flight stupidness redux

[winterbadger]

Well, I really, really tried. I got hold of someone at Expedia by (dependable) phone, and she was a trooper. She dug out all the rules and read through them. She tried all sorts of tricks to circumvent the BA restrictions. But after an hour and a half, she gave up and told me I had to call BA directly (again) because they were the only people who could rebook my ticket. She strongly advised me to not tell them I had booked through Expedia, just to say I had a past-date ticket to rebook and that I had been told I could so don't tell me you can't.

Needless to say, I am not confident that this is going to go anywhere, though I will give it a try (later). I strongly suspect that BA are going to refuse to do anything at all. Which will mean I am out $780, even though I paid for cancellation insurance.

This experience presents me with a variety of possible lessons, but what I think I'm taking away from it is: don't book a flight unless you are sure you want to take it, and once you have taken it, don't even *think* of canceling it for anything short of a serious emergency.

Comments

[pisica.livejournal.com]

That's really unpleasant.

Personally, my rule (which I just realized is a rule; I hadn't really thought about it) is 'don't book through the internet for long-haul flights'. There are enough good travel agents out there, and if something goes wrong it's much better to have THEM sit on the phone to United or whatever. Short hops, I'm usually getting restricted tickets anyway so I don't expect refunds/changes.