Anyone encountered this dodgy practice on Expedia?

FutileBreadMachine

FutileBreadMachine

FutileBreadMachine

Associate
Joined
7 Feb 2008
Posts
2,377
Location
Surrey
I was trying to book a holiday on Expedia and kept having problems at the final step where you click pay. It would just say something like "Oops an error happened!" and didn't say what the problem was.

During my multiple attempts go get it working on both my work PC and my macbook, I noticed that on this payment screen it would always show a message saying something like "While you were searching, your holiday price increased from £2000 to £2030" (just example figures). So basically, no matter how quickly I clicked through the booking screens, it would always show a figure of around £30 added on to the final price, claiming it changed while I was looking. And this was over 2 days of attempting, so not within the same window.

Has this happened to anyone else? I can't think of why the price would always increase by £30 no matter how fast I was (exchange rate tracking, even at night?).

My wife eventually managed to book the holiday on her credit card last night, and it showed this same message to her (and incidentally, the overall cost went up by £50 too, so I am out of pocket £50 because their stupid payment system wasn't working for me).

So I'm thinking this is some kind of scam to get extra money out of you while keeping the initial cost lower for the price comparison sites. I mean, after all the researching and reading Tripadvisor reviews, who is going to get to the last screen and go "Oh it increased by £30 so I'm cancelling!". They know people will just pay it, so they are getting away with free money while still looking cheaper on price comparison sites.

This is like the scam the guys do on Office Space, where they steal the pennies from all the small transactions since they add up to a lot overall.

TLDR: Expedia are stealing our pennies.

inb4 First World Problems
 
Had a similiar issue yesterday - been looking for reasonable flights to NYC during the summer holidays for a wedding.

Expedia were showing flights at ~£300 less than anyone else, after choosing my inward and outward bound flights and being quoted a total price I then progressed through to the 'proceed with purchase' screen, I then got the same message as you and the price near enough doubles.

Not sure if it's a system glitch their end or a deliberate attempt to mislead, either way it was a complete waste of my lunch break.....
 
Something to do with cookies maybe? Recognising that you were there looking for flights and bump it up when you come back? Might be worth clearing them out each visit.

Just a theory though.
 
No - but was fleeced out of £60 by a comapany called Travelup (via Skyscanner) last year. Apparently from the reviews I was one of many who was and still is.

We provisionally booked 4 seats from Manchester to Orlando - they told us the seats were booked (they weren't) then tried to say we had gone back on their terms and conditions and there was a £15 cancellation fee.

Basically they tell you tehy have booked seats (they don't as I checked with the airline after they had stated that they had) - they wait until they get them at the best price and actually do book them - if they don't they email you and tell you there has been a flight change - or a price increase.

Not impressed with Skyscanner or Travelup (and they are still using them in their search results)

Worse is - Travelup are actually a terrace house located at 511 Oxford Road Reading - who obviously paid all their friends to write single line "perfect reviews" on some review sites.

http://www.yell.com/biz/travel-up-ltd-reading-7058274/
 
Last edited:
Zero5 said:
Something to do with cookies maybe? Recognising that you were there looking for flights and bump it up when you come back? Might be worth clearing them out each visit.

Just a theory though.
Click to expand...

Yeah I thought it could be cookies in my case, or even that they were checking I was using Safari on a Macbook so they were bumping the price. I tried in Firefox and IE on a PC and my Macbook and it did this every time, even if I clicked through the booking within 5 seconds. Always around £30 too, as if this is some level they think people will just accept without questioning.

It's like imagine you bought some milk which was on display for £1 for 2L, so you think good deal, but when you get to the cashier it's £1.10. You just think, oh 10p is not a lot relative to £1 so you just pay it. I just think like in my everyday life £30 is not pocket change and these guys can just squeeze it out since relative to the cost of the holiday it seems small. On top of this they charged £20 for using a credit card.

One argument is "Well then don't use them then", but after the amount of research I did I just wanted to book the holiday and get it over with.
 
FutileBreadMachine said:
During my multiple attempts go get it working on both my work PC and my macbook, I noticed that on this payment screen it would always show a message saying something like "While you were searching, your holiday price increased from £2000 to £2030" (just example figures). So basically, no matter how quickly I clicked through the booking screens, it would always show a figure of around £30 added on to the final price, claiming it changed while I was looking. And this was over 2 days of attempting, so not within the same window.

Has this happened to anyone else? I can't think of why the price would always increase by £30 no matter how fast I was (exchange rate tracking, even at night?).

My wife eventually managed to book the holiday on her credit card last night, and it showed this same message to her (and incidentally, the overall cost went up by £50 too, so I am out of pocket £50 because their stupid payment system wasn't working for me).
Click to expand...

don't think it is related to cookies or necessarily underhand targeting of yourself or exchange rates... they've probably got pricing algos that respond to demand

so you've searched for the same holiday on multiple devices and the price has gone up a bit, your wife has then search the same holiday and it has gone up further

whether they've deliberately sabotaged their payment system is another matter - you may have just been unlucky, but if they do respond to multiple searches for the same holiday then your searches on multiple devices might well have triggered the price rise
 
dowie said:
don't think it is related to cookies or necessarily underhand targeting of yourself or exchange rates... they've probably got pricing algos that respond to demand

so you've searched for the same holiday on multiple devices and the price has gone up a bit, your wife has then search the same holiday and it has gone up further

whether they've deliberately sabotaged their payment system is another matter - you may have just been unlucky, but if they do respond to multiple searches for the same holiday then your searches on multiple devices might well have triggered the price rise
Click to expand...

Ah this crossed my mind too. I thought I noticed the same thing happening on Amazon before when I kept looking at a product at home and at work and the price seemed to suddenly shoot up. Thought maybe they used page hits to determine high demand items, then raise the markup.
 
had the same problem with orbitz before,
would show prices being reasonable and I would go through to book but the payment would fail. When it would eventually work the prices were 50% higher.


Also seen big differences in price between using my computer of the wife's. And consistent, e.g. each day checking the prices and we would each get a consistent results wih hers being cheaper, even after clearing all cookies.
 
Surely there would be regulatory bodies all over this situation if it's happening as you describe on a regular basis?
 
Heliospherez said:
No - but was fleeced out of £60 by a comapany called Travelup (via Skyscanner) last year. Apparently from the reviews I was one of many who was and still is.
Click to expand...

IMHO best practice for flights is to either buy from the airline direct for a few quid more, if you do want to use a third party, pick somebody reputable like Netflights.com or Lastminute.com if they are offering the flight you want. I disregard all Skyscanner results from places like Travelup etc now.
 
If enough people reported this to the oft and put in a claim against them the practice may well be reversed
 
RaohNS said:
If enough people reported this to the oft and put in a claim against them the practice may well be reversed
Click to expand...

The trouble is the practice is largely legal. Faking that the price has increased while you are booking is likely illegal but hard to prove. The whole cookie/ip/browser affecting price is legal and easy to prove.
 
I've only booked flights via Expedia once (2 years ago) and I don't remember that happening, but I guess I might not have been paying attention and just assumed the final price was the same as the initial one...

I did have a diferent issue with them though: I booked my flights, they were 'confirmed' and everything, but then a couple of weeks later I sent my parents a link to my itinerary and they rang me up asking if I realised I had a 26 hour stopover in Amsterdam... I promptly rang Expedia up to ask what was going on (as I had obviously not booked flights with a 26 hour stopover) and they told me that the airline had cancelled the flight I booked, so they had put me on an alternative one*. The man on the phone said that the airline should have been responsible for contacting me to make me aware/check if I was OK with this, but clearly they hadn't done so. I'm not sure whether this was the Airline's fault or Expedia's fault, but either way I got them to put me on a different flight in the end. If my parents hadn't noticed then I wouldn't have found out until I tried to check in, as I had already printed off and filed away my 'confirmed' flight details; if I ever book using Expedia again I'll be very wary.

*This alternative flight had been a cheaper option on Expedia, but I paid a bit more to avoid wasting 26 hours. This makes me slightly suspicious, as there was no change in price once I'd been moved over to this cheaper flight.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom