Expedia Can Go Fuck Themselves with a Rusty Spoon

Asha Alaric
7 min readMay 31, 2022

I had not used Expedia since October 2017. The reason was that in October 2017, I had bought a plane ticket, to fly from Regina, Saskatchewan to Calgary, Alberta in order to see my child and family. I had not seen my child in 4 weeks, due to a current court battle, and the restrictions of my employment schedule. I had 4 precious days to see my child, so I booked a flight, as a drive from my employment location to Calgary took 12 hours (1000 km).

I SPECIFICALLY PURCHASED TRAVEL CANCELLATION INSURANCE, WHICH INCLUDED COVERAGE FOR WEATHER PROBLEMS, because the Canadian Prairies in October always have freak storms. Travel to Regina from my town took 4–5 hours on a good day, so I booked the flight for the evening around 6 pm. I would be departing my town at 9 am, which gave me EIGHT HOURS OF TRAVEL TIME, plus the required 2 hours early arrival and check in at the Regina Airport.

I awoke that morning to an ice storm. Not sleet, not hail, not wet wet snow. A storm overnight had coated the entire mid to south eastern section of the province in ice. Undeterred, I began driving anyway. I had to see my kid. I was forced to drive between 30–40km on the highway. After 3 hours, I realized that the icy highway was not restricted to my home section of the province, and I was probably going to miss my plane.

So, I phoned Expedia.

I explained the situation, cited my insurance policy, and the reason for my call. I was told that an ice storm did not constitute “their definition” of a weather problem, and was told I could not transfer, re-book, or obtain even a partial refund on the flight. AND, there were no other flights open until the next week. In short, Expedia gleefully, callously, told me to go fuck myself.

Unsurprisingly, I was a little incensed. But, after telling the call center I would not be using their services again since they are no better than dealing with the airline, I hung up; kissed off the $350.00, and drove for 12 hours to reach Calgary. That was 5 years ago.

They say Time heals all wounds, but I am convinced that Time only dulls the memory of the murderous rage induced by being on the receiving end of mind-blowingly shitty behavior. My memory did get so dull, that 5 years later, I foolishly thought booking a hotel through Expedia would be ok. Ahhhhhh…..my naïve, stupid, confidence in the redemption of corporate missteps still astounds me.

For the last 2 years, I have ALWAYS booked hotels through Booking.com or Hotels.com. Both with no problems. Not ONE PROBLEM, in 700 days.

Such bliss.

I am a health care worker, and so, in order to see my child, but not infect any vulnerable people in my family or friend group, I have had to stay in hotels in Calgary, once or twice a month, for the last 18 months. Calgary was known for overbuilding hotels well before Covid. With the tourist industry effectively frozen because of the pandemic, hotels in Calgary became extremely affordable. Throughout the pandemic, I stayed in the following hotel chains, and NEVER ONCE had a problem with cleanliness, service, or safety:

Hilton Garden Inn
Delta / Marriot
Best Western
Courtyard
Days Inn
Holiday Inn
Radisson

I cannot honestly say what possessed me to “try it again”, perhaps I hit my head, my blood sugar was too low, or I had some kind of psychotic break with reality, but when I Googled ‘Hotels Calgary’ I stupidly clicked on the first link. It was a link from Expedia.

The cost came to $194.00 for 2 nights. It was a well-known chain hotel, that I had previously stayed with before, in OTHER locations. I have never had any complaints of this chain previously. I arrived in the evening, checked in, and went up to the room.

The booked room looked like a crime scene. My shoes STUCK to the carpet. There were dried splashes of SOMETHING whitish on the wall directly above the headboard. How do I know the color? Well, the red paint, though dinged and chipped in places, set a marvelous background to highlight the opaque, off-white dried….something, even when not staring directly at it. The bedspread had dark stains on it. The sliding window was SO CAKED with grime that I could not move the panes to close it. The door to the balcony/walkway did not lock properly, so anyone could just walk on in. Horrified, I asked for another room.

The second “Good Room” had the following deficiencies:

1.A broken Security Lock on the door that had LITERALLY been yanked out of the door frame.
2.Not 1, not 2, but THREE power outlets that had broken pieces of plastic, so that the plugs could not actually sit in them.
3.A bathroom vanity with large chunks chipped out of the counter — -ditto for the sides of the bathroom mirror.
4.An in-wall air conditioner that ran for 15 minutes, overheated, began to make a loud “Clank” noise, and shut down — ad infinitum. (And no- there was no way to turn it down or off, because the knob was ripped out.)
5.The bathtub had been fitted with one of those plastic “over-top tub surrounds”, nothing wrong with that. Except this one had CUT MARKS on the tub bottom, and while standing in it to shower, my feel felt the plastic bend and flex as it had lost the adhesion to the original tub underneath.
6. The tub did not drain properly, so after 3–4 minutes of showering, I got to wade in the sludge of used shampoo, washed off body grime, and little mystery flecks from the tub surface. Awesome. I fiddled with the in-drain tub plug. The kind that are permanently screwed to the drain, but that you twist and pull to open. Nope. Turns out, that the drain was just broken.
7. A shower that went from scalding hot to freezing cold in 6 minutes. And then STAYED cold.
8. A “dresser” with a broken drawer that, no matter what was done, slid one drawer completely open. Now, this doesn’t SOUND like a terrible problem at first. But when the drawer is knee height, and rolls out against the end of the bed you have to walk around to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night, trust me, it IS a problem. (But at least this carpet wasn’t sticky.)
9. The $194.00 charge somehow changed to $224.00. I confronted the night manager about it.
“It was a deposit” said the night manager.
“Really? Because I already gave a $250.00 deposit.”
“No, this is a different deposit.”
“Well, I want it back.”
“Oh, yes, it just takes a day.”

It did not take a day. It never came. But what could I DO about it? Nothing. Expedia is “Not Responsible for any other unlisted fees charged by the hotel.” It says so right in the confirmation email. So when they say “$194.00 TOTAL” what they mean is “We will charge what we like, and you will like it.”

The only clean thing in the room was the bed, which looked out of place, because it was newer than its’ ancient, neglected surroundings.

I know what you are thinking. Why didn’t she just get a refund and go to another hotel? Two reasons, Expedia does not give refunds. Ever. Too bad. And, it was late on a Friday night in early tourist season, so there were no other hotels to go to. At least none that were not several hundred dollars more. Also, since the tourism industry has shrunk so much, many of the overbuilt hotels are shutting to tourists and are being re-purposed as micro-apartments for affordable housing. Which is fantastic, but in this particular moment, narrowed my hotel choice even more.

To my chagrin, I stayed in this place that looked like the kind of venue used by people looking to melt crack in a rusty spoon. (I didn’t look under the bed for fear that there WAS a drug-laden, soot covered, rusty spoon….Or a body…But since the room did not stink, I reasoned, the spoon was probably old, and the body was probably fresh…)

After I left, I received an email from Expedia, asking me to rate my experience of their service. They “really wanted to hear about my experience.” Except I only had a choice of frowny face to ecstatic face. Seriously. No place to actually explain WHY I was smashing the frowny face button like a toddler playing whack-a-mole. It is almost like Expedia KNOWS that their service is shittier than a sewage treatment plant in a mid-July tornado.

After all this, I asked myself that question, “What is to be done?” And I turned to that steadfast bastion of spleen-venting — the Internet. I found, to my great validation, that when Googling “Review Expedia” the site, Trust Pilot shared myriads of reviews exactly the same as mine. You can see for yourself here:

https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.expedia.com

So, at least I am not alone in my contempt. Expedia, it seems, is working passionately, to be the WORST, most-hated travel company, World-wide. I must give them credit. They have a goal. As they reach their goal of corporate oblivion, there will be much hand-wringing, and desperate executive exclamations of “Now what do we do?”

I know that pulling their collective socks up to the customer and product service level of other half-competent providers is out of the question, so I make this suggestion to Expedia when they gnash their teeth during their financial death-spiral:

Go to the hotel above, bend down, reach under the bed, extract the contents, and fuck yourself with that rusty spoon.

--

--

Asha Alaric

Bleeding Heart or Misanthrope. Depends on the day. Book hoarder. Coffee snob. Loves animals, plants, and at least 9 people.