travel agents) are bad for the traveler and hotel, for a few simple reasons. 1) Middlemen always need their cut. In this case, you pay the website, and then the website pays the hotel less. 2) By bypassing the middleman (call the hotel directly, and speak to that specific location's on site employees), you SHOULD be able to get a better deal. Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off. Any competent manager will do this because it costs much more than 5% to get your reservation from a travel agent. Obviously, they will have to verify that third party price, but in the case of Expedia, they can just search it. 3) Additionally, it's good to book directly with the hotel for the following reasons too (or at least call them directly after booking online to confirm): -In the fine print of travel websites' T&C, it will say you are guaranteed A room, not THE room you want. This means if only smoking rooms are available, the third party site will still sell it to you as a non smoking room. Also, there are many incompatibilities in the GDS/Central reservation system software, so there is a chance there can be an error in your reservation. -Third party reservations don't go to the hotel with the guest's contact information. This means if the hotel wants to contact you about some issue, they cannot reach you, and the websites won't give out the guest's information. This was a big problem during Sandy a few months ago. All in all, third party websites are a relic of the times when hotels did not have the technical expertise to implement internet reservation systems. Nowadays, you can just look up the hotel's reviews on TripAdvisor, call the hotel directly, and make sure you get the room you want by speaking with someone directly at the property, with actual knowledge of the place. The ONLY benefit these third party websites can provide, seems to be with the bundling of hotels/flights/rental cars, but I still wouldn't use them. Going straight to the vendor has been the more pleasant experience for me. Edit: I should have noted that my knowledge comes from US and British hotels, mostly franchises like IHG/Hilton/Choice/Wyndham.

irahul 14y ago
> Simply compare prices, and if you find it cheaper on a website, ask the hotel to give you 5% off. I did. The staff told me they sold a number of rooms well in advance, and the travel site does the pricing with a guaranteed return to the hotel. To the hotel, it doesn't matter how much they are selling it for, but they can do only what is listed on the site. Also, many 3 star rated hotels don't have online reservations.

prostoalex 14y ago

>>> "a long, detailed list describing our rooms" Hint: a red flag right there. You're selling what's perceived as standardized commodity. If a long and detailed list made the job of corporate copy-and-paster hard, imagine potential customer confusion.

cyberp 14y ago

I stopped booking with Expedia when there was a problem with an incorrect flight time. Delta said they couldn't do anything and I'd have to resolve with Expedia. Expedia said they couldn't do anything, and I'd have to resolve with Delta. I had a clearly nonsensical flight plan (I was scheduled to be at the destination for 1 hour), and no way to resolve it. I gave up on both businesses.

gritsscholar 14y ago

Given the owner's complaint, I find it odd that when I clicked the Room & Amenities link at the bottom of lunabluehotel.com, the link was dead, or at least, timing out repeatedly.

woof 14y ago

This is a known problem and I see no reason not to believe every word Tony & Cheri writes. Check out this (poorly tranlated) article from Norway: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Freise.aftenposten.no%2Freise%2FHotelscom-tilbyr-hotell-som-de-ikke-har-35865.html%23.UNnECaWwfZs http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

greghinch 14y ago

Here's my reason for avoiding Expedia. A few years ago I booked a trip to the UK to visit some friends. The morning I was supposed to leave, I get an email from one of my friends saying that I should check if my flight is still on, because there is "something going on with a volcano in Iceland". Turns out it's the start of that major eruption and all air traffic in Northern Europe is grounded with no foreseeable reopening. I first called the airline, Virgin Atlantic. They were very friendly, apologetic, and as helpful as possible. They said they could reschedule me, but given all the unknowns they weren't making any new bookings for at least 2 weeks. Now this was a two week vacation I was taking, with lots of other things scheduled, so I couldn't really just up and shift the whole thing two weeks on a whim. They would have gladly given a refund, but since I booked through Expedia, I had to talk to them. That's when things started going downhill. First of all, even on what I'm sure was a crazy customer service day, the people at Virgin answered the phone in minutes and were quite friendly. The Expedia call took almost an hour to be answered. Every agent I spoke too was borderline rude and confrontational, and had the worst broken English of any oversees call center I've dealt with. From the start they only wanted to argue, that because it was the day of the flight, I could neither cancel or reschedule. Finally, after about 90 minutes of arguing and being transferred, I got to a high enough manager who actually seemed to listen to what I said and not just be reading a script, and got my refund authorized. And I thought it was over. Months go by and the credit never appears back to my card. I call Expedia a couple times, each time they say it is being processed by the CC company, but it can take up to 90 days. I check with the CC, they have no record of the credit. Finally after 90 days, I get a hold of Expedia and they say it is fine if I just have the CC company cancel the transaction on their end (as a dispute), as there must have been a "glitch" somewhere. And that flipped the trouble switch. Apparently there is an automated system in Expedia, if you dispute their charge with you CC company, they automatically flip it to a collections agency. A few months after I did, I got a very threatening letter and phone call saying I owed the charge plus penalties and interest. If I did not pay, they would flag my credit rating and possibly take further legal action. I contacted Expedia again to ask WTF is going on, and their response was that they are not allowed to communicate with the collections agency once the matter has been given to them. They were confident that if i just explained why I didn't owe the money, the collections guys would drop it. But they couldn't provide me with any documentation to give them. After another month of letters and phone calls with the collections agents, and quite a bit of stress on my end, I stopped hearing from them so I guess it was resolved. Keep in mind, all told this is about 8 months down the road from when I was originally supposed to travel. In fact I rebooked the entire trip for about a month after the original, and had already gone and come back. But definitely not with Expedia.

calbear81 14y ago

> It wasn’t cheap, as Expedia takes 25 % of every booking made through their sites–a fact that hotels are forbidden by Expedia to disclose to guests. This is forbidden to be disclosed because business contract details are covered under an NDA they signed with Expedia. 25% is their negotiated commission but it will vary by partner and hence they don't want that being disclosed to be used as leverage in negotiations with other hotels. > For the most availability, best prices and service, always book directly with a hotel. This may be the case with the Luna Blue, but is definitely not what we at Room 77 see in the marketplace. We're connecting with the GDS and pretty much every major OTA in the US (Expedia, Orbitz, Booking.com, Priceline, etc.) and what we're seeing is increasing price fragmentation in the marketplace. This is why we fundamentally believe that metasearch is a better model for the consumer since prices and availability do vary. > Secondly they do not offer discounted rates as many claim. As someone else mentioned, even if a rate is not discounted against the rate the hotel has directly, it may be a promotion against the regular rate and you have to factor in the loyalty programs that exist on many OTA sites (Hotels.com book 10 get 1 free, Agoda 4% rewards, etc.). The most probable reason that an OTA has a lower rate is that the room availability has changed. For example, a hotel has two types of rooms (A & B) may have presold a percentage to Expedia and if the hotel has sold their own allocation of room type A and only has room type B left, the lowest price the hotel has for ANY room is the price of room type B. Expedia may then show a lower price for a hotel because they still have room type A available to sell to travelers since they own that percentage of inventory that was presold to them. The core value proposition of booking through an online agency wasn't really addressed by Tony and Cheri which is that people by and large don't want to shop a single hotel's price and availability. When I want to go to Playa del Carmen, I want to see ALL options I have in an area and compare hotels and rates and the easiest way to do that is through an OTA or a metasearch engine. Booking directly through a hotel has it's own advantages which include: 1) payment is usually not required until you arrive at the hotel, 2) you earn the hotel's loyalty points if they have a program, and 3) the hotel will prioritize your booking for upgrades, etc. since they didn't have to pay a large commission. From my perspective working at a metasearch company, we want to provide maximum choice and availability of options/inventory so we show both direct hotel inventory and OTA inventory and let consumers decide which one they want to choose.

coditor 14y ago

I work for an OTA and this is likely not Expedia per se, but the local office trying to up the value of their sales. Small hotels are always going to have more problems than a big chain, as they don't have any real time data connection to provide availability and room information. Either they send in their information and hope someone enters it correctly, or they are provided with access to a portal they can manage their own data in. If the local property manager is only interested in getting credit for high value sales and the small property owner doesn't have access to the portal, then likely the manager can screw them over so that people wind up at the more valuable properties. OTA's prefer data connections because that way the data is more up to date. It also means any errors are the fault of the chain (unless the hotel system itself has bugs). By making Expedia aware of how their local managers are operating they might actually get this fixed. No OTA wants this kind of bad publicity. Just the US alone my employer (and its parent company) have nearly 300,000 hotels available. Keeping the data current is a massive pain at that scale since at the other end are individual people. Also note that for most OTA's there are only a couple providers of hotel photos and one dominant one, and we all hate them as they suck terribly. Unless you are a speciality provider like Oyster or Hotel Tonight and can take the few photos you need, or are Tripadvisor and can get customers to take them, you are at the mercy of the photo provider. So a quality bitching can get you better service (as a hotel provider) from an OTA. Even better is make a deal with someone who provides small hotels with data management (which does cost money) so that your room availability is all electronic. The hotel business is all about filling rooms. The average hotel hopes for 70% rooms filled tonight. OTA's do provide a lot of hotel bookings so you can't do without them. But if the local OTA hotel property manager sucks there are 4 major players you can deal with (plus all the speciality ones). Yes you have to give them a commission (20%+ usually) but if you work with them correctly they can fill your rooms.

dchinyee 14y ago
What's the name of the dominant hotel photo provider? Any particular reason why they suck so terribly? Just curious to see if it might be an easy problem for a new player to solve.

aneth4 14y ago

I don't use Expedia as I've found their service to be horrible, and their technology in the early days had all kinds of issues with losing session and the like, so I abandoned them 10+ years ago. I do use Orbitz. I'm not sure if they are guilty of the same sins, but I've generally found their service to be adequate. I book directly with airlines when it makes sense and doesn't take too much effort - but most hotel booking sites are horrible and prices are usually higher. It would be great if an open platform like AirBNB emerged for hotels - perhaps AirBNB itself.

buster 14y ago

To be honest, i'll still book where it's cheapest. Usually i use a lot of those sites, including tripadvisor, etc. to check for accomodations and in the end i'll book where it's cheapest. I'll check on google maps for hotels, check online pricing, but in the end.. when the hotel itself is more expensive (plus expedia and co offer me a good meta search not only one hotel!).. why should i pay more for "less"?! Never had problems with expedia&co myself but i rarely need to cancel/change reservations. It's not my fault that the whole hotel business doesn't seem to be capable enough to do this on their own.

avar 14y ago

> For the most availability, best prices and service, > always book directly with a hotel. (Full disclosure: I work for Booking.com an online hotel booking website and Expedia's competitor) I think it's a gross misrepresentation to say that the customer is always best off booking directly with the hotel. You get something you wouldn't get when booking directly through the hotel. When you use an OTA you have collective bargaining power; If the hotel screws you around in any way it's now the OTA's problem. They'll call up the hotel on your behalf (in their native language, which you may or may not speak) and either sort it out with them or make sure you have somewhere else to stay because you're now their customer. Of course the service you get differs a lot by OTA. But from the customer's perspective there's usually a net gain by booking through one.

krenoten 14y ago
FD: I'm at an OTA/Central Reservation System specializing in boutique hotels. When you book with a respectable OTA, it is basically like purchasing comfort insurance, but you pay nothing for it. You are being backed by their brand and your problems become theirs to solve. OTA's sometimes offer perks to people who book through them like free or discounted transportation and comped room upgrades. Also, it is often in the contract between the hotel and the OTA that the hotel will always advertise the lowest rate available through that OTA. If the hotel works with several OTA's, then the hotel must offer the same room rate to each one that they have this arrangement with. They sometimes offer the same rate on their own, too. If you contact the hotel and ask for a room directly, and they offer you a lower rate, there is a chance that they are in breach of contract. So the customer should definitely be getting value from their decision to book through an OTA. For hotels, they usually have contracts with several OTA's. To let them know which rooms to sell, a hotelier will periodically update the availability and rates using a CRS that distributes the information to several OTA's, simplifying the process. But there are some really nasty CRS's out there, built in the 70s on mainframes that have not changed much since. They can be complicated to work with, and discourage smaller properties from putting in the effort. It sounds like the writer likely had a problem updating availability information through the CRS that expedia uses, leading to them not showing any availability.
- 14y ago

jonknee 14y ago

It sounds like they aren't very savvy business people, but when I'm looking to stay somewhere that does not matter. A 16 room boutique hotel is never going to get a ton of attention from a large travel agency, there's no profit in it. They'd be better off marketing directly to their target demographic and trying for word of mouth / repeat business. I have had great luck with Hotwire (an Expedia subsidiary) and have discovered many neat hotels with it. I live in Florida and frequently book hotel room on the various beaches for easy short vacations, the only motivator is location and price (if nothing is available, I don't go). I have booked directly at some of the places I found, but if it weren't for their being on Hotwire I never would have found them. Also, the cost savings with Hotwire is frequently massive (50% off is not uncommon)--I haven't been able to book directly for cheaper (the trick is Hotwire doesn't tell you the exact hotel before you book, so if you want to ensure the same property you need to direct book and pay more).

zevyoura 14y ago
I also have had good experiences with Hotwire. One helpful note: if you do a little looking around on the internet, it's usually pretty easy to figure out which hotel they're offering based on location and amenities.

specialist 14y ago

Not using hotels.com is harder than you think. There are front entities pretending to be the hotel and are actually booking thru hotels.com. Background... We booked a hotel in Key West FL. Fair deal. Show up, no reservation. Turns out they gave us the wrong hotel info. It was super late and we couldn't resolve the mess with hotels' customer service over the phone so we just crashed where we arrived. Took months to get the charges for the other booking reversed. People at hotel where we arrived said it happens all the time. For our next trip, resolved to not use hotels.com ever again, I found hotel via the web. Called the number. Turns out both the website and phone number were SEO optimized front companies that book thru hotels.com. Which we did not discover until we arrived and there was a problem with the booking. We paid $40 extra per night for the privilege of being lied to. Rant... Personally, as a consumer, I'm very grumpy that I'm constantly being lied to. I work hard for my money. I try to be diligent about how I spend it. And I'm sick of being robbed by legal means. It seems to be getting worse (ISPs, banks, phone companies, mortgages, etc). I'm now more reluctant to spend money. Because now my transaction costs are getting too high. Too much friction. If my wary consumer experience is widespread, it has to be dampening the economy. Free market! Woot!

beagle3 14y ago
Same story here. Called a number I thought was the hotel. They replied with "Hotel name, what can I do for you". I made the reservation, based on wrong information in just about every department, the wrongest being that the hotel has room (but also wrong about cancellation policy and other stuff, as I later found out). Got to hotel, only to be told that hotels.com screwed up and confirmed 30 reservations when in fact the hotel in fact had 2 available rooms for the day. Went to a friend's house, as no other hotel around was available. Called hotels.com; waited an hour on the phone, no answer. Disputed charge with credit card company (took less than 10 minutes), and emailed them that I've disputed, and if they want it to NOT go through they are welcome to contact me. They emailed me within 24 hours with some credit, saying it will take them 72 hours to resolve. After 120 hours, I email them; they say it's going to "take them more time". After 4 more days, I email them - still no response. The next morning, credit card company gave me my money back. Haven't heard from hotels.com since, but I have a paper trail saying they will check and contact me, and then silence. And so does the credit card company. Never booking through hotels.com again, even if it means I have to work much more to figure out a direct phone number.

white_devil 14y ago

This is fucking disgusting, and these scumbags (together with tripadvisor) have polluted Google's search results. No matter what hotel you're googling for, your search results will be chock-full of these bastards.

gniv 14y ago
Don't lump them together. Tripadvisor has lots of high quality hotel reviews. I can forgive a lot of annoying ads for that.

parasubvert 14y ago

Been using Expedia for 14 years, though not exclusively. Contrary to the post, they often post discounts unavailable elsewhere, particularly for combos. For example recently, the regular rate at Wynn Las Vegas was around $200 a night in December but with an Expedia flight it worked out to $140 a night. This is the discount they usually give their mid level Red Card members, if I recall correctly (upper get RFB). I've also used Expedia to book a stay in Cancun a few years ago; they had a number of mom and pop hotels listed with rich details, but Ultimately I got a great combo rate at the Ritz Carlton (like $240 - it was about a week before the season really began); this rate was not available on the Ritz website. I have had some bad experiences with Expedia when requesting refunds or changes, though this has improved over the past 2 years with more software features and slightly better call center agents (ymmv). Ultimately I'll book direct with the hotel or airline if I have a specific reason to (schedule, FF points, upgrades, etc), but for easy price comparison and research I tend to rely on Kayak and Expedia almost exclusively. This posting has not changed my mind that they offer a good service - they seem to have issues with their Latin American offices.

lucian303 14y ago

Since their rep double booked the room I had already booked online (which I told him) and I released expedia points weren't worth shit, I've been using hotels.com. Free night every 10. That's pretty sweet. (Note, I have no affiliation w/ hotels.com or whatever, it's just what works for me). Wish I hadn't wasted all those nights getting expedia points worth what $10 bux maybe after 20+ nights? Fuck that.

usaphp 14y ago

I will NEVER book from Expedia, the end!!!

deleted 14y ago

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_delirium 14y ago

> Secondly they do not offer discounted rates as many claim. In Denmark at least, I have found that they typically do offer discounted rates that the hotel's own website doesn't offer, especially for smaller hotels during periods of lower demand. If you're booking off-season at the last minute, I've found discounts on hotels.com of 40-60% relative to what the online-booking system of the hotel's own website was showing. One example where I've stayed a few times (http://www.hotel-maritime.dk/ http://www.hotel-maritime.dk/) was offering €50/night via hotels.com in late January 2012, at a time when their own website was listing €80/night. It's frequent enough that I advise my friends visiting Copenhagen to always check a hotel's rate on hotels.com before booking through the hotel's website, in case there's a substantial difference.

lessnonymous 14y ago
The price advertised at a hotel is called the "Rack Rate". Never pay that. Phone the hotel and get a real price from them. It's a weird system, but you'll get the same price as an OTA is offering. Often less, if you ask and quote the OTA price.
- _delirium 14y ago
  I guess I could do that, but I generally prefer to book on the internet. Phones tend to result in dealing with international phone calls, being on hold, reading credit-card numbers over the phone, and that kind of hassle. Plus, the discovery/comparison-shopping experience is considerably worse. Some hotels offer the same discounted rates through their own websites, and I do book with them directly if they do. If they don't, but somewhere else on the internet does offer the discounted rates, then I prefer that option to calling.

duopixel 14y ago

I worked in the online booking industry for a couple of years, coincidentally I also live in Playa del Carmen now. What most likely happened was this: Expedia and other big players buy wholesale room inventory from large hotel chains. Expedia might come up and say that they want to buy 30% of the rooms of a hotel for a certain period at a steeply discounted price. This might be something that the hotel itself can't fill, so the happily sell to Expedia et al. To Expedia, selling these rooms might be something like 80% profit, against 25% for a small hotel such as the Luna Blue. Expedia then promotes the hell out of the hotel through their website: they make it appear on top of search results, they "pimp" they profile of the hotel, and such. They are not allowed to undercut the price, because other retailers might ask for the same price. Then, the office managers of Expedia Cancún are most likely on some sort of incentive to sell most of these wholesale rooms (travel is dominated by such economic incentives). The hack is is pretty clear: "closing" smaller hotels causes users to book another hotel, and it will most likely be one of these pimped out hotel profiles that provide much more profit than other hotels. I'm guessing this is a regional issue, just some dim witted office managers at Cancún that are trying to game the system in order to get a big incentive.

mistermann 14y ago
This sounds very plausible, and this type of thing should be closely watched by corporate and punished harshly when it does occur. The older I get, the more I think government should get involved in business, because it seems increasingly common that corporations will not police themselves - "oh, we had no idea this was happening!" Personally, I am getting tired of hearing lie after lie from corporations. I have always been right wing or libertarian, but I am starting to adopt the political opinion that I would like to see the government step in and start punishing these companies so hard that they will very seriously regret that they didn't self-police.

drpgq 14y ago

Well that explains some of the weirdness I've seen for hotels that Expedia said were booked out where it didn't seem likely (dead season).

bhntr3 14y ago

It would be great if this blog post were picked up by a legit news organization, researched and fact checked, cross referenced with other stories (like the French one) and published more widely as an expose. This is bad for consumers and bad for hotels. I like small local hotels. I want them to succeed. I want an easier way to connect with them. They are hard to find on hotels.com, etc. and I always assumed it was because the owners didn't maintain the listing, but it seems it's because expedia doesn't care.

desult 14y ago
Here you go. http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3809328/one-small-hotels-long-nightmare-with-expedia http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/28/3809328/one-small-hotels-...

michaelhoffman 14y ago

Since this was posted on 5 December and has a fair amount of attention now, I'm surprised that Expedia hasn't officially responded yet. Maybe because so much of the attention has come in the past couple of days. I sent them a Tweet asking what was going on, and I notice someone posted this on their Facebook Page.

benatkin 14y ago
One does not simply post something on a business's Facebook page. Either the page has to share it or the viewer has to make two clicks to see it.
- michaelhoffman 14y ago
  Well, it's there[1] and a bunch of people seem to have seen it. Expedia has replied to posts made by others after this one but they seem to be ignoring this. [1] https://www.facebook.com/naptown/posts/295460857241207 https://www.facebook.com/naptown/posts/295460857241207

deleted 14y ago

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LunaBlue 14y ago

Thanks to all the folks offering support here and sharing their own stories of frustration with Expedia. We also wanted to note we are aware that our site is down. Our host server is having real troubles today and tell us things won't be fixed for 24 hours. If you need to contact us before then please email us at info@lunabluehotel.com or via our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/lunabluehotel https://www.facebook.com/lunabluehotel. Again thanks for the voices of support. Tony & Cheri Owners, Luna Blue Hotel

kqr2 14y ago

What are good alternatives to expedia that provide good customer service and are also friendly to small businesses?

javajosh 14y ago

When the cost to enforce a contract is higher than the value of the contract, then there is no justice. Small businesses are left with what is effectively vigilante justice, writing blog posts and appealing to the public directly. Frankly I'm biased against large organizations in general, and so I'm tempted to take this post at face value, and get angry with Expedia. And perhaps that's the right thing to do (although, as someone else pointed out, some e-mail quotes, screenshots, or other corroborating evidence would make for a more convincing story). But I can't help but think that we're all missing the big picture: that the high price of justice creates an enormous advantage for large companies. That justice is priced out of most people's ability. I used to hear about how 'litigious' American society has become. And yet, is that really true? Personal injury is no doubt quite popular. What what about simple fraud and breech of contract? What about conspiracy to commit fraud? Unless the justice system is priced for people to actually use it, then it's useless. So the question arises: what cheaper options does the OP have for pursuing this case?

ilaksh 14y ago

If Expedia is misrepresenting the status of the smaller hotels and cutting them out then I think that is a type of fraud or collusion with the bigger hotels. It is at the least, a policy that is antagonistic to competition.

monksy 14y ago

You don't want to book airline tickets with Expedia. If they are cheaper, they are only slightly cheaper, and you'll have to deal with Expedia when things go wrong. The airline gives a minor discount due to pushing over customer service to Expedia.

sethg 14y ago

Expedia is (allegedly) lying about one of their “partner” hotels in a way that drives customers away from the hotel. Isn’t this the kind of thing that a lawyer would call “tortious interference with business relationships”?

liranja 14y ago

Well, that's exactly why we created http://live.Roomixer.com http://live.Roomixer.com A Guest Exchange marketplace where Guest Rejections can be bought and sold. If hotels would cooperate with other hotels there would be less work for Expedia!

saosebastiao 14y ago

Friendly PSA from someone who has dealt with lying businessmen and customer service reps: record all your conversations. Be careful to notify them that you are recording the conversation if you live in a two-party consent state. In fact, letting them know you are recording them is a great way to get them to take you seriously. I've gotten a phone call from a VP of a company, wishing to "settle our differences" to my satisfaction once word got to him that I had recorded a conversation with a beligerent rep.