We recently went on a trip and used Expedia. I have to agree, I think booking on your own might be the better route. We haven't been on a vacation in a long time so we thought using Expedia would be easier. It came with some hassles and I don't think I will use them again.
When we booked, the website kept timing out when we tried to book our preferred seats on the plane (of course after everything was paid for). When we arrived at the airport we were assigned seats not next to each other. Not a huge deal but kind of annoying. Then we put some add ons to the trip with a airport transfer and a NYC pass for visiting attractions. Expedia strongly encourages you to load their app which I did and it showed everything we had purchased with a option to click Redeem on our car transfer from the airport and our NYC pass. Ok cool.
Well when we arrived, I clicked redeem and nothing happened. I dug out the paperwork which was 8 pages long and found the number to the car service. They had no record we had booked with them. We ended up going back and forth with the company and then I had to call Expedia customer service. Ugh. The agent didn't speak english very well and it was hard to understand him due to the language barrier and the noise of the airport. My husband has an issue with his back and can't stand for very long so this added some stress. Finally after going back and forth between both Expedia and the car company, an hour later we were picked up (it was supposed to be 15 min). We also found out later that it was only one way. It does not clearly state it is a one time deal. So that was unexpected surprise when we left.
Once we arrived at our hotel I again tried to redeem the NYC pass we purchased. Again, the app did nothing. Had to call Expedia customer service again, same issue with language barrier and they kept putting me on hold because they were even sure how to redeem the NYC pass. Finally after 50 min, we hung up on Expedia and called the offices of NYC pass. They advised us that there is an option to click a link in the email Expedia sent us (they send you several) and it prints a voucher. Only the printed paper voucher would be taken. Sigh. So I asked the hotel and they offered us their business services. I was able to print out the voucher but the hotel charged us 7.50 to do this. Got the print out and took it to the first attraction which then, they gave us the actual NYC pass booklet. It was the same price as Expedia. So over all I overpaid due to having the added cost to print out the damn voucher. Live and learn. My next trip I book everything myself. I kept thinking thank goodness we didn't have an issue with a cancelled flight or anything major because I found the customer service at Expedia very disorganized.
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I didn't think so.
