Expedia Travel Deals Product Review
Product ReviewsExpedia Travel Deals
Expedia travel deals are a great way to plan a vacation. The great thing about this avenue is that Expedia does all of the work for you! You don’t have to do much research to find coupons and sales for various hotels in the area you’re travelling to. With Expedia, the deals are automatically presented to you. Perhaps this is why it’s the #1 travel agency.
When I am planning road trips or really any travel plans, I go to Expedia to make reservations for hotels. I’ve found that I get better prices on Expedia than I do from other services or the actual hotels. I’m also able to bulk reserve! I’ve not seen another service that does this for me. When I take road trips, I usually sleep in a different city each night. So I need to book several different hotels for any given trip.
If I book them through Expedia, I’m able to enter the details and find hotels for each destination and then reserve them all at the same time and with only one payment. This saves me a ton of time and effort. Booking 14 separate hotels for a two week trip would be very time consuming otherwise.
Just A few of the Services that Expedia Offers:
- Bookings for:
- Flights
- Rental Cars
- Hotels
- Cruises
- Travel Deals
- Pro Tips to Travel Smarter
- Points Toward Upgrades & Discounts
- Explore Popular Travel Ideas
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ORIGINS AND OWNERSHIP
Expedia was founded October 22, 1996 by Rich Barton of Microsoft. Back in the 90’s, people knew that there were databases which contained information on vacation packages, flights, hotels, etc. But, at the time, computers weren’t a common household item yet. So people needed to contact travel agencies or directly contact airlines and hotels in order to book reservations for vacations and other travel.
Mr. Barton envisioned being able to reach through the phone and turn the computer monitor toward himself so that he could access those databases and book his own trips. He described the thesis behind his creation of Expedia as “power to the people”.
Expedia grew inside of Microsoft at first but, with the support of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. In 1999, Expedia spun off into a public company outside of Microsoft. Expedia has continued to grow ever since and is now headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
CONTACT INFORMATION
- Website: https://expedia.com
- Phone Number: (877) 227-7481
- Physical Address: 333 108th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
WORD ON THE STREET
Expedia’s website has over 62,000 reviews. As with any service, there is a good mixture of good and bad reviews. Reading through the bad reviews, I see several complaints about not being able to figure out how to change reservations. I have both changed and cancelled reservations on this site, so I know it can be done. But it sounds like others that maybe aren’t as tech savvy may struggle to find how to change reservations.
There are some complaints that about the service provided by the actual hotels or airlines used. I don’t really count those because they have absolutely nothing to do with Expedia’s service as Expedia doesn’t run or manage the hotels or airlines.
And then there were some poor ratings with no explanation as to why. For example, one of them was “Absolutely terrible! Will never use again!” Okay… well… was the service provided by Expedia terrible or by the hotel or airlines? Why was it terrible? What happened that made it terrible? That kind of review isn’t helpful to anyone because it doesn’t give the company an opportunity to correct or improve anything and it doesn’t tell other potential customers what to expect.
MY TAKE ON ROADTRIPPERS
I’ve used Expedia to reserve hotels, rental cars, and flights for several trips now. The trip that stands out the most was my Puerto Rico trip in 2016. I used Expedia to book the flights. I did not need a hotel or rental car because I was staying with family while I was there.
During my trip, I had an accident and broke my ankle. It was a very complex break which required emergency surgery to repair. I was in the hospital for a couple of days and then sent home. However, the doctor would not clear me to fly home. I was scheduled to be there a total of 7 days and I broke my ankle on day 4. We were stuck… for 30 days.
But I called Expedia’s customer service number to see if I could transfer the flight because I had already paid for the return trip. Expedia worked with the airlines I used to get a return flight at a later time. I did not know when I was going to be cleared yet, so they told me to call back when I did. They gave me the exact wording I needed to use and who I should speak to. When I called back, there were no issues getting my return flight booked and there were no cancellation or transfer fees.
Another Example
There was also our Key West trip in 2019 that went bad. We headed down to stay in Key West for a week. We checked into our hotel the first night and then found out Hurricane Dorian was coming straight at us and we needed to rush back home before the gas stations ran out of gas and left us stranded. The following morning, I spoke to the hotel’s front desk about getting a refund due to the hurricane since we couldn’t stay all week. They explained that since I booked through Expedia, I would have to take it up with them.
When I made it back home, I did exactly that. There was a way to modify the reservations and request a refund through Expedia’s website. I figured I would try it first because I really don’t like talking to people I don’t know (sorry!). I filled out a short form explaining the circumstances and then submitted it. Within 7 days, I received my full refund for the week of hotel stays. I was a happy camper.
To date, I have not had a bad experience with Expedia. I’ve been able to book many reservations for flights, hotels, and car rentals. I haven’t tried a cruise through this website yet. I really don’t have any complaints about the service provided by Expedia.
Flexibility matters: Explore deals with free cancellation options at Expedia.com
Expedia Pros:
- One Stop Shop for Booking Travel
- Rewards Program for Discounts
- Vacation Packages
- Trip Guides
- Free Cancellation Options
I think the biggest benefit of Expedia is that it serves as a one stop shop. You can book your flights, your hotel, your rental car, and your cruises all in one place! In fact, when I booked my Smoky Mountains Trip, Expedia allowed me to reserve rooms at several different hotels all at the same time without having to do each one individually. This allowed me to only submit one payment and to have it all on one single itenerary.
Another big benefit is the rewards program. Each time you book a trip, you earn reward points once you’ve completed the trip which add up and count towards discounts and upgrades on future trips. Who doesn’t like to save money? I haven’t been able to save up too many points recently because of the pandemic. I’ve had to postpone like four road trips!
The vacation packages and trip guides are pretty cool too. Since I primarily use Roadtrippers to plan my trip, I double check the Expedia trip guides to see if there is anything interesting that I missed. This lets me get the most bang for my buck on my road trips. Oh! And I always use the free cancellation options that Expedia has… this has helped out on many occasions when my plans didn’t work out as expected!
Expedia Cons:
- Not Integrated with Roadtrippers
When using Roadtrippers to plan trips, the FastBook widget allows you to put your hotel stays on your itenerary and gives you a way to click a link to book the hotel right from the Roadtrippers planner. Unfortunately, Expedia is not one of the listed providers on there anymore so I have to open Expedia in a separate window and manually search for the hotel I want. This is unfortunate.
But, to be fair, I’m not sure that it is an issue with Expedia or if it was a decision made by Roadtrippers. So far, that is the only complaint I have about Expedia. If I find more to complain about that I personally experience, I will definitely come back and update this page.
Expedia Not Listed 🙁
EXPEDIA TRAVEL DEALS ARE WORTH IT!
In conclusion, I highly recommend using Expedia to book your trips, in fact, I would say this would be my #1 recommendation for travel agencies and vacation packages. I’ve now booked several trips using this software on both my Windows computer, as well as my iPhone and iPad… all without issue. This has allowed me to book multiple hotels at the same time and adjust my reservations on the fly as needed.
Even when I’ve had problems and needed support from Expedia, I found nothing to complain about as their customer service was satisfactory on both occasions.
So… what are you waiting for? Book your next vacation!
Kris M.
Founder of Road Trip Stops
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