October 13, 2008 by ChrisN.

So it was my girlfriend’s birthday and I asked her what she wanted to do, she said “I want a room in a nice hotel overlooking the water in Galveston, TX.  I hopped online and looked around and it seemed Orbitz was the only place that allowed me to choose a room with an OCEAN VIEW so I booked through them at the Hotel Galvez, a pretty nice 5 star hotel.  Everything went through fine and I received an e-mail stating my room with King Size bed and Ocean View had been reserved.  We go down to the Hotel Galvez around 4pm to check in, they give us the room keys and we go up.  The room is a tiny room with two double beds NOT facing the ocean.  I think hmm this must just be a simple mistake and I go down to the lobby.  The clerk says “Orbitz did not specify an Ocean View and we do not allow them to do this.  Also, we do not have any rooms available facing the ocean at this time.  You will need to talk to them regarding this.”  So they give me Orbitz’ number.  I call Orbitz where I proceed to wait on hold for 30 minutes.  I finally get someone that does not have any sort of a command of the English language, from overseas.  I explain the situation to her and she tells me that they can only put Ocean View and King Size Bed as a preference but cannot guarantee the Hotel will offer it.  Funny, they took the $240 for the room and sent a confirmation e-mail stating that we got a room with a King Size bed and an OCEAN VIEW.  In fact, the extra $40 on top of the $200 was because we ADDED king size and Ocean View.  So I get a bit angry and hostile and explain that I just want a refund.  She says they cannot give a refund and we need to request it from the Hotel.  I go back in the Hotel and the lady at the desk says “We cannot give you a refund, we haven’t gotten the money from Orbitz yet.”  So I call Orbitz back and she says “Since you are obviously upset we can give you a $25 gift card towards your next vacation.”  This infuriates me more, I rant and she says “We can offer you $50 gift card on your next vacation”.  I blow up and get off the phone, storm back into the Hotel, the girlfriend puts on the waterworks and makes a scene in front of a big wedding party, and the Manager of the hotel says, “Ooh it looks like a room with an ocean view JUST OPENED UP!” magically, without even checking a computer or asking anybody anything.

So we got our room, but I will never, EVER recommend or use Orbitz, and will discourage any person I meet along the way to do the same.  People in India/South Asia/wherver overseas should not be booking hotels in the U.S., and Orbitz should not mislead people with ‘options’ on their website that they apparently have no control over or do not provide the end-client.   Happy birthday, indeed.

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October 7, 2008 by rp.

Orbitz recently sent me an e-mail with the title “Prepare For Your Trip - San Antonio.” It mentions the following:  “Have your travel plans changed? Many tickets can be exchanged or cancelled online,” Fuck you Orbitz. You guys are thieves and completely full of shit. I tried to cancel my hotel 2 weeks in advance and you criminals said that I wouldn’t be able to get a penny back. I sent both an e-mail and a letter to you thugs and haven’t heard a single word back. This is in addition to a previous encounter that I had with Orbitz, in which I fell for your scam “travel insurance” and of course didn’t get a goddamned dime back when I had to cancel my trip. I have used orbitz in the past, but no more. And I will spread the word to EVERYONE I KNOW that Orbitz is a deceitful, scumbag, cesspool of crooks. I am on a full-on fucking crusade to expose what unscrupulous criminals you are. I will tirelessly rant to all I come in contact with about your sleazy practices and let them know that they would have to have the IQ of a salad fork to buy anything from you. So, in summary, you guys (orbitz) are nothing but a bunch of goddamned soul-less liars. But the legion of screwed-over Orbitz victims, I mean “customers,” will get the last laugh when you sewer rats declare bankruptcy as a direct result of stealing from people. Go to hell.

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August 24, 2008 by hillarybangkok.

So I’ve been living in Bangkok, Thailand studying abroad for the past several months. I decided to book a trip through Orbitz to China to visit a friend who was helpfully fluent in Chinese. Everything was fine, the trip was great. August 21st, I show up at the Kunming, China airport to find out that my flight home does not exist. I look at “My Trips” to find out that my 3:20pm flight on the 21st is now on the 22nd. My friend who spoke Chinese hopped on a bus hours earlier to keep travelling so suddenly I was stuck in China without the language, without a place to stay for the next 36 hours, and I was going to miss a midterm exam back in Bangkok. I sent Orbitz several emails asking them so KINDLY why they didn’t think it was important to email me that my flight had changed by 24 hours, but their response was essentially: these things are complicated. Fuck you, Orbitz, it’s just an email.

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July 27, 2008 by paulrm9031.

Last week  I purchased a vacation package  to the big Island on Orbitz.  The price has now came down and Orbitz won’t pass the lower rate to me explaining it is thier policy.  Said I would have to cancel and rebook, incurring cancelation fees at 1/2 what I paid.  This really sucks,  the new fare is 10% cheaper ; same fts and same hotel.  Any body else experienced this same crap

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July 20, 2008 by kevingalls.

Apparently this happens to everybody, but just to reiterate:

Three days ago I find a flight on Orbitz. Enter my info, billing card, etc. After submitting, a window appears, basically saying that flight is not available. Okay, back to the search. Found a different itinerary to purchase. Entered my info again (didn’t want to open an Orbitz account.) Same error window. In frustration, I closed Orbitz, expecting to try again later when the website was less bitchy.

Alas, I checked my bank account later that night and found that two round-trip flights’ fares were pending transactions, [edit: completed transactionns] not available from my bank account. This left me with only $120 in my account, not enough to get a flight from any company. Okay now, time to start complaining to Orbitz. Come to find, they have no record of my email address or telephone number I used for the transactions. I send an email to the customer service, as everybody else on this website has. They inform me they have no record of my transaction and need more info. I send more info and a screenshot of my bank statement showing the deductions. Now they are not answering my emails and my pending transactions are no longer pending, they have been deducted. So here I am, one day before my planned vacation and still without use of $840 that until Thursday was in my bank account.  As a student, I cannot afford my trip with a measely $120 so I can forget about seeing my family this summer.

Now I am a reasonable person. I don’t blame Orbitz if the flight turned out to not exist even though it is their website. However, it is their responsibility to confirm the availability BEFORE making any kind of contact with my bank. I am not a law student, but there is something very questionable about a company that makes any kind of transaction with my bank without first providing me any goods or services. I suspect they put the soft charge on my account and then get some feedback from the airline before completing the transaction. If this is the case, Orbitz must either confirm the flight reservations BEFORE putting charges on my account, or immediately contact my bank to free up those funds. At the VERY least, Orbitz should have informed me that the flight was not available, but they had placed a $420 hold on my account, and would apply that to another flight if I could find one. Instead, they said nothing of the hold and put a 2nd additional hold, keeping me from affording any flight at all. This is just bad business and unless I get a positive response by tonight, I will need to call my lawyer.

Thanks for creating this website for me to vent and hopefully prevent others from getting trapped.

[edit: After calling Orbitches several more times, they were able to locate my “account” and agreed that they owe me a refund, but only for Orbitz’s charge (about $12). They said the $820 refund for the plane tickets was between me and the airline. After calling the airline, they too agreed I would be refunded, but of course it would take 4 business days. In the end, I got every dollar back but since it took over a week, I didn’t have enough funds to book my trip until after my vacation time from work was over. So no trip for me, thanks Orbitches.]

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June 30, 2008 by johnlaw.

Dear Orbitz,

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June 4, 2008 by philybones.

Hopefully you read this before you book your flight.  Unfortunately, I found this AFTER we used orbitz (sucks).

 We decided to book a trip through Vegas.  After finding the choices we wanted for hotel and flights we booked the flight.  After we booked the flight and hotel we thought all was well.  that’s when it started.  We get the confirmation and they booked everything right for the flight but we now only had 1 room instead of two for two couples.   We luckily only were charged for one room.   What the F*#@!  I then called Orbitz customer service (which is most likely outsourced to INDIA!) and they said it was my fault and there was nothing they could do.  Thanks a lot.  They then said they would book another room for $500.00 more than what I was supposed to pay originally even though I actually found a cheaper price on THEIR website!  I asked to cancel the whole trip and redo it.  Another $150.00 per person!   We gave up and decided to just go and see if the hotel would do anything.  Nope, they were even more money even though it wasn’t even full!  Oh well, that’s another story.  We end up just rooming together no big deal.  We have a great time in Vegas then go to get our boarding passes.  The machine says they can’t find our reservation!  Come to find out, American Airlines changed the flight and Orbitz never told us about it!  

 We then had to find another hotel because the next flight out wasn’t until the next morning.  This means we have to get another room.  I called Orbitz and they again said it was my fault.  I asked for them to pick up the bill for the hotel room and they said no.  I then told them that we would never use Orbitz again and that we would tell all of our friends not to use their site because the suck!  Still nothing.  It’s not like I was asking for a refund on the trip, just for them to pay for their mistake.   They just lost out on all our business plus some hopefully.  (To note, the Hyatt Place in Vegas is amazing!  Mostly for business but really nice). 

 So use someone else, Orbitz is no good and they probably outsource all their customer service to India anyways making hundreds of Americans not have jobs. 

 And I almost forgot, my friend that went with me used Orbitz a month earlier for a short trip and they cancelled his trip home for some reason.  FU Orbitz

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May 28, 2008 by ReynoldW.

I sent the following email to Orbitz upon return from a recent vacation.  

“I booked a trip package (flight hotel, rental car) through Orbitz on 3/8/08 (7 weeks prior to my trip on 4/29/08).    When I arrived at the Hertz rental car at Owens International Airport in Grand Cayman, the local Hertz did have my reservation on file.  But, they stated that I needed to provide credit card to actually take the car (this seemed standard to me, I knew that they would want the card in the event of damage to the vehicle).
I told the billing clerk where I staying, which was the Reef Resort at the East End of the Island.  This resort was 25 miles away, so I absolutely needed to have a car.  The billing clerk then stated that I needed to pay for the car.   I explained that I had already paid for the car as a part of a trip package and provided them with my confirmation number.   I also showed them the email printout of my confirmation clearly showing that it had been paid for.   They then told me that I needed a “voucher number”.   I called Orbitz customer service and was transferred several times, in addition to reaching a non-working number.  I was then connected to a woman who actually was pretty helpful, she stated that this Hertz franchise did not need a voucher number.  She said that they just needed my confirmation and they should then bill Hertz.  

I put the woman from customer service on the phone with the billing person at the Hertz franchise and then the manager.   The woman from customer service explained to them what she had explained to me, but the manager insisted that her needed a “voucher number”.    The manager refused to accept the confirmation number.   He gave the phone back to me, and the woman explained that she was going to contact Hertz corporate and have them contact this franchise, which she did.   She then had a conference call with the manager of this Hertz franchise and the Hertz corporate folks.  After talking for a few minutes, he said that he now needed a “voucher form”.  He provided his fax number and then an email, it seemed like it would be taken care of .

This entire phone call lasted over 30 minutes and was made while I was roaming, so I will now have almost $100 in charges for this phone call.
When I returned the car, the manager said that he had not received anything from Orbitz or Hertz and therefore had to bill me $250.   I was in no position to dispute this at the time since I needed to leave for my flight home.  I truly feel that I was taken advantage of, due to the fact that I was a first time traveler in a foreign country and had to have a car.   I never received a phone call back from anyone at Hertz corporate or from Orbitz. 
Therefore, I am going to dispute the $250 charges with my credit card company.  I feel that my dispute will be responded to in my favor, since it is clear that I was double-charged for this car. 
At this point,  I feel the issue is between Orbitz (who has been paid for this rental car), Hertz Corporate and or the local Grand Cayman Hertz.    The main reason that I used Orbitz was to avoid problems like this.
I am emailing you to make you aware and to see if you can assist.   If not, I will certainly make everyone I know aware of the major problem that I had with Orbitz / Cheap tickets and Hertz.  I will never use either again and will advise others that they should not either.   I will be sending this same email to my credit card company, Hertz corporate, and the Better Busines Bureau separately.”

I received a response to this email stating that someone would contact me via phone within 48 hours.   I did not receive a call, so a few days later I responded to the email saying that I had not heard from anyone.  I again received an email stating that someone would contact me. 

Almost 1 month later, I have not received a phone call, email, or ANYTHING from this company.  

USE TRAVELOCITY OR BOOK YOUR TRIP DIRECT, DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY (OR HERTZ) — you will regret it. 

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March 29, 2008 by anteros.

For 24 hours now, I’ve been trying to book a flight on Orbitz. Everytime, and I mean everytime (20+), I try to book a flight at their advertised price, it either gives me a message that it cannot confirm my flight, or, more often, that the flight is now 33%-50% more than advertised. This site seems to be nothing more than a bait and switch job!!! Don’t trust them or waste your time. Life is too important than to waste it on this POS site!!!

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March 9, 2008 by mlodico.

Had to cancel my resvervations due to a flight cancellation.  Orbitz did this after mulitple phone calls.  he first three phone calls ended up transferring me to a non working number.  After a few hours a called again and finally got a live person - they said they processed a refund - we’ll see.  Then I asked for the booking fee back - this is where it really got frustrating. After an hour and a half of my time and speaking to 4 different people and getting cut off once, and having to repeat my story and personal information 4-5 times, even during the same phone session, I spoke to a supervisor.  I expressed to him my frustration with customer service - politely I might add - and he agreed to refund the lousy 13 dollar booking fee provided I re- booked thru Orbitz.   I decided to rebook thru Orbitz until I saw that the flight offered were 150 more expensive then when I first bookd and approx. 175 more expensive then hotwire flights.  So it was a no brainer and there is no way I’m going to waste any more time ever calling or dealing with Orbitz.  They SUCK - IMHO!

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