Hotel plus flight on Expedia -- any tips?

Think long and hard before booking your hotel and flight with Expedia as opposed to booking directly with the airline and hotel. You may save some money booking with Expedia, but in the event that anything goes wrong, neither the airline nor the hotel will be your friend - their response will be that your issue is with Expedia, not them.

Just read the fine print and you'll be fine. The packaged deals are legitimate and many people save quite a bit on them.

Many packages are non-refundable. Watch the type of room very carefully. Don’t be surprised when the price is higher when you go to checkout and there are other fees you did not anticipate. When you get to the hotel have all your print outs with you and if you have an issue expect they will blame Expedia. Long story short-I would never do this for an overseas vacation. I want to book directly with the hotel and the airline.

It’s easy enough to book plane tickets and hotels. It may work for you, and then again it could turn into a real can of worms if something goes amiss and you attempt to fix it directly with the hotel or with the airlines.

My wife gets emails from a number of flight discounters. The other day, they offered a $425 round trip from Nashville to Berlin and we grabbed it. She was seeing a $525 Atlanta to Munich round trip today. Such buys often pop up for a few hours, and you've got to be prepared to jump on it.

Wouldn't booking through a flight discounter be subject to the same kind of "not our problem" response if anything goes wrong?

Wouldn't booking through a flight discounter be subject to the same kind of "not our problem" response if anything goes wrong?

Yes! Some people use discounters and have wonderful vacations. Personally, I have heard and read too many horror stories about people whose vacations were shot to hell after booking with discounters, including Expedia. I'm just too paranoid to go that route - but reasonable minds differ.

I've booked flight plus hotel packages to Italy on Expedia twice in the last 18 months. I usually prefer booking directly with an airline but the price was many hundreds of USD less on Expedia each timeso I booked it. In both cases everything went fine. However, I made sure to book my seats directly on the airline website and checked the flight times and seat assignments on the airlines' websites every several weeks until flight time.

I’ve been traveling to Europe since the early 80s ( as an adult ) and I would never use a flight discounter or any third party - I always book directly with airline - always !

Booking directly with Lufthansa or United would be over $2000 EACH just for airfare. Booking through Expedia gives us airfare for two plus 8 nights hotel for around $2000. Do the people who book directly through the airlines have some way of finding cheaper fares? What am I missing here? :(

You aren’t missing anything as many forum posters prefer to book directly with hotels and airlines. Many set up fare notifications too.
Go ahead and book your trip and then verify that the airline has your reservation and do the same with your hotel. As someone else said, check your air reservation frequently and enjoy your trip.
Also, get the record locator number from Expedia and do get your seat assignment when you book.

What Diane said. Expedia is legitimate and reliable; while we do not use them ( we book with miles), I have a number of friends and family members who do. The main issue that could come up is changes in the flight times. Monitor your reservations carefully to catch any schedule changes in case Expedia fails to notify you. Just remember that It will be up to Expedia to fix any glitches if they arise.

Booking directly with Lufthansa or United would be over $2000 EACH
just for airfare.

That seems unusually high for airfare (I'm sure you could do better than that from a large airline market like Denver), but even if it was $1,000 each, the Expedia deal would still make more sense.

Also when you book directly with hotels the price they offer includes all taxes...some hotel booking sites offer you deceptively low prices because they don’t include the taxes and other things like perhaps breakfast or free WiFi that you might receive if booking directly with the hotel.

What time of year are you looking at the $2000 airfares?

$2000 airfares were listed on Lufthansa. Finally I figured out that package deals with prices similar to Expedia were in fact listed on United Vacations, so i have booked through United. Thanks, everyone!

I have done a few trips booking both hotel and flight on Expedia, but in the last couple of years I switched to direct with the airline. I've booked perhaps 21 hotels through them in the past 9 years and never once had an issue--rooms were as described (a couple of times upgraded) and I have been pleased with them overall. Just do your homework and be sure you know all the fees associated.