As I am expecting my new passport with the “X” gender option to arrive in the mail soon (yay!), I wanted to make sure that when it does arrive, I will be able to add it as a travel document to Expedia, who I’ve used in the past to book travel.
I discovered that Expedia doesn’t have any “X” option available when I try to enter a new passport. It also forces you to choose between “Male” and “Female” in the “Personal Info” section of your online account.
The Expedia help system is designed to prevent you from being able to access a human agent by any means possible. You have to click through a labyrinth of options and repeat them many times in order to be put through to a human. One of the main barriers for me, in this case, was that my request was not pertaining to a specific trip, so my lack of itinerary ID number made things difficult.
On the website, they give a number to call in order to speak to someone with general feedback. I was looped around the same transfer options so many times that the system finally gave up and hung up on me. I then decided to try the support chat.
On my first attempt, I was able to get through to a human agent via chat, but they didn’t have any answers for me, and ultimately stopped responding.
On the second attempt, I was not able to get through to a human agent.
On the third attempt, I was able to get through to a human agent again, who gave me the link to make a complaint on the UK Expedia website. I then asked if there was a complaint process for the Canadian Expedia website, and they sent me another link, which describes an “Email” contact option that doesn’t exist. It then refers us back to the phone number that I had already attempted.
Fortunately the agent was able to verify that the complaint link on the UK Expedia website was the one to use, and that for an itinerary number (which was required), I could use one of my past itineraries. When I tried, I had to remove two digits from the end of the itinerary numbers in order for them to be accepted by the form, which ultimately means that a valid itinerary number is not required, and you can just make up your own in order to get through to customer service.
I have sent my request via the form, and I am now waiting to hear back from Expedia as of Jan. 10th, 2023.