jimcolorado

Any recent experiences with Orbitz? I an trying to book 4 people to Orlando the first of June 2005. Orbitz is nearly $100/ticket lower than Expedia, Travelocity, my own TA, as well as a few airline sites. In fact my TA tells me that several of the flights showing available on Orbitz show sold out on her system, as well as the next four closest fares.
This makes me a little nervous, anybody else had this experience, and do you trust Orbitz?

rkkwan

If I could only trust one travel booking site, it would be Orbitz. It is owned by a consortium of airlines themselves.

Now, by the time you read this, those fares may be gone. Or may be not. See if you can find the same exact itinerary on the airline's own website. Thay mean using the "find by schedule" method on the airline's website - you can often find the same flights Orbitz have that you can't see if you do "find by price". Booking directly through the airline saves you a few bucks of service fees.

Otherwise, go ahead and book with Orbitz.

jlm_mi

From what I understand, sometimes discounted flights are made available for such sites as orbitz to sell. If the airline itself sells all seats except those, the flight would appear sold out through other channels. You may have just lucked out on something really spectacular for some reason.

I saved $40 on a flight on Independence Air recently by buying through Travelocity, rather than directly from the airline. I also got a steal on a hotel room in Chicago through Expedia when other sites were at least double that rate, or sold out. Jump on it if the times/dates work for you!

Dori

I book through Orbitz all the time. Especially if I'm flexible, I almost always get a better deal from them than anywhere else. Two years ago I got a round trip ticket for $400 (chicago to rome). I'm always happy with their service. But like the previous poster says, if you see a fare you have to jump on it then (and there is still no guarantee it will still be there with everyone else logging in). However, that's true no matter who you book through.

lisatravels

I recently booked a multi-city flight on Delta through Orbitz that cost less than half the price given on the Delta site. I double-checked this a couple of times with same flight numbers, times, etc and saw same price. I don't know why there was this huge discrepancy, perhaps because it was a multi-city flight, but I figured the Orbitz fees sure beat paying the more than $500 difference. The Orbitz ticket was lower than Travelocity and Expedia, but the difference was is the $30 - $40 range.