My Nonprofit Reviews

I booked a trip with Expedia, flight and hotel, the afternoon of Saturday, March 22, 2025 and later that night learned that I booked the wrong dates (misunderstanding on my part). I had believed that the entire trip was fully refundable within 24 hours of booking so on Sunday morning, March 23, I logged into Expedia to cancel. The AI "Virtual Agent" informed me that the hotel was non-refundable then immediately after responded with "You can cancel within 24 hours of when you booked and receive a full refund". Since I had believed the entire trip was fully refundable within 24 hours of booking, I went ahead and cancelled. The "Virtual Agent" proceeded to cancel - first the hotel - then the flight; at this point the "Virtual Agent" was unable to cancel the flight so I was sent to a "Human Agent" - that agent then reviewed the chat history I had with the virtual agent and said "As per checking from my end, I see that you will receive a complete refund if you cancel this reservation. Would you like to proceed?" Yes - I exclaimed! The agent then processed the cancellation and told me my refund amount - it was half of what I was expecting. When I questioned this, I was told "The hotel was non-refundable, only the flight was refundable". I questioned this, had screenshots and a chat history showing that nowhere was it mentioned that "only the flight was refundable" and disputed this. I escalated to a supervisor and was given the same "only the flight was refundable" answer. I escalated again and told the same. They said they would contact the hotel and request a waiver of the cancellation penalty but chances are it would be declined because I booked a non-refundable rate.

By this time, I was hours into the dispute and getting nowhere. I've heard about Elliott Advocacy and read some of their blogs in the past so I thought why not try. I submitted the case on Sunday evening, within an hour I had a response from Dwayne asking for supporting info, screenshots, etc. I sent everything Monday morning and later that day Dwayne replied stating that he had contacted the company on my behalf and I should have a response within a week. By Tuesday morning, Dwayne had a response from Expedia stating that "due to the error, we are issuing a full refund".

Dwayne was amazing to work with, the speed and support was far beyond I was expecting. I can't recommend this non-profit advocacy group enough. And I've learned my lesson in not trusting any AI/Virtual chat and to question everything going forward and hope everyone who reads this will also learn from this!