Weird happenings at Expedia

Miscellaneous Topics
1

I’ve been using Expedi to plan my vacation. I tried ot two years ago and was pleased with the results, so I decided to try it again. of course I lokoed at other sites also, but Expedia kept giving me a better deal.

Until I actually tried to book the trip yesterday.

The info prior to booking was $725 Mexico to Vegas via Mexicana with a 4 night hotel stay. Now, I realize the prices quoted are approximations, but they usually don’t go up, or down, more than a fraction of a percentage point once you book. After adding extras (airport shuttle, a tour, etc) it came to $826. So far, so good.

But when I entered the booking info the site informed me the price had changed to $1,030. That’s two hundred dolalrs more, and that’s a lot of money. I thought maybe I’d added an unwanted extra, so I did the trip over, got another $826 quote, entered booking info and got, again, $1,030.

I thought perhaps Mexicana gave Expedia one price to list and another to book. This is common, but usually the differences come to rounding errors. So I looked up Mexicana’s site to see what price I got. Same flights, same dates, about $525, including taxes and airport fees. Add about $210 for the hotel, plus extras, and it comes to about $840, which is close enough to Expedia’s initial quote.

But after a third re-try to book the entire trip in Expdia, it kept changing to $1,030 after I entered the booking info.

Well, not a large matter. I booked the flight directly from Mexicana (which was better as they offered defered payments at checkout, within Mexico only) and the hotel through Expedia. And I’m off to vegas next week.

But I’m puzzled, and a little bit angry. The practice of enticing a customer with one price, then charging him a higher one when he’s close to paying, or trying to sell him something more expensive while disparaging the original product or service, is a highly unethical one. It’s not quite a con, but it comes to close to one.

I like Expedia and I’ve recommended it, so I hate to think they were doing it on purpose. But the hotel price didn’t change at booking, nor did the extras. I’m sure the problem was with the flight price, but I just don’t know because Expedia didn’t tell me why the price had changed. I’ve no idea whther the problem lies with Expedia or with Mexicana. I could have tried a different airline and seen whether that price changed or not, but the bottom line is Mexicana has the only affordable non-stop flight to Vegas at the times that were most convenient to me. The price change came always after I had provided a credit card number and click on the purchase otpion. Therefore checking would have meant buying a trip, one with a less convenient flight.

If I had known Expedia would charge $200 more, I’d have bought my fligth from Mexicana to begin with, or explored other options, and wouldn’t be wondering now whether or not Expedia likes the bait and switch a bit too much.

2

Expedia aside, be sure to post about Vegas when you get back. I went a couple weeks ago and loved it!

3

I wold recommend contacting Expedia’s Customer Service for clarification. Perhaps it was a bug or something like misentered data.

4

I wold recommend contacting Expedia’s Customer Service for clarification. Perhaps it was a bug or something like misentered data.

I intend to do that. Had it not been so late yesterday, and had I not been tired of being on their site, I would have done so already. Overall Expedia has treated me well and their site is easier to use and clearer than most others I’ve seen. I really would like to know just what happened.

5

Expedia aside, be sure to post about Vegas when you get back. I went a couple weeks ago and loved it!

I expect I will. I went to Vegas once, but I was too young, and to impatient to get to Disneyland later on the trip, that I hardly recall anything about it. I also plan to visit Hoover Dam.

Anyway, why don’t you post about it now? Then we can compare notes when I get back.

6

Anyway, why don’t you post about it now? Then we can compare notes when I get back.

Absolutely!

I loved, loved, loved Vegas, at least the tourist side of things. When we arrived, I was expecting dust, noise, irritating lights, and wonder as to why anyone would go, based on the city’s reputation and pictures I’d seen.

Well, apparently the old Strip was what I’d known about, because the crazy, elaborately designed and luxurious casinos and hotels is the new Strip, where everyone goes. The existing buildings are beautifully kept, and there were at least ten new huge hotels that were going up or were nearly completed. You can go to any of them for free and just walk around and gawk if you wish. I have no desire to gamble, so I mostly gawked. I ate at a couple “low-end” restaurants, which had better food than any restaurant I’ve been to in Columbus, and I saw a couple “Cirque du Soleil” shows, which were fun.

There is so much to look at in Vegas I could go on for a while about all of the cool stuff (for example, the Bellagio has this incredible indoor flower garden, beautifully designed and with enormous skylights, which they apparently change completely with the season. So much money for that garden alone! Not to mention their awesome fountain out front!). But what I really liked was the pervasive attitude everyone has. These casinos were built for a good time. People walk down the street with their beers, they smoke inside of buildings… they are there to “sin,” and I love it!

A friend of a friend had the pleasure of getting a personal tour by one of the casino owners a few weeks back. Mr. Owner asked my friend’s friend what he studied at school. “I’m going to become a prosecutor.” The owner paused, and then looked at him and said, “Well, we’re not too big on the government around here.”

And you can tell. Buildings go up, life happens, people move about and do as they want. A far cry from the building restrictions in New York, the smoking and strip-club ban in Columbus, the preposterous taxes in California, the religious fear in so many acquaintances of mine…

I loved Vegas. I hope it never dies!

7

Absolutely!

Thanks.

I’ll post when I get back (I leave next Monday). For now I do like what you’ve said.

8

I sent Expedia an email with much the same info as the post above. Here’s their reply:

Please note that Expedia works on real time availabilities and prices that are subject to change unless successfully purchased. Due to this we are unable to provide quotes on the prices of an intended booking.

Does that mean the prices quoted are guesses or estimates? That a quote of $500 can change to $700 without warning? And does that not defeat the purpose of using a travel agency?

To be fair, I’ve been tracking prices at both Expedia and Mexicana for a few weeks. At one time the prices at Mexicana were higher, though not $200 higher.

And in any case the Internet era has the good old days beat hollow when it comes to travel. Back then comarison shopping was difficult and time-consuming. You could ask a couple of travel agents, but each one took hours. You could phone the airlines, but each would take at least 45 minutes, 80% of them on hold; likewise with hotels, and those calls were long distance. These days you can, if you want, look at every flight, every hotel, in a myriad combinations, and you can find out lots of details about them beforehand.

9

I had similar problems purchasing tickers for a recent trip to New Orleans. Eventually, I gave up and called Expedia, which worked. Unfortunately, I had to cancel my tickets a week later when I saw that they were less than half the Expedia price and non-stop at Southwest Airlines.

10

I’m back. Here goes.

But what I really liked was the pervasive attitude everyone has. These casinos were built for a good time. People walk down the street with their beers, they smoke inside of buildings… they are there to “sin,” and I love it!

Very much so. I found fewer restrictions in Vegas than anywhere else I know. Most other places you’d get arrested for drinking in the streets. I’d say Vegas trusts adults to behave like adults, and for the most part they do. I did see a few people noticeably high on alcohol, but few outright drunk. I frequented the streets mostly in the daytime, though, and I suspect things are different at night. Still, it’s great to be able to sip a frozen hard lemonade (with a shot of vodka) whle strolling from Caesar’s to the Bellagio.

Speaking of which, the Fountains out front are amazing. I expected little from them, actually, as I’d seen night-time fountain and fireworks shows, so I figured mere water would be tame. It’s not. The show I saw began with a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” with the water taking the place of fireworks at appropriate times. The fountains shoot water very high, and when the sound effects of rockets going off are added they are something completely different to anything I’d seen before. The water shoots so high it looks more like a cloud coming down. And the thought that people would undertake such efforts for no purpose other than creating beauty is deeply moving.

And you can tell. Buildings go up, life happens, people move about and do as they want.

Oh, yes. There are buildings going up constantly. The city is either under construction or renovation at, it seems, all times. I heard from a tour guide that each new hotel is bigger than the last one, requiring more employees each time. And every hotel job creates three more jobs, as those working in the hotels need housing, schools, shopping facilities, etc.

Speaking of hotels, you don’t know what big is until you visit them. Some, like the MGM Grand, are too big. Consider, there is a shopping mall, several restaurants, a large casino, several night clubs, assorted shops (outside the mall), several theaters for various shows, a lion habitat (inside!), a TV screening area for new shows and, I suppose, rooms somewhere. That goes for about every one of the mega resorts that have been going up since the early 90s, except for the lion habitat. Unless they have something else, like a roller-coaster, a replica of the Statue Of Liberty or the Eiffel tower (half scale), and other attractions. The amount of walking one can do inside a hotel is unbelievable.

Walking is what one does most in Vegas. There’s the monorail, of course, which I used often. But except for the Las Vegas Hilton, which is not on the strip, all hotels with a monorails station have it located at the back. You walk at least half a mile in some places just to reach the hotel. Some stations are not even at the hotel. the Sahara station is across the street, for example. Then there’s the walk from one hotel to the next. Long walk.

A far cry from the building restrictions in New York, the smoking and strip-club ban in Columbus, the preposterous taxes in California,

I don’t suppose building restrictions will ever be brought up. Construction is the life-blood upon which Vegas is built. And Nevada doesn’t have either an income tax or a corporate tax. But smoking, I fear, will be further restricted sooner or later. As it is you can only smoke indoors only at casinos, bars and smoking rooms in hotels. Some casinos have put up non-smoking areas, though, and some non-gaming hotels are entirely non-smoking.

Well, I’ll post some more later. The Hilton’s Star Trek Experience deserves a post of its own.

11

I used to work for Hotwire, and I noticed a similar thing when booking for a customer - we never figured it out, so the ‘prices vary based on availability’ line was all we had to fall back on. While it could be a corporate level scam (I doubt Expedia’s customer service is run in-house) in the hopes that you don’t reconfirm before finalizing, I suspect it has something to do with the way information gets routed. I don’t know much about computers, but if data is being held on multiple servers, there might be a time difference when information is updated. In any case, I don’t think Expedia customer service has the necessary data to give you an adequate explaination.

12

I used to work for Hotwire, and I noticed a similar thing when booking for a customer - we never figured it out, so the ‘prices vary based on availability’ line was all we had to fall back on.

The problem is that line doesn’t work as an explanation every time. Had I found I couldn’t get a king bed because it’s subject to availability, that’s fine; no king bed rooms were available. But fare prices are something else. If the quote said “Starting at $726,” for example, that too would work. But it didn’t say that.

While it could be a corporate level scam (I doubt Expedia’s customer service is run in-house) in the hopes that you don’t reconfirm before finalizing, I suspect it has something to do with the way information gets routed.

It could be. That’s why I checked Mexicana’s site, too. Not that the fares on their site and the ones they charge to Expedia are the same, but they ought to be close. Had Mexicana raised its rates, I’d have understood (and possibly taken Aviacsa with a stop in between).

13

I am intimately familiar with the inadequacy of that line. Unfortunately, many customer service reps are forbidden from saying the simple truth, “I don’t know why this is happening.” Of course, that wouldn’t be adequate either.

14

Unfortunately, many customer service reps are forbidden from saying the simple truth, “I don’t know why this is happening.” Of course, that wouldn’t be adequate either.

No, it wouldn’t. But at least it would be honest.