Kayak.com–a step-up from Expedia

I expressed some of my dissatisfaction with a recent interaction with Expedia, and tonight had to book some travel for an upcoming business trip to Tokyo.  Tried Kayak.com, as I’d heard about it.  Pretty impressive in being more efficient and *cheaper* than Expedia (by about $50).  I’ve got no idea whether they’d help me out at all if I need to change my flight, but the initial experience was one I’d take on again.

In some sense, they’re aggregator business is ideal and keeps them from the messy business of having to deal with a customer like me who needs to change things every once in a while…   Kayak’s kind of a strange brand name–it’s definitely got good evocative flair, it’s something I can remember.  It doesn’t really make me stand up and take notice, but then again, it probably does enough.  Wise of them to avoid names in convention of Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz tho.  More Amazonian, I think…  Good luck to them, was a good first experience.

Filed under: internet, technology, travel

Changing reservations via Expedia is a *disaster* — what I’d do

I’ve now spent over an hour on the phone with Expedia trying to change a ticket.  Pretty basic stuff: need to change a return date, shift the return city.  THe first set of staff couldn’t get it done; then I discussed with Tanya, a specialist who knew her stuff–5 mintues later it was fixed and all set, for like $15.

The inconsistency of customer service with in Expedia’s staff to expediently resolve the issue is shocking, not to mention depressing.

Here’s what  I would do if i were running Expedia–it seems like a simple ‘product’ fix.  Whenever a user wants to change a flight or whatever, there should be a ‘desired change’ process the user goes through.  Through this process, they would ‘mark-up’  the current itinerary into the desired itinerary and they then send it to the person on the phone at Expedia.  Then both sides have the same information, and the customer service rep can work through getting a pricing done.

Currently all that stuff is done manually–meaning we’ve got to discuss all this on the phone.

Filed under: internet, travel