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Expedia points: unexpected casualty of COVID lockdown

Yesterday I learned that my 23K+ Expedia points that I have saved up, worth basically a weekend in San Diego or about $300 roughly, have disappeared when a chat agent told me that because my account had had no activity for over a year everything disappeared.

We've been unable to travel during the pandemic, I reminded them, so of course my account has not had any activity.
Tough -- no sympathy. In fact, they doubled down and said that my account itself no longer exists. How could that be, I asked, if you agreed that my response to the challenge questions to prove my identity were correct? You must have some record of me if you know my challenge answers. Crickets. Sir, that account has no record info. -- I have confirmation emails for past travel right here in front of me on my computer. Sorry.

Right after that chat I click on the links in those pre-2019 email messages and they go to an error page saying that data is no longer available.

And the kicker today is that Expedia sends a message to that email account asking me to take a survey regarding my customer service experience.

So, apart from letting me vent here on the Forum, the value of sharing my experience is to let you know that in calculating the value of using Expedia you should factor in the evanescent nature of the points you're accruing. I'm certainly going to keep it in mind going forward.

Posted by
11869 posts

Ouch.

'Heads I win, tails you lose', is the leading candidate for the expedia corporate slogan

Posted by
318 posts

I'm so sorry! The world of travel sure has been shaken up. Let's hope for better times, and better loyalty programs!

Posted by
5697 posts

Bummer!! I have two Hotels.com nights earned in December 2019 which have been extended twice by the company (no action required on my part) -- about $220 worth. Clearly will be remembered when I go to book my next trip. As you will remember your experience with Expedia.
Short-term thinking at the corporate level!

Posted by
10186 posts

(Small) poetic justice that they asked for your feedback on customer service at this time . . .

I am sorry !

Posted by
4254 posts

Talk about the perfect Catch-22. We don’t belong to any loyalty groups because the loyalty always seems to be one-sided.

Posted by
7796 posts

Wow, that’s terrible customer service! I just checked my account with Expedia, and it’s still active - probably because I used them in Sept 2020 for a weekend trip. So my $2.75 is still available to redeem.

I rarely use them anymore. In the past when I compared prices for Booking.com vs. Expedia, they would both show the same or very similar prices, but when I went to purchase it, the Expedia site would add extra costs to the final number. I wasn’t interested in playing those games.

Posted by
2766 posts

@Jean, I've noticed that add-on charges thing, too, with Expedia and I also know that RS himself is not a fan of middlemen and loyalty programs generally, but until this week I have had mixed feelings leaning positively toward Expedia -- they had helped me out once with a disagreement at a hotel in Rome, and their 'VIP' perks were sometimes ones that I really liked.

But now my mixed feelings are leaning negatively for sure, also considering that when I called the hotel directly to check on the reservation I made with this taciturn agent, they had it in their records but the info wasn't complete, and the final price with taxes and fees was indeed higher than what Expedia had quoted.

Maybe, too, I was just improvidentially given a dud agent or one having an off day, and it cost me a lot of banked points ...

Posted by
7937 posts

Wow, sounds more like “Heads we win, Tails we win, and either way, you lose,” for the Expedia approach.

Will you get a different result if you contact them again Monday? Different person? Different Website response?

Posted by
7937 posts

Otherwise, what about them ironically sending that survey request? Is there a roomful of Expedia people somewhere, guffawing at every survey reply they receive?