Expedia

About Expedia, Inc.:

Expedia, Inc. is the world's leading online travel company.  As a company, Expedia is very much a travel conglomerate: It owns not just the Expedia.com travel reservation site but also Hotels.com®, Venere.com™, Hotwire®, Egencia™, TripAdvisor®, ExpediaLocalExpert®, ClassicVacations® and eLong™, among others. This breadth of natural partnerships allows Expedia to provide a full range of services with very competitive prices. Expedia, Inc.'s companies operate more than 70 global points of sale in more than 55 countries, covering more than 450 airlines and over 100,000 hotel properties. In addition to flight reservations, the site provides reservations for hotels, cars, vacation packages, cruises and activities. Expedia is the single largest provider of hotel bookings in the world. The site also offers destination guides, maps, driving directions, and other travel tools. In addition to consumer services, Expedia has a corporate travel section and sites specifically for Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. Expedia has live travel agents available 24/7.

Likes:

• Expedia is a one-stop shop for all your travel booking needs, including airfare, car rental, hotels, packages, etc..
• Expedia offers access to customer reviews.
• Thank You Membership is free and the "Thank You Points” are a great way to save on future travel.
• Email “Deal Alert” keep you on top of good deals.
• Comparison flight panel makes it quick and easy to search by budget.
• Expedia does not charge for registration or searching on its site.
• Expedia usually provides the best price on airfare, hotels and car rentals.
• Expedia automatically sends you an auto-generated email if one of your flights booked through Expedia changes.
• Expedia is unmatched on marketing expenditure and global reach.

Disadvantages:

• The website is a little cluttered and less visually appealing than other sites.
• There is a fee added to travel arrangements made via the site, but the fee varies based on the type of arrangement and which company you book with.
• Does not include budget airlines in their airfare search.

Conclusion:

We found that  Expedia.com and Expedia.ca offer better prices and a comparable selection of flights, hotels, car rentals and package deals, than their competitors.  Car rental prices through Expedia can sometimes be significantly lower than booking with the car-rental company directly. In fact, over the last 5-years, we found that Expedia continuously provides a wider selection of flights to most areas in the world and has either the same or better prices than Travelocity.com, making us question why anyone would use Travelocity.com instead of Expedia.com. Our experience with Expedia's customer service has been positive and we are confident that Expedia will do everything they can to resolve any issues that may arise. Other than providing the best price, this is one of the main reasons why Expedia.ca is our first choice for online travel bookings.

Our experience with Expedia:

Problem 1: On one occasion we had purchased flight through Expedia.ca (Toronto, Canada to Belize to Peru to Santa Marta, Colombia (through Bogota) to Caracas, Venezuela to Toronto, Canada) where the connecting flight from Bogota, Colombia to Santa Marta, Colombia was cancelled. Although we had not purchased travel insurance and expected the worst when learning that the flight was cancelled through an email from Expedia, we were astonished to learn that Expedia.ca gave us several options of flights we could choose to replace the cancelled flight. Although the flights were more expensive and with different airlines, we were able to replace the cancelled flight with Expedia at no extra cost to us, without any questions or difficulties. This entire problem was resolved with one email and one phone call. Although the problem was fairly significant and had a high impact on our vacation plans, Expedia handled it with easy and professionalism.

Problem 2: On one occasion, Expedia.com was offering a $50 gas voucher for any bookings of over $200 if you signed up for a MasterCard. After reading the 'fine print' we thought we'd book a hotel in Chicago through Expedia.com to take advantage of their offer. After the payment went through, we learned that we had to be citizens of the United States to be eligible to sign up for the credit card and receive the $50 gas voucher, thus as Canadian citizens we were not eligible. As a result, we called Expedia.com to explain that the rules didn't state we had to be US citizens to be eligible until we booked, which in our opinion was very deceptive. Expedia.com agreed. They instantly issued us a $50 voucher for future travel bookings through their site. We believe they handled themselves well in this situation as this was a good compromise, as well as, they ensured that we would use Expedia.com again.

Other reviews of Expedia:

PCMAG.com - PCMAG.com, the only professional review of Expedia.com , rated the website favourably. The editors at PCMAG.com gave the website a five out of five rating and noted the rates available through Expedia.com are often significantly lower than other travel websites. Low rates was also the advantage most often cited in user reviews. However, users often cited poor customer service as the reason for rating Expedia.com so poorly.

RateItAll.com - The users who visited RateItAll.com to express their opinion of Expedia.com were not at all impressed with this service. In a rating system consisting of a possible five stars, over 175 users gave Expedia.com an average rating of just 1.53 stars. The most prevalent complaints, by users, included poor customer service, reservations not being processed correctly and a misleading cancellation policy. Those who did post positive reviews often cited the ability to find the lowest available rates through the Expedia.com website. They also enjoyed the ability to plan a vacation by using the available tools.

MouthShut.com – With a five star system and over 55 users offering opinions, Expedia.com received an average of one star for service & support, two stars for information depth, content timeliness and website load time and three stars for design/usability. Furthermore only 13% of members recommended this service. Poor customer service, lost reservations and not receiving the correct accommodations were the most common complaints from users. Generally, users were happy with the design and usability of the website. They also praised the information available on the website.

Epinions.com – The users of Epinion.com, in general, approved of Expedia.com. With over 265 users weighing in, the average rating was a respectable three out of five stars. Users were asked to give an overall rating, as well as, ratings for the categories of ease of ordering, customer service, on-time delivery and selection. The general consensus was users were happy with the ease of ordering, on-time delivery and selection. Many users viewed the ability to save time and money by using Expedia.com to book travel arrangements as a pro. The cons listed by some users included poor customer service and also noted that Expedia.com does not always offer the best prices available.

Our Rating: 4/5   Year Reviewed: 2009