www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I just found out Expedia owns all the following sites: Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, trivago.com, travelocity.com, and Orbitz.com. No wonder each site can advertise that it will match the price on other sites.

I know. Earlier this year, I booked a hotel in Panama using orbitz.com. The receptionist searched for my reservation, and asked if I booked with expedia. I said no, I used orbitz.com. She said "then you booked with Expedia."

I've been lurking on the site for a while, but I finally felt my oats and started posting. Some of this stuff is just hilarious. I worked for a major airline in the USA all of my life and this stuff is truly funny.

Expedia has indeed been an owner of all of those other websites, and even owned TripAdvisor at one point. In the course of my work with the airlines, I have spoken with several of the people who are in the higher echelons of those companies. The conversation almost always went something like this: I would say, "What are you guys doing about the claims that TripAdvisor just lets anyone post whatever they want, and that it's not a true representation of the airlines, hotels, and other venues?" Invariably... and this is from the real "big dogs" in charge, the answer was, "Who gives a shit? It's just a bunch of dumb-ass, stupid American consumers. We could shovel shit, tell 'em it's chocolate, and they would eat it and tell us how good it tastes."

What was TripAdvisor's Official response to allegations that its posted reviews were unreliable and misleading? "We don't believe that, and we don't need any kind of fact-checking or any kind of evaluation of the service that we offer." Translation: Everything on the TripAdvisor Website is pure bullshit, and the American public just Eats It Up!

Seriously, folks... The more ridiculous that TripAdvisor gets, the more solidly their customers support them. I believe that it's because, every day, the absolute farce that TripAdvisor is will just make those customers look more and more like complete idiots.

By the way, there are now over 400 non-existent hotels on TripAdvisor. And that woman in Scotland is still the 17th most popular "attraction" in Scotland.

For over one year, I had a hotel listed on TripAdvisor, that listed the "stop" that it was on, in the San José Subway transportation system.

For over two years, there was photo of the Sportsmens Lodge on TripAdvisor, showing two dudes tending a portable bar on the beach. I must have emailed TripAdvisor at least 20 times, saying, "Ummm... guys... the Sportsmens Lodge is nowhere near any beach." The response I got from my contact at TripAdvisor was "So? We're still making money. You think that TripAdvisor gives a shit if any of its information is accurate?"

My personal favorite page on TripAdvisor is the page regarding Hotel Little Havana.

As most of you know, Hotel Little Havana shut down, or, if you prefer, was split into Zona 2 and Scores. Scores shut down not too long after the split, but Zona 2 is still going strong.

Here's the page on TripAdvisor regarding Hotel Little Havana...


http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review ... _Jose.html


Almost 2 years ago, I sent an email to my contact at TripAdvisor, and told him that Little Havana had officially shut down, and had been split into Scores and Zona 2. A couple of days later, I got a reply from him that said, "I have to communicate directly with the owner of Little Havana, before I can shut down the page." I responded, "OK... What I am telling you is that there IS NO OWNER of Little Havana, because it no longer exists." He replied, "Well, I can't shut down the page until the owner of Little Havana contacts me." I responded, "So what you're telling me is that you can't shut down the page of a nonexistent business, until the nonexistent owner of that nonexistent business contacts you?" He replied, "Yes. That's correct."

And folks... That... in a nutshell... is the quality of TripAdvisor.

Scrod - interesting stuff. And thanks for jumping in with your recent posts.

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This post is provided purely for entertainment purposes and free of charge on the part of the author. No tourist or travel promotion is expressed or implied. The author of this post was not provided compensation (monetary or otherwise) for this potentially entertaining contribution.

You're welcome. I just moved down a few months ago, after I retired, but I've been visiting Costa Rica regularly since 1994. I just got the "Internets" hooked up 2 days ago, and I'm just starting to get really involved in this whole online business.

It's a lot more complicated than that. Various rules and regulations REQUIRE those sites to offer ticket prices according to certain standards. When a site says that it will match the price on other sites, what that site is really saying is, "We will comply with the Law."