My lovely
wife is a
daddy's girl, she knows it, I know it, her father knows it, and I
believe complete strangers know it. More to the point, she talks
to her father, who lives in Pittsburgh, PA, on an almost daily basis;
the night before Halloween was no exception. As she was talking
to her father that night, he relayed a secret to her that he had been
keeping for a couple weeks. Does he have a girlfriend, my mind
wondered? No, he's going to Las Vegas in a week with his sister,
my Aunt-in-law. Congrats Ed, I thought, pull a slot handle for
me. My wife, on the other hand, had plans of her own. Oh
yes, since he's going to be near us (as if 1500 miles is near, nearer
than Pittsburgh I guess) we HAVE to go, even if it's just for a
day. After some talking and a day to think about it, I agreed to
it. Now all we needed to do was book a flight and get a room.
Using
Expedia, my wife found a
flight leaving at 9:30pm PST 11/9 and
returning 11:30pm PST for around $474 and
change. Great! Along with the room at Circus Circus (not my
first choice but that's where the family is staying) it's affordable
and doable. So we go to checkout, give them our credit card info
and submit but to our dismay, the confirmation screen said that the
price had changed to around $686 and change -WTF! Well, we
figured user error so we did it all over again. The searches yielded
the same price and we checked out again but no go. Again, it
prompted us to accept the new price. Well, perhaps its a glitch
and a customer service representative can help. As you can
imagine the Expedia representative couldn't help us, she stated that
the prices in the system were being updated and that the new price was
the right price. I, being a web developer, didn't buy it.
In my personal opinion, I think it was a lame excuse by a not-so-savvy
person. Honestly, I'm sure she didn't even work at Expedia.
As big corporations do sometimes, they farm out customer service calls
to an outside agency where they have a list of 10 lame excuses to give
people when they call so that they don't have to do any real work.
Back to the point, I immediately say "fuck that, Expedia can blow me!" and pull up
Orbitz.
Personally, I like Orbitz and use it more often than not. Through
them, I find the EXACT same flight, there and back, for $471 and change
($3 cheaper, hehe), proceed to checkout and viola, we have our
confirmation and e-tickets for the price quoted -the way it's supposed
to work!
After an hour at the laptop and a beer-and-a-half later, we got what we
were quoted and my wife and I are GOING TO VEGAS BABY! WOO
HOO! Even if it is just for a day, it's still a needed break for
us both and a full day away from our pets.
Thank you Orbitz, you saved the day.
Fuck you Expedia, you suck!
