Expedia really really REALLY SUCKS!!!

So I finished my book and started on a new, and grueling, project for Microsoft Learning (via some outsourcers in India-- joy). During this transition, it became apparent that I needed a break.

My beloved boyfriend, unbeknownst to me, started looking around for good places to go to unwind. He decided on Barbados (still without my knowledge) and did about a month's worth of research and planning. Night after night, for hours, he looked over websites, poured over resort brochures, checked pricing, local economy, weather, beach conditions, and more. He listened to traveller podcasts and read reviews. He emailed people and make phone calls, he put in his time and had everything planned out before even discussing it with me.

I was skeptical. Last year was bad for me financially, and I just didn't want the stress of all that money spent on something unessential. I didn't need the stress of planning for international travel (to a caribbean island when I am so sensitive to sunlight...), packing, etc. on top of the new job I was doing.

But he was adamant. And it's his money. So I let everyone on the project know that I would be on vacation for the first week of Feb.

Time passed, I kept working. Expedia emailed us and told us our original flight was cancelled. My boyfriend had to arrange for a different, earlier flight. That sucked, but what are you gonna do?

He then came down with a really, really bad case of the flu just over two weeks before vacation-- perfect amount of time for him to recover and for me to come down with it...

But he got better, and due to strict quarantine procedures, I managed not to get it (first time ever).

So it's the day before we leave. He goes to Expedia.com (where he made the reservations) to get the confirmation number so he could print out the boarding passes.

And expedia no longer has an itinerary for him.

That's right. The vacation we planned so carefully, and Expedia has lost all record that we paid for two round trip tickets.

He calls them. The call goes to india (sigh-- I am all to familiar with that sort of issue-- try working sub-sub-contractor for an outsourcer....). After a long frustrating call, it appears that the problem is with Delta. But we paid for the ticket. It is already purchased, paid for, done deal. We called weeks ago and confirmed our seats and everything....

While on the phone, apparently the indian guy got confused, or was trying to be helpful, and purchased two more tickets *on the flight that was cancelled earlier* in his name without his knowledge. Then he told my BF to call Delta.

My BF called Delta, and here's the scoop:

--the itinerary/confirmation number that Expedia had was wrong.

--the original flight that expedia said was cancelled, was not.

--we still had tickets and seats on that flight, they were not cancelled.

--despite working through Expedia to fly using the earlier flight- Delta had no record of us on that plane, and that plane is completely sold out.

--during the call, the expedia guy, bought two more tickets in our name for the same flight we were already on.

So in the end-- we have our original flight booked, with the seats we originally chose. We have not purchased any other tickets (we were double booked for the same flight, but that was taken care of).

Expedia was wrong about:

-the first flight being cancelled
-putting us on the second flight at all-- we would have gotten to the airport, and found that there was no record of us on that flight.
-removing us from the first flight (I'm relieved about that)
-what our confirmation and itinerary number was
-telling us the second flight was cancelled
-double booking us in confusion

Now our only problem is: We planned to eat some food between the morning flight from home to atlanta, for the flight from atlanta to our caribbean destination. Now we will have about 40 minutes to get from our atlanta flight to our connecting flight. Atlanta airport is huge. We definitely won't have time to eat. heck we may not have time to make the connecting flight....