Orbitz

Used to be a good travel search engine but not anymore. It starts with offering low prices’ and then indicates the fares are not available. I also had bad experience with customer service, which is now outsourced.

Will no longer use any of the travel sites such as Orbitz for hotel rentals!! It is an easy to use site for airfares, rental cars, etc. but for lodging it leaves alot to be desired.

Part of the problem is that you have to pay for your rooms when you make the reservations....even if your reserving months in advance. Then, if you cancel AT ALL even months in advance, you get charged $25.00 per room.

I have no problem giving my credit card to hold a reservation, and/or getting penalized when I cancel a reservation less than 24 hours in advance, but $25.00 per room if you cancel anytime over 48 hours, and full charge if you cancel less than 48? What kind of business is this?

Let the buyer beware. You can go right to the websites of any major hotel you want to stay with and make your reservations!! Same prices, no advance payment required.

My family had an extremely frustrating experience because of Orbitz. Using the Orbitz website, I booked a return flight for my daughter and her boyfriend to Kansas City on Monday, November 26, the day after the Thanksgiving weekend ... and the printed itinerary stated the return would be on Monday, November 26 as well. Nowhere did it state anything about the flight arriving on Tuesday, November 27!!! Why did it allow me to book a return to Kansas City for the 26th, state on the printout it was for the 26th, but arrive on the 27th???? As a result, my wife and I had to return to the airport to pick up our daughter and her boyfriend, my daughter missed a day of work, and her boyfriend missed his college classes. This is a problem which can be corrected so this doesn't happen to anybody else. But will Orbitz correct the problem? Who knows.

The worst shopping experience of any on-line travel service. This was a nightmare that has lasted over a month now -- and I still don't have my tickets!

Customer service: annoyingly courteous.
They try so hard to be polite that it comes out sounding fake.

Supervisors: always unavailable.
They must be getting lots of complains or solving a lot of problem. At three different occasions I asked to speak with a supervisor, I was told the wait was over an hour.

Customer's opinions: Orbitz doesn't seem to care.
When I mentioned I had not received my tickets, they confirmed my address -- which I knew was correct. I had personally entered it. However, they kept insisting the tickets had been delivered there. I kept saying I live there and received no tickets.

Correcting the problem?
Now I was told I would have my tickets on Tuesday, after the holidays. It has been way over a month. Though I had previously given an alternate address for delivery (I didn't want UPS to lose my tickets again), I received a phone call today asking to confirm the alternate address. I had already given the same address 3 times before.

Horrible customer service. Emailed customer service who replied to contact another part of customer service. After going through the long automated customer service phone menu, finally connected to a phone rep who barely spoke english. Then they connected me to a busy line. 2nd time connected to wrong customer service. 3rd time finally spoke to someone who seemed to not care about my issue.

Orbitz never mailed me my tickets and I had to buy new tickets at the airlines. Orbitz will not refund the fees they charged me nor the hundreds of dollars spent on airfare. They shuffled me aside to another company where I have to fill out a bunch of claim forms totaling $100 just to process my claim.

Thanks for the honeymoon present bending me over, Orbitz.

Orbitz is engaged in a massive bait-and-switch operation. Trying to book a business class ticket to Argentina, I have on several occasions found a low price on Orbitz only to be told that the fare is no longer available--even though the site had listed some number (from 1-4) of tickets available. When I checked the seating plans of the aircraft, I discovered (not to my surprise) that no further seats had been sold and the same number of empty seats were there as before. Of course, if I wished to pay about 3 times the price for the same seat, they'd oblige.

My husband and I had a horrible recent experience. We bought tickets from Orbitz in January for a trip to Italy in May. Our flight back from Boston to Seattle was cancelled and Orbitz rebooked us, however were told by Alitalia that we could not make the connecting flight. When we contacted Orbitz we were told we couldn't rebook even though the 4 other people that we were traveling with were able to rebook. We kept trying to convince Orbitz to rebook us - but they refused. We missed our connecting flight on 6-4-05, called Orbitz, were on hold for 20 minutes - and then were told that they couldn't do anything! We never even got an "I'm sorry"! To make matters even worse the Orbitz agent chastized my husband for being so upset at being stranded! Talk about insensitivity and poor customer service!

Orbitz does not see themselves as the travel agent. They said to me "You are the travel agent." So if anything goes wrong, they take no responsibility. The hotel, of course, says "We just did what the orbitz reservation said." And since it's Orbitz that took your money, it is they who should return it. But they won't

I have found the best prices on Orbitz. I really like the service I received any time I had a problem

Terrible customer service. If it's right the first time it ok, but if they get it wrong after your billed ...good luck. No one was helpful, but all seemed to have mastered the art of shirking responsibility. If you are going to rent a car make sure you don't accept the insurance. We were billed by both Orbitz and Budget for the insurance. If you are going to use a travel service think twice about using Orbitz.

I assumed that I would get a free hotel if there was an overnight layover. This is not always the case. I guess they expect you to either pay for your hotel or sleep in the airport in some cases. The worst part is the two people I contacted at Orbitz didn't even know if they had a policy on this. Seriously, it is not like you can specify you want a 15 day layover somewhere with the Orbitz interface. If you could specify you wanted a layover somewhere I could see not having your hotel covered.
I do normally like the Orbitz experience, but this incident angered me.

Watch out for bogus cancellation fees. The hotel you are staying at may not charge you for cancelling if you provide enough notice but Orbitz will. They charge at a minimum $25.

Book direct with the hotel as there is no benefit in using Orbitz. Particularly if you plans change.

Orbitz, LLC (dba Orbitz.com and Orbitz) failed to deliver June 2005 flights it sold me in March 2005, failed to manage multiple airline-initiated changes in my travel itinerary (after promising repeatedly to do so), failed to collect schedule-change fees from two airlines for major changes in schedule (involving substantial time, inconvenience, a $130 2.5-hour taxi ride, and take-offs and landings in multiple places not part of the itinerary for which I paid Orbitz), failing to re-ticket (and sending me twice at my own expense to an airline office not convenient to my home or work for re-ticketing). If I wanted to make multiple visits to an airline office, I wouldn't have used an on-line travel agent. For flights, Orbitz's travel agent services and customer service were throughly substandard. The hotel bookings that were part of the same trip were as-agreed and without adverse incident. Regarding air travel, Orbitz has been very poor to deal with and completely unwilling to resolve the consequences to me of Orbitz's actions. I have been seeking corrective action for over six months. I certainly ended up spending more money at the back end than I thought I was saving at the front end.

The first time Orbitz messed up for me was in Mexico, when we discovered that Orbitz had sent us to a non-existent car rental agency, We ended up without a car and many dollars worth of taxi bills.
The second time Orbitz messed up was when we arrived at a hotel only to find that Orbitz still hadn't confirmed our reservation with them! We ended up waiting for an hour and a half before just booking a room with that hotel.
The third time, this time, Orbitz cancelled my hotel reservation without my permission. Then, they charged me for the entire stay! Wow, Orbitz sucks. I have used every site online and I have to say, Orbitz is the worst. Customer service is off; Orbitz doesn't even know what's going on; no proper contact with the hotels they manage.
I will be sure to tell everyone I know and every review site I can find to avoid Orbitz unless they want to spend an hour of their time trying to rectify a mistake that Orbitz made.

Orbitz can't/won't give me a ticket that matches the name I input when purchasing the ticket. One can't get on an airplane today without a government issued photo ID that EXACTLY matches the name on the ticket. I have a Roman Numeral III suffix on my name, which is on my Passport and Drivers License.

The web site took the suffix and displayed it correctly up until I purchase the ticket. When I got the email confirming the ticket purchase the suffix had disappeared. I complained to Orbitz. The responded by notifying the airline of the discrepancy. That's not good enough. Suppose on the day I fly security is as tight as it can be. Think they'll let me on the plane?

This ticket was for a domestic flight. The airline told me there was no way I'd be let on an international flight with the name mismatch.