Do you use online travel booking sites?

A Canadian couple are among 300 would-be travellers whose winter vacations were cancelled after it turned out the airline tickets they'd bought on the Expedia website were not meant to be sold to the public.

Do you book tickets on online travel sites? (iStock)Justin Oberdornfinger and his girlfriend paid less than $600 for two round-trip tickets, on Korean Air, from New York to the South Pacific archipelago of Palau. They bought the deeply discounted tickets in September for the February trip.

The tickets were cancelled suddenly and without warning in November, Oberdornfinger said. He then learned the low price was a promotional deal for travel agents only, which Expedia.ca was not supposed to have posted or sold.

Korean Air notified people that their tickets were void and their money would be refunded. Korean Air also offered affected passengers a $200 travel voucher for a future flight.

"Expedia should have never posted this fare on the internet if they are not going to honour it," Oberdornfinger said.

Do you use online travel booking sites, such as Expedia or Travelocity? Why or why not? Do you see any benefits or pitfalls to using such sites? Let us know in the comments below.



(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers' responses.)