A happier online travel experience

I recently booked a flight to London using the Expedia website in Australia.  At the end of the transaction and after my credit card had seemingly been processed, an error message presented. I was left wondering whether my flight had been booked or not. No email had been received to confirm the booking so, assuming the Expedia booking had failed, I quickly set about rebooking the sector directly with the airline. The price was too good to miss.

No sooner had I completed the booking and two confirmations hit my email inbox - for the same flight.

As the problem was caused by the Expedia website’s error message, I immediately contacted Expedia to alert them to the problem and have the transaction cancelled and payment refunded. 

After my recent Jetstar experience, I was expected a long and arduous battle with Expedia. Happily, a refreshing surprise awaited me.

The wait time to speak to a human being was minimal as were the phone menus and general messing around. As soon as I reported the problem, the customer service representative told me she had cancelled the transaction and all was in order. All up, it took a total of about 5 minutes.

We've become so accustomed to being beaten up by airline, phone company and bank customer service staff that we approach all of these exchanges with trepidation and a combative outlook. Expedia's quick and friendly resolution of the problem was positively disarming.

When a company shows how easy many problems can be solved, it really is a breath of fresh air. It also means the terrible waste and negative energy that normally surrounds such transactions is avoided. That 5 minutes of conversation cost me very little and cost Expedia far less.

Meanwhile, our friends at Jetstar were ready to go into the trenches over an indefensible online practice, waste my time and the time of many of their personnel - exposing their low levels of online integrity in the process. 

Let's hope the Expedia approach prevails commercially as it did ethically.


NOTE: The author and this website have no affiliations with Jetstar or Expedia