Look, idiot(s), it has nothing to do with being a cry baby or looking for someone / something to complain about.

It has to do with getting what you paid for. If I book a hotel, and my confirmation statement says, in fact, that I am paying for that specific hotel, then that’s it. I paid $xxx for that hotel, and that’s all it should be. All of the other red tape, fine-print, bullcrap isn’t relevant when one deals with a reputable, honest, and service-driven company.

It’s very clear Orbitz is not reputable, Orbitz is not honest, Orbitz is not service-driven, and the fact that a person pays for one thing and then gets another proves, without a doubt, Orbitz lies and scams.

Again, it has nothing to do with your nonsense accusations, which, quite frankly, do more to hurt the situation than help. It has everything to do with the fact that if someone does not get what they paid for, then it’s illegal - That’s it.

I don’t need a law degree to know that…it’s common damn sense, unless you are RexWood.

And to people like Bruce, who say many of these situations are not the fault of Orbitz: There’s a little something called the “Tough-Shit Rule” that comes with being in this type of business.

People use Orbitz or any of these services for a number of reasons, the most prevalent being:

1. Convenience
2. Price
3. They are experts, presumably, where the consumer is not. (travel, dealing with airlines, hotels, etc.)

When they fail to deliver, in effect, all three, then there is a huge problem. I don’t care whose fault it is when hotels switch someone around, or airlines cancel flights at the last minute, or anything like that. It simply shouldn’t matter if they are dealing with a proper company, which Orbitz is not.

The Tough Shit Rule means essentially this: If something like that happens, if you don’t get what you paid for, if your flight gets canceled days before you am supposed to leave, etc., then Orbitz should either:

A. Work with the customer to find a solution as close to, i f not exactly, what the customer wants as possible regarding time, location, etc. and that costs the customer no more than their original booking.

or

B. Offer a full refund with no arguments, no paperwork…nothing. You ask for the refund, and you get it - that’s it.

or

C. Offer sufficient compensation for the situation in the form of a partial refund - not Orbitz credit or something like that - to the customer. So if that lady’s hotel moved her to a different one - even if the different one is amazing - then she gets a refund for every night she did not stay in the original hotel.

It doesn’t matter if it is Orbitz’s fault or not, here’s why this is the way it should be:

A. The original booking is initiated because a customer uses Orbitz to browse all possible bookings, select what works for them, and then they pay Orbitz to give them the price they selected on each service / item, negotiate that with the airline, hotel, etc., and then deliver that booking to the consumer.

B. The customer initiates Orbitz, therefore Orbitz, not the customer, is the one who directly acts as the party who books everything.

C. It is the job of whoever books everything directly to make sure they get what they paid for. Why would it be the job of someone else?

D. The customer directly employed Orbitz - as evidenced by Orbitz’s fee to use the service - to be the middle-man / direct booking body.

E. If the airline, hotel, etc. fails to deliver what was finalized upon payment for the original deal, then that is between the person / body who worked directly with them to book the trip - which would be Orbitz. It is the job of the customer to make sure Orbitz gives them what they paid for, and it is the job of Orbitz to make sure the airline, hotel, etc. gives them what they (Orbitz) directly booked.
It is not the job of the customer to all of a sudden step in as the direct booking party and fix the situation, because that is what Orbitz is being paid to do. If they don’t do it, then why in the world does the customer need them to exist to begin with?

It’s not as though a pizza restaurant can charge you an extra $5 for a pizza you ordered just because they had to buy more ingredients from the grocery store, and the only ones available were really expensive. It is the job of the restaurant to worry about the price of ingredients, and then set the price for the customer. The customer should not have to worry about the price of the ingredients. All the customer needs to know is the price given by the restaurant originally, and the pizza they ordered. Everything else is the restaurant’s job. If the customer had to worry about the ingredients, the price of those ingredients, and what to do if the original order doesn’t turn out, then why wouldn’t they just make the damn pizza themselves? Why should they have to pay something for essentially nothing?

Conclusion: In that same way, why should a customer have to pay for Orbitz’s faults, shortcomings, mis-negotiations, and fallen-through deals?

The answer is, plain and simple, they shouldn’t.

I too just took some time to read through many of the posts here at this site…what a bunch of cry babies who need their frickin’ diapers changed. Example: “…My boyfrind and I had just one night in Paris and Big Bad Orbitz screwed up our whole trip…” Give me a break - and we’re supposed to feel sorry for you because you were a spoiled little Mommy’s Girl cheerleader who had to deal with a changed hotel which was … oh my god, wait for it … down the street from where you originally booked, and, … oh my god, wait for it again … the bathtub was clogged up? Do you have any idea what thousands and thousands of our soldiers have to deal with on a day to day basis in the Mid-East? And your complaining about a ‘clogged bathtub, in Paris?” And another thing…who books a trip for just one night in Paris? That alone starts the ringing of the ‘Moron Bell’ for me. Can’t you just picture the woman who writes to complain about this Orbitz Nightmare? When she was a little girl and fell down outside and scraped her knee, she ran in the house crying and Mommy made it all better and gave her cookies and milk. It’s people like this that should be forced to live in a 3rd world country for a year. Then we’ll see if they complain about a clogged up bathtub…