Expedia     Go To Expedia    Expedia definitely impressed us by its low rates, travel booking options and extensive listing of hotels and travel packages. The Internet is a great tool for making fast and easy travel arrangements. There are dozens of sites offering hotel and flight search capability as well as advertised specials and destination information. Expedia was one of the first sites the Star Reviews team decided to visit when we set out to compare travel booking websites. Want to know why they're a top contender in this market? Here's the 4-1-1... What’s New? Corporate Travel Flight Price Guarantee Expedia Insider’s Select – List of top hotels and destinations $50 free gas if you book your travel plans with Expedia Master Card Our Favorite Feature: The “Thank You Rewards Network Program” offered by Expedia gives you the opportunity to collect points for free travel. There is no membership fee or credit card required, no blackout dates, and points are accumulated at a rate of one point per dollar spent. How could anyone not like free travel? Pricing: For our pricing comparison we searched each travel site for NON-STOP airfare for a 7-day stay from LAX in California to JFK in New York. At the time of our reviews these are the quotes we received: Expedia Hotwire Kayak Orbitz Priceline Travelocity $448 $454 $399 $405 $448 $336 The Expedia Experience: Expedia pages load quickly and we found them to be fairly easy to navigate.  The home page is laid out in three sections, one interactive panel for a quick travel search, one stationary center panel for advertising, and one interactive panel for special deals. Searching for a flight is done via the interactive panel. After you have entered your desired flight details, you are brought to a screen with a grid of options listing available Airlines and prices. Beneath it is a more detailed listing of each option providing flight times and durations. We found the details easy to read and very informative. Browsing for a hotel will bring you first to a list of Expedia’s picks. You can then sort by hotel name, city, star rating, or traveler opinion. Each listing has a star rating, a customer numeric ranking, and price. All the information is very useful and we suggest reading user reviews of any hotels you are thinking of staying at. Also check out the listings on th area map. That way you know exactly where your hotel is in proximity to the things you want to see while you're in town. While the search features of this site are similar to those on other travel planning web sites, the graphics and information layout is slightly less appealing than some of the competitors we visited. However, we're never ones to disregard functionality for aesthetics so we were able to overlook this issue. We found that creating an Expedia account was fast and easy. You will need to decide whether or not you want to become a Thank You Member. If you choose to go that route, you will then be asked to fill out an additional form requiring your address and phone number. Your address will be used to mail you your “Thank You Welcome Kit” with a membership card and all the rules and regulations. Expedia Features: Arrangements for hotels, airlines, car rentals, cruises and activities. User friendly search panel. Special Deal alert by email. Travel problems alert. Customized itineraries. Expedia Pricing: Expedia does not charge for registration or searching on its site and the Thank You Membership is also free. There is a fee added to travel arrangements made via the site, but the fee varies based on type of arrangement and which company you book with. Expedia Customer Service: There is plenty of FAQ information on the Expedia website and they also offer 24/7 phone support (kudos to Expedia) and email support as well. The FAQ section was very organized, beginning with the links for the top-five most frequently asked questions. Following are links for FAQ’s for each area, such as Flights, Hotels, etc. Phone support, while having a 4-minute hold time, was also very helpful and email support replied to us within one business day. Expedia is on the ball when it comes to treating customers right. Upside “Thank You Points” are a great way to save of future travel, email “Deal Alert” keep you on top of good deals, comparison flight panel makes it quick and easy to search by budget. Downside: The website is a little cluttered and less visually appealing than other sites and while offering a good selection of airlines and hotels, choices are slightly limited. Go To Expedia                   Customer Ratings                   Email This Review