A Vancouver man’s frustrating experience using a third-party travel website has prompted a warning from a travel expert and an apology and refund from booking site Expedia. 

Martin Schoenberg often uses Expedia to book his frequent business travel to Europe, instead of booking directly with the airlines and he recently ran into trouble with the travel site.

Expedia recently left him stranded on a flight from Wroclaw, Poland to Frankfurt, Germany. When the problem wasn’t solved right away by Expedia, Schoenberg was forced to pay $605 directly to the airline to get on his flight. He had also been fighting to get them to book another leg on a trip in late September that he had paid for but when he called the airline he learned it hadn’t been booked.

“It’s about 10 hours total dealing with this issue.” says Schoenberg. “I know the hold music at Expedia very well.”

Unfortunately his predicament isn’t unique, says travel expert Marc-David Seidel from UBC’s Sauder School of Business, who says these situations can be very frustrating for the customer.

“The ability to deal with one person who owns the issue you have is very small,” he says.

Seidel says customers can get lost when dealing with large online travel companies like Expedia.

“The biggest thing to ask would be why do you need to book through a third-party to start, quite frankly,”

Seidel recommends booking directly with the airlines and hotels, but if you use a third-party site be prepared – and always double check the booking.

Get the record locator, the e-ticket number, keep contacts for the airlines and print a backup schedule in case of cancellations.

We reached out to Expedia about Schoenberg’s case, and they blamed it on human error and responded with an apology. Expedia.ca responded to CTV Vancouver with the following statement:

“Thank you for bringing Expedia.ca customer, Martin Schoenberg’s, issue to our attention. Expedia.ca’s customer support team has conducted thorough research, and determined that in this case, Mr. Schoenberg’s challenges with his booking were the unfortunate result of human error by one of our call centre representatives. Expedia.ca has contacted Mr. Schoenberg to apologize for the inconvenience and has resolved the issue to ensure he has been fully reimbursed.”

Schoenberg got his $605 back and also a refund of $844 for the next leg of his trip as well as a $200 travel voucher. 

We asked Expedia how it could be human error with its all-computerized online system. We’re told it all happened when an agent made a change on the booking and basically everything after that got messed up. Expedia says it will use this example as a training exercise for its staff.

“I got a very quick response time from them. They were very professional and helped me out with a few things and most of all getting me back to where I need to go” Schoenberg said.

If you want to book online you can still find the deals through various free websites that show where to get the discounted fares, then book directly with the airline.

Seidel recommends you look at free websites to find the cheaper fares. He recommends checking the ITA Software site. He says it will give you a range of fares as well as the discounted fares and he says you can use the information you find there to deal directly with the airline to get the same lower rate.