DarloRich
Veteran Member
These cash back sites always seem like a waste of time to me.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Expedia Rip Off: Bought, collected, and used ticket....mysterious extra £1 charge appears later
- Thread starter BluePenguin
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
If the airline changes your flight time Expedia make you speak to some clueless person to 'discuss available options.' They don't even allow you to say the new times are OK by email.
If you book a flight + hotel package, despite it being shown as one price they usually put it through as two transactions at the same time. Presumably if only one is authorised than the entire booking fails. I did a flight+hotel package when going to Portugal and immediately got an automated phone call from my bank stating two transactions for unusual amounts had been made (without giving the payee) and asked did I recognise them - I selected the 'no' option then the automated call repeated the transactions but also gave the payee and one was something like Expedia Hotel Services, Madrid and the other was TAP, Lisbon. No wonder they flagged up as suspicious transactions if my card was reported as being used for a transaction in Madrid and another in Lisbon at the same time!
There are sometimes reasons why it is better to buy in advance than buying at the station on the day. If you need to get a bus to go to the station, then buying from the ticket office in advance may cost you, while buying from a website gives you a little bit of cashback, then which is better?
Yes and some of them offer cashback or Nectar points even if the value if only 1p per £1 spent.
We run up to twenty of these a week, and I can count on the finger of one foot how many times a split transaction has occurred. In fact, I might speculate that it could only happen when a hotel has been added on a flight query, or when the duration of the hotel stay does not match the flight dates.
Further, it is expressly against the terms of many 'Inclusive Tour' airfares, and wholesale hotel rates, which are the mechanics through which the 'Hotel plus ....' saving is achieved, to disclose the component fare or rate.
In any event, when a package is booked with an Expedia group company, it is considered to be a single contract and covered by ATOL. This is not the case with some others such as On The Beach, Travel Republic etc., as we discussed on here some months ago.
That's not to say, of course, that the split did not occur in this case, but it would have been Expedia's problem to sort if one component had not confirmed.
Not sure how in any way they could be described as a “waste of time” but I’m not complaining as that means more freebies for the rest of us who don’t mind “wasting” ten seconds and two extra clicks in going via a cashback site.
DarloRich
Veteran Member
So 18p on a train ticket is worth the trouble? How often am I going to have to use a cash back site for such small transactions to make it worth the bother? I get the attraction if you are giving me 3% back on a new car or on a new home entertainment suite but on a £6 train ticket? Really?
When am I going to see that money? It isnt an instant transfer or an instant deduction from my bill. I used one for a cash back deal on swapping my energy accounts and i got about £7 back 6 months later. woah. It was a waste of time. I would rather spend the time seeking out the cheapest deal rather than the one with the best cash back
What “trouble?” I have been a member of cashback sites for five years and have earned £1,000. My other half has been a member for less than a year and already has £300 in his account... these amounts are hardly a miniscule amount and the “trouble” as you put it is non existent, instead of typing in East Midlands Trains into Google I put their name into TopCashback and then click two extra buttons.
Like I say, you don’t have to use Cashback sites and that is your choice.
But please don’t imply that they are in some way difficult to use or imply that using them is in some way a strange activity only done by people with lots of time on their hands.
I'd suggest the latter is definitely not the case. When I booked flights + 1 night hotel when the return flight was something like 10 days after the outbound flight I don't think it happened. However, in the case of the Portugal trip I mentioned I was booking a hotel for the entire length of my trip. I can't remember exactly what I did on the site but it's very unlikely I would have done a 'flight only' query, I probably did do a 'hotel only' query prior to doing the 'flight + hotel' query to compare the price of booking the flight with the airline and the hotel with Expedia, with the cost of booking both with Expedia.
Indeed. Also remember both cashback sites and Nectar do special promotions. A couple of weeks ago I booked one ticket via VTWC and one ticket via TPE which got me a few pence in Nectar points. However, there was a Nectar offer on the time whereby if I used my card at 3 different retailers signed up to Nectar I got a load of bonus points - I had already done a shop at Sainsburys and needed to buy more than one train ticket during the duration of the offer.
I booked a deal just last month via the Expedia.co.uk ‘Flight + Hotel’ search. After booking I got three emails, one from [email protected] with a flight confirmation and a price of about £125, and another one from Expedia with a price of about £350 (this was the total price I paid), with details of my flights and the hotel I was staying in. About 24 hours later I got an Atol certificate in a further email. My card statement shows two separate transactions, one from easyJet for £125 and one from Expedia for the remaining balance.
I’d also done a search for the same hotel and flight separately, and this offered a fairly substantial saving.
DarloRich
Veteran Member
fair enough - maybe i should have another look at them. Perhaps I didn't appreciate how wide ranging the deals were. It still seems like a waste of time for 18p mind! The trouble is probably more me being rsed to remember to fish about and look for deals. I spend enough on bloody train tickets I may as well look for a back hander!
How soon do I see the money?
From my experience it takes 4 weeks for Topcashback to pay-up when I've booked through Expedia, though Quidco appears to take a lot longer. I've got bookings from September where the cashback still has not been paid when I have used Quidco.
It depends on the website you are buying something off, and what it is. For instance Hotels won't ever clear until after the stay has ended.
Slight caveat to that - if you book a stay which is non-refundable a long time in advance then it may clear quicker, if it's refundable up until the day before you arrive it'll only be confirmed around the time you complete your stay and then take a further few weeks before it becomes payable.
I've never had a Hotels.com booking clear before the stay, and most of the ones I book are non-refundable.
Just checking my account I had a Monarch Holidays one clear in March for a May booking. Obviously you can't book with them anymore though!
Good point; if you book a 'package' on an Expedia website which includes a flight on a no-frills/non-network/non-IATA airline, they do indeed simply act as a conduit for your card details to the airline. The same applies outside of the UK for airlines such as Scoot, TigerAir, Malindo etc., etc.
Happily, Expedia will cover you with an ATOL certificate on one of their UK websites, but they will also be charging a booking fee (as with the £1 rail fee, though usually much larger, and it may or may not be shown as a separate line or just aggregated in the hotel cost) as these airlines do not wholesale their fares. Their fares are their fares are their fares. It's analagous to buying a UK rail ticket through the Trainline; it can't be cheaper than buying direct from the operating company.
It should also be the case, although I accept that this may not always happen, that the hotel component should never be at anything other than the rate shown for a standalone booking, for the reason mentioned in my earlier post: wholesale rates are not supposed to be disclosed.
So, you will get about 4% cashback through Quidco or TCB, you'll get 2,000 Nectar Points, you'll get ATOL protection, you will be covered by Expedia in case one or other component fails to confirm during the transaction, but you shouldn't in this case be saving anything on the cost of the flight and hotel combined.
It definitely was a saving, I remember checking beforehand. Even checking now, though the price has gone up, it's still about £30 cheaper. Checking for other mini-breaks a combined 'Flight + Hotel' deal always comes out cheaper, although not always by very much.
When I had a moment, I wanted to check this out with a worked example, which may or may not be useful to those who find this thread.
I searched for a typical leisure trip, so Gatwick to Lisbon from the 15th to the 18th December 2017.
For two passengers, I selected easyJet flights, and accommodation at the Santa Justa Hotel.
The price, including credit card fee, came to £596.09 as a Flight plus Hotel package, showing a booking together saving of £29.02.
So far, that would appear to be what's been reported in this thread.
So, then I looked at booking the flights on a standalone basis, and the hotel on a standalone basis, both on the Expedia site.
The hotel was £325, and the flights were £299.87, making a total of £624.87.
So, the saving actually works out at £28.78, but not a million miles from the £29.02 claimed.
However....
The flights, booked direct with easyJet, are £273.68 including card fee. That's £26.19 cheaper than Expedia.
As I mentioned up thread, Expedia has to load the fares to make a margin as no-frills carriers don't wholesale fares.
So, to a variance of just £2.59, the claimed saving is actually the removal of the fare-loading that would otherwise occur, slightly subsidised by the commission in the hotel booking, which is likely to be (to them) about £68.
However, if the booking was made separately with easyJet direct for the flights, the £2.59 would (in this case) probably be more than covered by the additional cashback that a hotel-only booking would make, plus ebookers Bonus+ or Hotels.com Rewards, plus (at least with ebookers) the likely possibility of being able to find a 10% or 12% code for the hotel component.
I mention this really only to add some detail as to why I claimed earlier that ".....you will get about 4% cashback through Quidco or TCB, you'll get 2,000 Nectar Points, you'll get ATOL protection, you will be covered by Expedia in case one or other component fails to confirm during the transaction, but you shouldn't in this case be saving anything on the cost of the flight and hotel combined."
Hopefully the worked example shows that yes, if it's a no-frills carrier involved, your payments may be taken separately, and yes you're getting the benefits I mentioned above, but you're almost certainly not getting the claimed saving (compared to other methods of booking that are not wholly with Expedia) and it may even be costing you more overall.
Where you do see very significant package savings are with legacy network airlines, especially when a Saturday night stay is not involved. This often removes the airline's flight-only penalty for non Saturday night stays, and can throws up enormous nominal price reductions.
I always look to book wherever possible with the airline direct, so I always do, and in my case it is still cheaper, as well as others I’ve searched for. I don’t want to post my travel itinerary on the Internet, however: -
March 12th-15th to Copenhagen. Hotel is called “First Hotel Mayfair” and £379.81 for two adults on a Expedia. Flights with EasyJet departing 1305 Outbound and 2040 Return; £379.81 total price. Looking separately, the hotel rings up at £310.89, and the flights at £90.22, a total of £401.11; £21.30 more expensive than a combined package.
I looked at a trip to Berlin on the same dates, again it was cheaper booking as a package than separately.
Interesting; except I would note that the best available rate for a double room at the First Hotel Mayfair on those dates is currently £286.24, ie £24.65 less than your quote and therefore more than the advertised saving.....
Interesting that Trivago gives the cheapest rate as £311, but Travel Supermarket shows it as £282, both on Expedia.
That's because Expedia has agreements with various comparison sites to pre-load opaque discounts, shunting them up the rankings.
You will probably find that, when you get to the payment page, you won't be able to insert any other kind of promo code though, as they'll have effectively pre-populated that field.
If you can, then at the moment, the code AFFVCCOUK would get you 12% off the rate showing on ebookers, and SEETHEWORLD would get you 15% off the rate on Orbitz, both of which are Expedia sites. There are probably codes around for Hotels.com too, which is also Expedia, as well as Expedia codes themselves.
The point is that, with the no-frills airlines, they have absolutely nowhere to go with the price as there's no margin, or they are suggesting a discount which is in fact their own fare-loading, or they are not making the (or even their) best hotel rate available to you at a cursory search.
It's perhaps also worth noting that, if you book a standalone flight with Expedia sites, they will then offer 'members' rates' at hotels, but you need to be logged in to see them. This is the result, in part, of a legal case with one of the hotel companies which was finally settled when the hotelier agreed that the online travel agents could sell at a rate lower than the hotel's own rate, but only if it was to 'closed user groups'. This then also protects the hotelier from Best Rate Guarantee claims, as the hotelier always stipulates that it must be a 'publicly available rate' and not one which requires a code, a membership or a click-through from a particular source.
You will probably find that, when you get to the payment page, you won't be able to insert any other kind of promo code though, as they'll have effectively pre-populated that field.
If you can, then at the moment, the code AFFVCCOUK would get you 12% off the rate showing on ebookers, and SEETHEWORLD would get you 15% off the rate on Orbitz, both of which are Expedia sites. There are probably codes around for Hotels.com too, which is also Expedia, as well as Expedia codes themselves.
The point is that, with the no-frills airlines, they have absolutely nowhere to go with the price as there's no margin, or they are suggesting a discount which is in fact their own fare-loading, or they are not making the (or even their) best hotel rate available to you at a cursory search.
It's perhaps also worth noting that, if you book a standalone flight with Expedia sites, they will then offer 'members' rates' at hotels, but you need to be logged in to see them. This is the result, in part, of a legal case with one of the hotel companies which was finally settled when the hotelier agreed that the online travel agents could sell at a rate lower than the hotel's own rate, but only if it was to 'closed user groups'. This then also protects the hotelier from Best Rate Guarantee claims, as the hotelier always stipulates that it must be a 'publicly available rate' and not one which requires a code, a membership or a click-through from a particular source.
lyesbkz
Member
Just to chip in here, as I've booked rail tickets with Expedia a few times. They do charge me another £1 separately every time I book, and then refund it a while later. It seems like an authorisation hold, but done badly, so that it actually posts to the statement and then a refund is added later. It's very annoying, combined with the fact you can't book more than one journey at a time...
bubieyehyeh
Member
- Joined
- 25 Feb 2016
- Messages
- 321
I tried to buy some train tickets on expedia the other night, after I clicked buy, the transaction failed with some error message like try again later.
I tried later and it worked (but I paid with a different card).
The failed transaction was showing as pending, but now is shown as completed. So I've effectively paid twice. I'm having a devil of a job explaining to the clueless support staff that they charged me for a failed transaction which doesn't show in my history.
I tried later and it worked (but I paid with a different card).
The failed transaction was showing as pending, but now is shown as completed. So I've effectively paid twice. I'm having a devil of a job explaining to the clueless support staff that they charged me for a failed transaction which doesn't show in my history.
crosscity
Member
I don't think it's the cashback site that's the problem. Using Topcashback I have received cashback at 3% from the Virgin Trains (West Coast) website and hence have paid no card fees and have received Nectar points too! It's not a huge saving on £50-worth of tickets, but is better than the proverbial slap around the face with a wet fish.
Virgin have pulled out annoyingly. Only Expedia left that doesn't charge booking fees (still credit card fees though), possibly raileasy.
- Status