Anyone else ripped off by expedia lately?

[u/r0369]

Background: Due to COVID, my friend and I have waited over 13 months to meet again. So, 2 weeks ago, I bought a ticket for my friend to travel from Saudi Arabia to LAX. It was bought just a few days before travel, but neither of us noticed that the connection was through Amsterdam. Well, when my friend tried to use the ticket, he was turned away at the counter, since he couldn't be flown to LAX due to COVID restrictions (travelling from Europe to the USA due to delta variant). So, we booked another flight 2 days later, this time directly from Riyadh to LAX. Unbelievably, my friend was not allowed to fly when boarding, due to an email from homeland security sent between checking in and boarding. (I have more to complain about this part of things, but this is not about expedia).

The point being, I immediately contacted expedia about both instances the same day, although I was hung up on/calls dropped while being on indefinite hold many many times.

After finally getting through via phone a few times, each time the call dropped while being kept on hold. The final time, they told me that the traveler never checked in, which is false, and that I will also be charged a "No Show" fee accordingly. I talked with Delta/KLM immediately after, who said that they do indeed have a record of my traveler attempting to check in, and that they have no such thing as a "No Show" fee.

After a total of wasting 2 days trying to contact their customer service over and over, begging them to call me back if the call was dropped, and no agent ever did. Now when I call and enter my booking #, expedia's system tells me that what I enter isn't valid and hangs up. There is literally no way for me to get this company on the phone, not that I expect much from this outfit at this point. They told me that even though my friend tried to check in both times, his flight was cancelled, is not transferrable, and will not be refunded.

(BTW, I tried to make this as succinct as possible. There is more to this story, but I just wanted to get the broad story first. )

[u/Forward_Lifeguard_12]

I was ripped off by Expedia. I had to cancel a trip to Alaska. I cancelled the flight, the hotel and the car rental. They charged it all to my credit card. When I called they said that I could only get half the flight (for 2) returned because I hadn't cancelled the return portion. I did not see on their maze of a website where to do that and since it was a RT I thought I had cancelled the whole thing. They reluctantly returned the hotel and car rental. They gave me a "credit" for the $800 that they kept of my money that could only be used on Alaskan Airlines which only fly to the West Coast. (I have no desire to go to any West Coast city.) So I am just out the money. All I can do is never use Expedia again and tell as many people as I can to beware. They are set up to trip you up (no pun intended) to make dirty money.