December 18, 2008 by getadam.

Just wanted to share my Orbitz experience with the world.  6 months ago my girlfriend and I bought tickets for Costa Rica at a great price from Orbitz.  The only problem was that it was a multi-carrier ticket, which worried me.  Time passed.

Two days ago, only 12 days away from our trip, she received an email stating that United Airlines had canceled one leg of the trip.   I was never informed of the change strangely.  My gf called them and was told that we could get our money back or try to reschedule.  That night I called them and they told us they would put us on another flight, 2 DAYS LATER.  I told the nice call-center employee in India that this was unacceptable and that I wanted my money back.  She said that Orbitz could not authorize a refund, because “another carrier” had “picked up” our ticket.  #$$%^$^?

Turns out that LACSA Airlines, one of the legs of the trip, had someone “picked up” our ticket and now controlled it.  The rep called LACSA but they had no supervisors.  At this point we felt a sense of urgency because the trip was less than 2 weeks away and other tickets were already much more expensive.  Orbitz wouldn’t budge, then claimed that the LACSA office was closed for the night.  We hung up and called back, this time both of us at once, from two different phones.  My gf’s rep said she could refund the tickets again - more contradiction, but I’ll take it.  Meanwhile, I had got on with a “supervisor” who apparently had overwritten the other rep’s offer for a refund.  Now we were stuck- no refund authorization until LACSA reopened in the morning and responded.

The next morning was more hell with the call centers.  I spoke to three different reps, 2 supervisors, nobody could get a hold of LACSA and nobody would offer a refund.  At this point, I just wanted them to take care of their customer and offer a refund - they could go collect my money from LACSA or whoever they gave it to, but I put my trust in Orbitz and was dropped.  All they would do was quote policies - there is nobody at any of the call centers who can make an exception to the rules.

Their rules are terrible, their supervisors are powerless, they give contradictory information, and they “sell” your ticket to other companies.

In the end, I got my money back and bought two tickets through Continental, for an extra$1,100.  Thanks for nothing Orbitz - I spent over 7 hours on the phone with you, went through hell with your knowledgless reps, and almost doubled the cost of my trip, all to get you to do the right thing, to protect your customer, just as any small business in America would do in heartbeat.

I’ll never use Orbitz again - there’s too much good competition out there.  Long live Kayak.com

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December 17, 2008 by Christmas Disappointment.

I wish I had known this site existed before I booked a flight on Orbitz.I booked a flight that claimed it would return on the 24th.  After I paid for the ticket, the itinerary was emailed to me and stated my return was on the 25th.Immediately I called them to have this corrected, but they said I must have entered the 25th instead.  Sure, that is a possibility.  Well, the only option was to cancel the ticket and then purchase another one, which I would have been fine with, except that I am a student and my credit limit won’t allow me to buy 2 airline tickets while I wait for the 1st to be refunded.  So I asked that they cancel the flight, rebook the new flight (which was still on their website), and simply charge me the non-refundable $11.  They said this wasn’t possible, and when I asked to speak to a supervisor, they kept me on hold for 15 minutes before hanging up on me. They literally hung up on me!!   So now I won’t be home for Christmas, and I have a terrible taste in my mouth about this company that I just gave $1200 to. 

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December 9, 2008 by ps.

Here is my beef with Orbitz, tried to make a hotel reservation recently, go an error message from the Orbitz  web site that transaction cannot be comoleted at this time, 5 minutes later tried agaion, same error, gave up and made a reservation on Hilton Honors web site.

No follow up mesages or any thing else from Orbitz.

Low & behold, a charge form Orbitz appears on my Citibank card statement, I called Orbitz who advised me they would investigate and call me back in 24 to 48 hours, 96 hours later I called them back and, the agent advised gee they shoudl have told you to fax in a dispute.  So I did that, got an email today that its a valid charge, I had a reservation and they had in fact emailed a confirmation to me.      I called them,  the agent advised me that I did not cancel the reservation by 6 PM  I asked the agent , do you people undersatnd that your web site advised ” my transaction cannot be completed” then why woudl I think I had a reservation to cancel?

So I opened a dispute with my credit card company,  will have to hope for the best.

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November 24, 2008 by Managingorbitz.

If you are reading this basically you like me were suckered into a deal with Orbitz. I feel for you. You have two options now - you can rant and rave into the void (I have nothing against that) or you can get the most you can out of Orbitz with the least (but still considerable) effort.

Basically the way the operate is with very poor trained, very low-pay workers in call centres in emerging markets. They are clueless and cannot really assist you. Getting cross, shouting, asking to speak to a supervisor - its all useless. They only give first names, so there is no come back. So in short realize before you call that you are speaking to someone paid way less than a dollar an hour, who speaks okish english, has probably never stayed in hotel or flown in plane in their lives, doesn’t know anything about the travel business AND has their finger on the hang-up button.   The way the call centre workers operate is the moment anything gets confusing or complicated, or the caller is irate they simply drop the call. Its no skin off their back, Orbitz designed the system to not be accountable. There is no follow up to the caller that you last spoke to (by design).So basically what I did, after about 10 hours of exasperated calls, was as follows. I worked out exactly what the solution to my problem was. Basically the person needed to call KLM and change the reservation. I got her the KLM reservation number in Holland, told her what buttons to press, phoned KLM in Holland (who said only the travel agent can do the change), asked them to make a note of what needed to change. And the talked the Orbitz call centre staff through the process step by step. It worked. 

Anyway here are some tips for how to manage your losses with Orbitz:1) See if you can sort it out yourself first. You will have to do this anyway to “train” the Orbitz call centre staff.2) If its a small amount of money at stake ask yourself “is it worth 10 hours on the phone to staff who know nothings and can do little?”3) If it is not a small amount of money or you are stuck here is what to do:a) Find out exactly what the call centre staff will need to do, who they need to phone, phone the people they need to phone and prepare them, give Orbitz staff as detailed a description as you can of what they need to do.b) Do not get angry or they will punish you by keeping you on hold for 45 minutes and then cut you off.Important - allocate time to this. Its not a quick call. Set yourself down, get coffee notepads, get in a comfortable chair and prepare to spend much of the day on the task. Good luck

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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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