Here we go again, another flight fuck up, I'm seriously considering giving up on travel after this Asia trip is over, I'll just live vicariously through the RVF travelers, I don't need this stress!
Misadventure in on-line booking: I've booked over a dozen flights in the past six months and I always pay in cash at a travel agent, I know it cost a few extra bucks but I don't have to deal with shitty websites and use my credit card and expose myself to fraud. At the end of the ten or fifteen minute session with the travel agent, they give me my ticket in an envelope and I'm good to go, no need to hit up an internet cafe and print off your online itinerary, its easy.
I wish I had done that this time, but I didn't, I decided to book online and
Skyscanner sent me to Expedia's Thailand site.
The problem: I whipped out my Visa card and went though the process, then I reached the page where it confirmed my flight and gave me a confirmation number. I then checked my e-mail to see if the electronic itinerary had been sent, it hadn't, so I went back to Expedia to retrieve my flight details with the confirmation number, then the site told me it had been deleted. I called Visa and asked them to check if it had gone through, they told me it hadn't. So I decided to wait, went out for a bit then about two hours later I checked again, no e-mail and confirmation number still wouldn't work. I should add that I booked that flight as a guest on Expedia, then once I saw there was a problem, I registered an account with Expedia, but still could not retrieve my flight details. There's even an option to do so
"click here if you purchased flight as a guest and enter itinerary number."
I decided to book another ticket, this time it was on a different flight but same airline, three hours later as the previous one I had initially tried to get on was more expensive by that time. So I booked it and everything went smoothly, I got an electronic itinerary in my inbox a few minutes later and the confirmation number worked, all good,
or so I thought.
A couple of hours later, near midnight, I checked my in-box again before going to sleep and to my surprise, the original itinerary was in my in-box, so here I was with two flights, on the same airline, on the same day, each costing 3000 Baht (about $100). I called Expedia's customer support number but got some idiot in the USA who told me that they couldn't do anything and that I would have to call Expedia Thailand, great! I couldn't find a number on the website but filled out an online complaint form. To my surprise, they actually wrote me back in English the next morning with a phone number to call.
Customer Service Hell: So I ring them up and I get a Thai person on the line who spoke broken English, she was actually quite nice, but I don't understand why they can't import some Filipinos to do their English customer service, they import them to sing in bands, so why not?
Long story short: After almost an hour on the horn, they cancelled the second ticket but inform me of a 2100 Baht cancellation fee, so I only got 900 Baht (about $30 USD) refunded on my credit card. For fuck sakes, not really a horror story but a pain in the ass, Expedia fucked me over for $70.
Moral of the story: I'm never booking online again, I will pay the few bucks to have a travel agent handle it and I will
never deal with Expedia again and advise you guys not too either.
I still have some flying to do in the next few weeks, I'm sure with my luck I will be updating this thread again, but I hope not!