
Luz of San Mateo, CA on July 17, 2010
On April 8, 2010, I bought three SFO-CUZ-SFO tickets through Expedia for me and my children for a trip leaving on June 17, 2010 and returning on July 8, 2010. The Expedia itinerary would take us from San Francisco to Mexico with United flight 821 in order to connect to LAN flight 627 to Lima and next LAN flight 031 to Cuzco, Peru.
On our return, we would have a similar itinerary, except for the last leg of the trip, Mexico to San Francisco, which would be with American Airlines (AA) flight 8244 operated by Mexicana Airlines. On May 4. I received an e-mail from Expedia notifying me of changes made to my itinerary by United Airlines. Before calling Expedia, I called United which said that there had been no changes at all.
Next, I called Expedia for an explanation, and they said that it was AA which had made a change in its departure time for the MEX-SFO flight on July 9. You can see that its e-mail information was inaccurate. AA's original departure time from Mexico was 09:25 pm which gave us enough time since LAN from Lima would be arriving in Mexico at 07:00 pm.
Unfortunately, AA had changed its departure time to 08:55 pm, and this was considered an invalid connecting time (less than 2 hours), because it would give us only 1 hour and 55 minutes to change planes in Mexico. Even though a passenger is in transit in Mexico, he/she still has to go through immigration and customs and move from one terminal to another by taking an air train.
I talked with an Expedia supervisor, so that we could be booked for a new MEX-SFO flight. After almost an hour, the supervisor said that she had asked LAN for assistance but "LAN was not willing to help," and that since LAN was the ticketing or validating airline, it was the only one allowed to do it. I called LAN immediately and talked to a supervisor who said that she had to deal directly with Expedia, the agency owner of the tickets.
I called Expedia again, and after hours on hold, I was able to talk to a supervisor. She said that AA had agreed to help by contacting Mexicana and getting us seats for its flight 970 leaving from Mexico the following day at 08:00 am. I insisted that Expedia try to get us on an earlier flight, because we would be arriving in Mexico from Lima at 07:00 pm, July 8 and would have to wait for 13 hours to catch the Mexicana flight on July 9.
By the way, LAN staff said that it would be more than happy to get us on any convenient flight as long as Expedia contact them directly. I repeated this to Expedia and waited long on the phone to no avail. Finally, I was forced to accept this connecting flight from Mexico to San Francisco. I am a very organized and careful person, and after a few days, I noticed that my Expedia itinerary still showed the old American flight of July 8 (the one that had been changed to Mexicana for July 9).
I called LAN and AA to inquire, and they all said that only Expedia could fix this change, since it was still the owner of my tickets. During the month of May and first part of June, I called Expedia several times to insist on its fixing this problem. Customer agents and supervisors alike told me lies after lies; they said these things took some time to be updated, that they had called LAN and already fixed this.
I called LAN many more times just to hear that Expedia had never contacted them. I also checked my reservation on their websites, and they all had the old itinerary, except for Mexicana which did have my "real" flight 970 on July 9. In the meantime, Expedia would keep reassuring me by saying that somehow the information could not have been updated, but it did not matter since I had my three seats on Mexicana 970 on July 9 all booked and confirmed and I should not worry. Curious thing, even Expedia's itinerary showed American flight 8244 and not Mexicana flight 970, but it did show the correct date.
On June 17, my trip started and 3 days before my return, I called Mexicana in Mexico to reconfirm my flight. They said that our three seats were reconfirmed. We arrived in Mexico (terminal 2) one hour and a half later than scheduled (LAN 626 was delayed due to technical issues). We were not worried since our flight to San Francisco would leave the following day; however, we moved to terminal 1 and found the Mexicana counter, so we would know where to check in later.
The following day at 5:30 am when we approached the counter, we were told that we could not be embarked, because Expedia had not fixed or reissued tickets for that particular flight. We were sent across the counter to a Mexicana office that deals with ticketing issues. The agent there said that we had to contact Expedia which at the same time needed to contact LAN. Also, she said that Expedia had not finalized the transaction when making the flight change from AA to Mexicana.
At 5:30 am and from a foreign country, how could one waste time and money to call an incompetent agency which was not able to fix this problem before our trip? We were under time pressure, because that flight would be closed soon, and we could not afford missing it; we had to be back for work in the USA. I offered to pay any penalties, although they were not my responsibility. The Mexicana lady checked with an AA agent who said that AA could not do anything because the tickets were LAN's and could only be fixed between LAN and Expedia. They also said that we would have to go back to terminal 2 to LAN offices. This would have taken at least one hour if it could have been solved, who knows.
Time was running out, and I finally had to come up with the idea of paying for 3 full fare Mexico-San Francisco tickets. Mexicana gladly accepted this idea and issued 3 new tickets for the amount of $1,538.36 plus $45.91 for bank international transaction fees. I was compelled to do this just to be embarked on our scheduled flight leaving at 08:00 am.
We were the last ones to be checked in. Back in USA, I had hoped that Expedia acknowledge its incompetence and dishonesty and issue the refund of these unexpected and unfair expenses on my part. Of course, an Expedia supervisor said that the agency would not accept its responsibility and stated that it is AA which should give me the refund. If this fails, they said I might consider disputing the charges to Mexicana! How can I dispute charges that I myself authorized, although I was forced just to be able to come back home?
Now, who is going to pay me back my $1.538.36 plus $45.91? I consider Expedia responsible, since it is the agency I bought my tickets from, the agency that took my money, and the one supposed to take care of all of the important details of the trip. Is this the way it treats its customers? There must be a way to recover this money. I had to spend $1,538.36 on 3 new Mexico-San Francisco tickets plus $45.91 for bank international transaction. This unexpected event totally ruined my tight budget and has put me in a very difficult financial situation. I ask for help. Thank you.