The Site: Orbitz.com
- Orbitz “Deal Detector” allows you to set your own price for your vacation. Orbitz.com will email you if they meet or beat your price for airfare or hotels
- Orbitz Hotel Rewards Now program
- 24 hour live Orbitz customer service
- Orbitz Eco-Friendly Vacations Home Page
- Price Assurance: If you book a flight and someone else books the exact same flight for less, you get a refund check of the difference
- Free “Orbitz TLC Traveler Update”. An online tool that you can use to exchange up-to-the-minute facts with other travelers about travel conditions, along with FAA postings, right from your cell phone. You can exchange information, such as how long the security line is, or where the good parking is located at the airport.
- Easily find cheap airfare with the Orbitz Multi-City Air Tab
- Catagorized Travel Blog: The Orbitz Travel Blog: Insider Tips & Expertise
- Orbitz Hotel Low Price Guarantee
- Orbitz TLC Insider Podcasts, which are destination guides that you can listen to from your computer or download on your iPod
- Lists of top family travel destinations and activities: Family Travel: Hotels and Packages.
The Good:
We love the destination guides on Orbitz, such as “Taste the Good Life…Your Guide to Food & Wine Vacations at Orbitz“. This is one of the great benefits of a large travel site, like Orbitz. The Orbitz Insider Podcasts are pretty awesome too. Currently, you can choose from about 16 major cites, but we hope they add more. They will tell you “how to glide past the bouncer at the hottest industry night in Vegas (without tipping)”, where to find a “Seattle hangout where beer is often cheaper than water“, and “the only place on earth to taste Twinkie Tiramisu“. Check this out before you hit your destination!
Orbitz has one of the best price guarantees in the travel business, with their “Hotel Price Assurance”. Simply put, if any Orbitz customer ends up booking the exact same hotel night for less, they will send you a check for the difference*. Plus, if you go out on your own and find a lower priced hotel on a competitors website, Orbitz will refund you the difference and throw in an extra $50*. Does anyone else do that?
The Bad:
The Orbitz “Beach Finder” was a little odd. This is an interactive page where you get to select what you like to do, and then it is supposed to spit out the perfect beach hotels for you. Well, we specified on the first page that we were a “FAMILY WITH CHILDREN”, then it brought up a second page for “interests” (of which included such family-friendly activities as gambling)!? We chose SHOPPING, DINING, and CULTURE. Finally, it asked us what our “hotel preferences” were, among which we found “Adult Only”…..what?
The Fees*:
$25 Orbitz fee to cancel a hotel booked with a “Orbitz Hotel Low Price Guarantee“, and $50 Orbitz fee to cancel a package (airfare is not refunded). Read this article on Examiner.com for a recap of the Orbitz airfare booking fee policy. All cancellations on Orbitz must take place more than 24 hours prior beginning of trip. Flights are not refundable, but you may be able to obtain a credit and this varies per airline. In lieu of online booking fees, Orbitz will add a $25.00 USD (non-refundable) fee to each air ticket purchased by phone. On changes to previously issued tickets that require new tickets to be issued, a $30.00 service fee will be charged by Orbitz.com. A refund from Orbitz can take about 60-90 days. *Based solely on research done by TravelSiteCritic.com. May be inaccurate and subject to changes. Contact Orbitz customer service for all details.
The Deals:
Last Minute ~ Las Vegas Hotel Deals
Last-Minute Cruise Deals ~ Sail within 30 days, save up to 75%! *
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Orbitz Reviews | Orbitz.com,
Twitter: Pamela_Jones
says:
Thanks for you comment, Nancy, about the Orbitz flight cancellation and change fee policy. This is really good to know. It does seem to be the standard nowadays to pay about $100 plus the change in fare price to change the date on ticket. Jet Blue does have a “refundable fare” option if you book directly with them. Our review of JetBlue.com has more details: http://travelsitecritic.com/reviews/1/jet-blue/
I recently booked a flight on Orbitz to fly my 17 year old daughter from Burbank to Las Vegas, but had mistakenly booked the wrong date. The ticket was $84.00. I contacted Orbitz and was told they charge $100.00 cancellation fee, plus a $30.00 processing fee, then the cost of a new ticket.
Over all, it cost $234.00 to fly her one way from Burbank to Las Vegas. OUCH.