That is why I highly recommend only booking through airlines' websites directly. They will put you on their on plane or a partner plane in which your luggage is almost always checked all the way through. Many third party websites will put you on combinations of airlines that are not partners and you have to run all over the airport to other terminals and grab your baggage while connecting.

First of all - congratulations on your marriage, and so sorry to hear that the honeymoon travels did not go as smoothly as you had hoped.

But now, the un-fun bit. Is this the first time you've travelled overseas, or the first time you've booked connecting flights? If so, I suspect that you might not do so again without checking to ensure that the connecting times are 'legal' before choosing to buy a ticket for ABC-QRS-XYZ, which includes a 20 minute stopover during which you must collect bags between QRS and XYZ.

Most airlines post a MCT (minimum connection time) for flights on their service as well as partners (eg Star Alliance or oneWorld). A number of airports' websites post connection times and info as well. However, the word minimum is key here - just because BA allow a MCT of 75 minutes between T4 and T1 at LHR, I would allow twice that because I know what LHR and those two terminal buildings can be like.

Expedia books flights within the MCT, but seem to have allowed v little room for contingencies (like the plane parking at a remote stand with pax needing to be bussed to the terminal building) in the itinerary which you booked. Before booking flights next time, do a bit of research on the airports and airline with which you wish to fly - 30 minutes' work can save hours of headaches, I promise.

I hate to be cold, but there are so many of these I hate expedia posts.

It seems to me what you needed was a full service travel agent. Instead you opted for Expedia,why? Probably to save money. Have you ever heard the saying you get what you pay for.

I am not a fan of any of the online travel booking services. I use them to research prices, but I have found I can usually match the price direct from the airline, thereby cutting out the middle man.

If you want to do the research and find that an online booking service is cheapest, realize one of the reasons they are cheap is because they do not offer much (if anything) in the way of customer service.

If you have a complicated trip, like international connections on different airlines you just might need to ask some questions and you are not paying Expedia or any of the online booking services to answer questions, only to use their search engines to book a trip.

Also note that this is another first post from this person. Wonder if he/she will ever come back to reply to these posts. Quite often these first post complainers don't.

"I use them to research prices, but I have found I can usually match the price direct from the airline, thereby cutting out the middle man."

Exactly. Sometimes even a little cheaper.............

ihatexpedia sounds suspicously like our old obsessed friend doe...........

I agree with the above posts. Expedia and the like are sites which I use for research only. I then book through the airline, who are responsible for ensuring that connection times are "dooable".

It seems the OP is not experienced with international travel to understand that:

1. the airlines cannot check through your luggage if they are not of the same alliance (Oneworld, Staralliance, etc) or don't have such "baggage service agreements"; from Lisbon to Spain is likely a different alliance

2. One hour connection time in today's security and numerous flight delay environment is not enough

Using Expedia is ok, but you have to understand how the itin and it does take some experience. As others mentioned, going to a travel agent is a better choice, at least until you have a basic understanding of airlines and airports. Expedia is not always the cheapeast anyway. A good agent will be able to pull out discounted fares.

> That is why I highly recommend only booking through airlines' websites directly. They will put you on their on plane or a partner plane in which your luggage is almost always checked all the way through.

Ah, but there is the problem, and why third-party sites like Expedia can sometimes be useful.

If the airline you are flying with has no partner airlines flying to your final destination, they will not book the flight. I often come up against this on an airline's website: "Sorry, neither we nor any of our partners fly to this destination." And you can't make the booking.

A site like Expedia or Travelocity (or better still, a good local independent travel agency) allows you to book those unusual routings without having to buy separate tickets which can often work out more expensive.

You do, of course, in these circumstances, have to be aware that you have to collect and recheck your baggage, and that you should probably allow extra time for connections because of this. Expedia was certainly remiss if t they did not inform the OP of this.

Most of this could have been avoided by using a travel agent. I find Expedia expensive - their quotes have always been substantially higher than using my travel agent or doing it myself. Or by using an airline website.

IMHO, I would never travel with a connection unless i had AT LEAST a 1.5 connex time (and if your original flight was late taking off, it still could be a problem). If you allow for intl customs, then I think a MINIMUM of 2 hrs.

Thank you for all of your travel advice on what we went through for our honeymoon. I only wish I would've known this ahead of time. I really don't think it's right that Expedia expects you to know about baggage agreements, and minimum connection times, etc. I think that most people who book through expedia probably have no idea that their baggage isn't going to follow them from connection to connection. Maybe I'm wrong, but I''ve traveled quite of bit using connections and my luggage always followed me. I've even traveled internationally before w/ connections and not had a problem. I guess you live and you learn, but what I am most mad about is that there wasn't enough time in between our flights and then when I called to get help, they were not accomodating at all. After putting me on hold for a half hour they came back to tell me to be the first off the plane which cost us a lot of extra money and did us no good. This doesn't seem like good business to me and I think that they should be responsible for what they did to us and I'm sure a lot of other people who aren't aware of these policies. I did do research, all the research that I knew to do. How can you run a business where you screw people over and then do nothing to fix the situation or at least make the people feel better. Luckily for us, we were smart enough to ask the ticket counter if our luggage was going to follow us, otherwise it would've been a week of shopping for new clothes in Spain! Instead of losing our luggage we only lost a day of our honeymoon.

> most people who book through expedia probably have no idea that their baggage isn't going to follow them from connection to connection

Most people who book through Expedia will have their baggage follow them. It is the exception when a trip is on different airlines that don't interline the baggage.

That said, Expedia should have made clear to you that you would have to check in separately for each flight.