And Expedia bought Homeaway/VRBO and added the service fee to bookings, which previously did not exist, yet they still charge homeowners hundreds of dollars to list. Since Expedia bought them, it’s been nothing but downhill as they constantly tinker with something that had been working and now is not working so well.
If you are looking to AirBnB or VRBO and want to save the service fee try searching for the owner and booking directly, an image search, a house name search etc., might lead you to their own site.
We use Hotwire for hotels. I like that we can usually get a cute boutique hotel for not too much.
If you have a locator number (six letter code) for the air ticket you bought through Expedia, you can try to get the seat assignment directly through the airline’s site using that number. I do this all the time. Alaska will even allow me to add any itinerary purchased through other sites to my itineraries list.
@Ballerina016 That’s good to know. I just booked a JetBlue/hotel trip through Expedia and couldn’t pick seats. I waited a few days and called Expedia to get the airline confirmation number and then went on to Jet Blue. It still wouldn’t let me pick my seats. I thought maybe because it is so far into the future (mid-October) and marked my calendar for late June to try again. I’m not going to be happy if I can’t pick my own seats.
I usually book direct with airlines and hotels but there was a significant discount on this particular trip so I went with Expedia. I check airfare from the itasoftware matrix…the only airline it doesn’t show is SW, which I check separately. I had a bad experience with hotels.com at a hotel in Mexico. Thank goodness I had my print-out that specifically described the room I had booked (OV with balcony) because they wanted to put me in a dungeon. It took two hours of arguing and two different managers but I got what I paid for in the end, but not a nice way to start a vacation!
@NEPatsGirl try to call JetBlue. They might be able to assign seats for you.