I had called in on Tuesday to find out prices for a trip to Punta Cana for my family. I found out later that I had been connected to their Cairo office so the agent I spoke to had a hard time understanding me. We went through some flights and I found one that I liked so I asked him if he could put a hold on the flight for me. At first he said that he couldn’t do that then he said something about if I gave him a credit card number, it would ensure that I didn’t lose the seats. I told him I didn’t want to give him my credit card number because I did not want to book the trip. I then made a huge mistake of giving him my credit card number because he kept telling me he wouldn’t charge me.
Well, a few minutes later, he said that the flight was booked. I told him that I did not want the flights booked because my family hadn’t decided if we were going or not. He apologized and said that I would have to speak to his supervisor to get the tickets canceled. He put me on hold and I was left on hold for 4 hours.
I called back the next day and waited on hold for 2 hours before I spoke to someone at the Toronto office. She found out that I had been speaking to the Cairo office and said that they were the only ones who could help me. I finally got through to them after another wait of 2 hours.
I spoke to the original agent and he apologized that he had misunderstood me and booked the tickets. He got his supervisor on the phone; the supervisor then tried to get me to keep the tickets and purchase flight insurance, saying that if we decided not to go, the tickets would be taken care of by the insurance company. He kept putting me on hold – this went on for another hour.
Finally, he came back and told me he couldn’t cancel the tickets; he would have the supervisor of operations call me to see what could be done. I am still waiting.
This has been an awful experience and I will never use Expedia again. I am just going to contact our local news station about this, as well as the Better Business Bureau.
Please note that I have been travelling for business for years and have been making my travel arrangements regularly so although I was an idiot to give the agent my credit card number, I have never experienced anything like this before. In the past, agents have always been very careful to inform me that a ticket or a reservation is non-refundable BEFORE they charged my credit card.
This is inexcusable.
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