Following an hour-long conversation with a representative from Expedia I have to come to the conclusion that this Company is not to be trusted in any shape or form. The facts are that they take a booking from us, the public, and give guarantees that they have absolutely no thought of honouring. My daughter booked with Expedia the total package of flight and hotel, as a surprise to me, to go to Albuferia in Portugal where I was being treated to a 50th Birthday celebration holiday. She was booked on the same flight as us which left Dublin Airport at around 8.00pm for the two and a half hour flight which was thankfully uneventful. On arriving at Faro airport we had a pre-arranged taxi waiting to take us to our accommodation which took about 45 minutes. My friends left the taxi and went to book into our hotel (Hotel Vila Recife) and were treated with the utmost courtesy and given the keys to their rooms. I stayed in the taxi to make sure that my daughter would have no problems at her hotel (Hotel da Galé) which was only a few minutes away. On arriving at reception we were greeted by an insolent and extremely rude man who told us immediately that they had no room for my daughter as she was late booking in and that they had, in fact, sold the room on to someone who had just walked in off the street. I told him that my daughter had a confirmed booking through Expedia and that they had no right to re-sell the room. He literally told us to get lost and stop bothering him as there was no room at the inn (I know how Joseph and Mary felt). I asked him to refund the money to which he replied that Expedia had the money and we were to seek recompense from them. After a lengthy discourse, we decided that there was no way we going to get him to change his indifference to my daughter plight. We left and found another hotel where my daughter paid again for her 3 nights stay. We phoned Expedia the next morning and they were apologetic and said they would take the matter up with the hotel and not to worry they would be refunding my daughters payment. On returning to Ireland we contacted Expedia again and asked what they were doing about the refund and an apology for the disgraceful treatment of their customer. This is when the useless guarantees that I mentioned earlier were borne out. Expedia said that they were unable to get the money back from the hotel and as a gesture of goodwill would give us a €100 voucher against a future booking! As you will appreciate this was entirely unacceptable and I argued that the contract was made with Expedia and that their emailed confirmation clearly stated that no worries about late booking in as the rooms were guaranteed. The ignoramus who I was talking to asked to see a copy of the booking confirmation that my daughter was sent, so he was obviously accusing me of lying. While I was still on the phone to him I forwarded this confirmation which stated quite clearly what I was telling him. When he received that he reverted to the story that the hotel was not prepared to refund anything as she was late booking in. He was told in no uncertain terms that his argument was complete and utter rubbish. I told him that the contract existed between my daughter and Expedia and had nothing whatsoever to do with what the hotel did or didn't do. He again said the best he could do was offer the €100 voucher. It seems the only way to resolve this matter will be by recourse to the courts and I look forward to hearing just what Expedia's excuses will be at that juncture. In the meantime, I give you fair warning not to trust this shower of liars and cheats you will be very disappointed.