Tickets for flights nowadays are so expensive. I booked a flight to Tampa one month before my travel date. It cost me $750 bucks! (and that was the cheapest they had!!) So naturally, I wanted to buy some cancellation protection incase anything happened in between!
So before checking out I tacked on Expedia‘s recommended “travel cancellation protection” for $40.50 assuming that if I would have to cancel my flight I would at least be protected!
About two weeks later I found out I had to adjust my flights…(ugh annoying!) But stress-free I called up Expedia and happily told them the situation sucks BUT luckily I was smart enough to buy their handy dandy “cancellation protection.”
WELL LISTEN UP FOLKS! THAT PROTECTION DOESN’T COVER SHIITTAKE MUSHROOMS!
Expedia told me I’d have to pay $200.00 to change or cancel my flight…(Say whattt!?) They also conveniently pushed me over to the insurance company to let them deal with me (ha!) So I called up AllinzGlobal, the wonderful folks at the insurance company informed me that basically the ONLY way I could get a refund was if there was a death in the family… so naturally I faked a death…
Now, I figured saying that a parent or grandmother passed away was wayyy too morbid so I stuck to “My family friend who is like family died..” She didn’t buy it. Regardless, I found out that my acting skills wouldn’t have worked anyways because the insurance doesn’t cover family friends plus they would need a death certificate… So in the future don’t try it!…or judge me! (You know you would have done it too!)
So now I’m up to nearly $1000 for a 2 hour and 30 min (each way) flight to Tampa!!
I called Expedia back and talked to their supervisor, he said the absolute BEST thing he could do is refund me my cancellation protection fee of $40.50. So I said “you better believe you’re going to refund me that!”
As he was adjusting my bill he recommended I book the new flight right then and there with him so it’s a simple transaction. Flustered from being on hold for 3 hours and exhausted from faking a fake death. I agreed (mainly because I wanted the whole process to be DONE.) Five minutes later everything was re booked and changed over. I was done! Good riddance! I was so happy to be done with the whole experience!
Three hours later I’m sitting on my couch watching TV, probably eating an avocado or something.. I glance over my new itinerary once more and….
“DHFSHSFGAKHSD!!!!!! I BOOKED THE WRONG FLIGHT!!
*Cue up an explosion sound effect.
So, this is what I learned for the future that will hopefully help you.
- Use Expedia as a search engine for an idea of what the best flights are but then go to the actual airline and book it with them.
- My new favorite airline is Westjet. While almost every other airline charges $200.00 to change or cancel a flight Westjet only charges $88.00.
- Don’t bother with cancellation protection..unless you really think someone in your family is gonna die…in that case you may want to consider not flying out in the first place.
The reason why I wrote this post was not to bitch and moan about how screwed I felt but to really bring attention to the fact that big companies like Expedia shouldn’t be falsely advertising their services to innocent people.
No one in their right mind PAYS for “cancellation protection” and expects not be be able to cancel their flight. It’s a problem a lot of people are getting duped into and I think it’s important people are warned.