Question: I recently booked a flight through Expedia from Orlando to Hyderabad, India. The flights were on Continental Airlines and Jet Airways. After I made the reservation and received a confirmation, I got an e-mail from Expedia that one leg of my flight had been canceled.
I have been trying to get a refund for that canceled flight since then. I’ve spent hours on the phone with Expedia, but they have not credited me, saying it’s up to Continental.
We paid the money directly to Expedia, not Continental. Common sense suggests that this issue should be taken care of by Expedia. Don’t you agree? — Nallan Chari, Longwood, Fla.
Answer: Expedia should have credited you for the canceled flight immediately when you asked for a refund.
Why didn’t it? Because Continental had your money, and wresting it from the airline is easier said than done. Even though Continental issued your tickets, part of your itinerary — a flight from Mumbai to Hyderabad — was through Jet Airways. Technically, that shouldn’t make a difference (Continental has all your money) but in my experience, airlines use the multicarrier itinerary as an excuse to delay their refunds.
It could also have something to do with the fact that you no longer have the credit card you used to pay for the ticket. As a matter of policy, online travel agencies only refund purchases back to your credit card. Anything else confuses them.
It shouldn’t be that way. If a company can take your money immediately, it should return it just as quickly. Any way you want it.
From your point of view, what’s happening behind the scenes is irrelevant. As your online travel agent, Expedia took your money, and it should return it. But it’s not that simple.
There’s another wrinkle: A Transportation Department rule that tickets must be refunded within seven business days. (I wrote about that last week, but also discovered that the rule only applies to refundable tickets. Alas, few tickets used by leisure travelers are refundable.)
Should Expedia give you the money even if it doesn’t have it? In a word, yes. A company of its size should be able to negotiate a faster return of its customers’ money, and ultimately, I think the problem of ticketing and refunds between carriers is an issue for the online travel agency to work out.
You could have exerted a little pressure on Expedia in several ways — none of which involved a phone conversation. A polite e-mail is a good place to start. If that doesn’t work, try appealing to someone higher up. Sometimes, copying the Transportation Department is a good way to underscore the seriousness of your complaint to an airline when it is holding on to your money. A note to your state’s attorney general can also be useful if you think your online agency is stalling.
I contacted Expedia on your behalf. It promptly apologized and refunded the money for the unusable portion of your trip.
(Photo: bruno_jehle/Flickr Creative Commons)
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Next time, book directly with the airlinem not with an e-travel agency. To me, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity and the rest of the internet vultures provide little or no benefit to their customers and when a complication like a cancelled flight or schedule change occurs, they are often an impedimement to resolving the situation.
Chris, I’ve seen this excuse used numerous times by the various travel websites, and it’s just that – an excuse. How Expedia pays for or gets refunded by their suppliers is beside the point. They need to honor the refund using the same expediency as they took the money.
Think of a purchase at Wal-Mart. You buy a TV and it doesn’t work, so you take it back to Wal-Mart for a refund. Do you have to wait until Samsung refunds the money back to Wal-Mart before you get your money back? Would you accept that from Wal-Mart? If not, then why accept it from Expedia. How they handle their monetary transactions with their vendors is their problem, and we shouldn’t be held hostage because they don’t want to do business the right way.
…..Nice work….But I think you have to realize by now Chris, none of this would happen without your involvement. They figure people will eventually just SHUT UP and go away. Even if they succeed only 10 percent of the time, that’s quite a revenue booster. Lets say they have 100 million dollars in sales a year and 10 percent of all sales run into issues that may require some sort of alteration or a refund. So that’s 10 million dollars. If 10 percent of those people don’t bother because of red tape, a Cool Million stays in their pocket. No a bad take for playing hard ball. Sad it’s come to this. Better off
A) Booking direct with the airlines and hotel yourself. Forget these online sites. Otherwise, use a face to face travel agent.
B) Never I repeat NEVER cancel your credit card that made payment UNTIL after all travel has been completed.
C) Should a place refuse to refund, B is important and A is just as crucial. If you book direct with airline or hotel, getting a refund or a dispute is by far easier.
Hello!
I believe the client should have contacted Continental, and not Expedia, because the flight did not leave as scheduled. The client would have got a voucher from them by now if he had contacted the airline’s customer service department. Expedia did the right thing by issuing a refund, but I would have sent the client to the airline. You were absolutely correct about the funds being with the carrier, but one of the rules of every airfare is that partially used tickets are non-refundable. The other question would have been, was the flight canceled due to bad weather? If that was the case, then the airline would have been responsible for getting the client back on another carrier. Can you clarify what exactly happened there?
Sincerely
Sonny
I’m sure you know this Chris, but the reason for the “issue credit card refunds only to the credit card charged” is to prevent fraud. There are several ways this can occur:
a) A thief steals a credit card, charges a refundable ticket, calls to cancel, and has the refund issued as a bank transfer, check, whatever. By the time the original theft and charge is noticed, he can be long gone with the moeny.
b) Someone charges a refundable ticket to a credit card legitimately, cancels, and has the refund sent in another form. Later, he begins a credit dispute with the credit card company, which could side with him if the airline can’t prove that the cardholder got the money.
and so on.
There are ways around the problem, when you no longer have the credit card, but that almost always requires escalation to verify that it’s not a fraud issue.
Classic Christopher Elliott story. Big bad travel company screwing over the little guy. Chris swoops in like the superhero he is. Company realizes they’d better do the right thing, or they’re bad behavior is about to be revealed to the world in a very public way. Company, not wanting to look bad (even though they ARE), quickly executes an about-face and does what they should have done to begin with. Little guy gets his money back. Chris writes a column. All is right with the world.
Just another day on the Elliott blog. ;-)
not having the same credit card does not necessarily mean the customer cancelled the card His CC number could have been compromised and the issuing company cancels and issues a new card whether you like it or not so don’t blame the poster for that Expedia has to find a way to make alegitimate refund promptly
@Sonny
I would be curious to understand your reasoning. The customer paid Expedia. The customer should only have to deal with Expedia since Expedia is the one that took the customer’s money. Otherwise what value is Expedia providing?
@Sonny
I completely agree with Carver. When I use a travel agent, even an online one,
I expect that that company becomes basically my spokesperson for that trip. That is the service for which I am paying. If something goes awry, I call them and they handle it. If I wanted to have to fix any and all problems myself, I would’ve made each individual reservation (which, some have pointed out, is sometimes the way to go).
I’m with Carver and Julie. The payent was made with Expedia and if a flight was cancelled before its scheduled time, then Expedia should issue an immediate refund. It is none of our business how the airline was paid, how much they were paid, or anything else. That is their business and as such they should offer a redund as soon as requested, to the same card f possible, or another credit card in the same name. (I liked the analogy about WalMart and the television… perfect) Sonny, I would NEVER call to get an airline to merely give me a credit for something they cancelled and could not deliver. Refundable ticket or not, if the flight is cancelled, the “contract” you entered into with them is broken and you deserve your refund.
I had a similar case recently. My daughter booked tickets from Ho Chi Min to Cebu to Manila to Honolulu to Kahului thru Expedia. Due to sickness she had to cancel portion of her tickets via Philippine Airlines. Took 6 months to get the refund from Philippine Airlines! Not a total refund , but most of it.
We have a similar experienc about nine months agoe. We booked a flight to Cpenhagen through Hotwire. The final leg of our trip home, Boston to Albany NY was cancelled by US Air.
The gate folks said they couldn’t give us a refund then and there becasue the ticket was held by Iceland Air. Iceland Air would not talk to us because were were not the “agent.”
Hotwire at first said it was not their problem and we should talk to Iceland. After telling Hotwire what Iceland said, and advising them we wanted them to act like our agent, Hot wire claims to have talked to Iceland and arranged a refund.
After the four weeks, when Hotwire claims the refund would be posted we called Hotwire again, For the nature of the discussion, see paragraph above. The only difference this time was that we were to wait 8 weeks for the post of the refund.
The refund should have been posted by late August or September. NOTHING.
Any advice would be appreciated.