Orbitz Questions

[marie]

I've not used Orbitz to book flights before. Hope you can help with some questions.

Any downside to booking flights through Orbitz?

Does it allow you to select your seats?

When selecting a flight to Tampa for one traveler, it showed a price of $199/flight; but when selecting 5 travelers, it showed a price of $229/flight. Any idea why?

Anything else I should be aware of if I use Orbitz?

Thank you for your help!

 

[JKanownik]

Just a suggestion, but once you get your quoted price from Orbitz, I would go check the airline's website to see if that is actually the best deal. DH and I were looking at Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. earlier this month for our may trip from CLE to MCO. Every flight they showed us, we were able to find cheaper on the airline's actual website.

 

[inkkognito]

I do the same thing as the poster above. Why pay an Orbitz fee when you don't have to? I have always been able to get the same fare via the airline's own site after using Orbitz as my search engine. I've never understood why they started charging a fee, since they are owned by the airlines. Also, they don't charge a fee for car rentals, so why for flights?
Barb
Visit the Platinum Castaway Club at: www.castawayclub.com

 

[disneysnowflake]

We almost booked with Travelocity until someone on here told me to check the airline's websites. Saved myself some money.

I almost booked through AAA, too, but the agent told me I'd be charged a $10 per ticket fee. Yikes. No thanks. I'll book myself and buy something at Disney with that $40.

 

[Bird-Mom]

Orbitz is a pain if you have to change your tickets. My mom had to do a couple of changes last year, and they will not do them until they have the tickets. She ended up running to FedEx to ship them tickets back overnight, crossing her fingers that the rates would be the same the next day. For some weird reason, Orbitz wouldn't issue e-tickets.

Just for kicks my dh checked them today for fares SEA-MCO...more than double what Alaska is charging directly!

 

[bwbuddy]

I just got etickets from Orbitz yesterday for July 2, July 10. Their prices were about the same, but they had more flight selection than Travelocity and Expedia.

I also like using SideStep: it finds the cheapest fair among all the sites mentioned above, and then some, and then lets you link back to the tickets you choose. That's how I ended up with Orbitz.

 

[sgtdisney]

I do as the others here do as well. I use Orbitz, Travelocity and/or Expedia to shop around and then I go to the airline's website to purchase the tickets. Every single time I have done this in the past the airfares were the same between the online travel agencies and the actual airlines and you avoid the fee they charge to buy tickets with them. As others have stated as well, I have heard if you have to change flights, days, times, etc., it is much easier to work with the airlines directly if you have purchased their tickets through them as opposed to the online brokers because the airlines can and will make you work with the agency to change things.

As to your question on ticket cost. Airlines hold specific numbers of seats at specific fares. If they were showing 199.00 for one seat but upped it to 229 when you put in 5 seats that probably means that they had less than 5 seats left at the 199.00 price. When this is the case, the airlines (and all of them do this) go up in price until they have 5 seats at the same price. If you wanted you could play with the numbers and buy 1 through 4 seats (depending on how many are left) at the 199 and the rest at the 229 price, but you would have to split the reservation which can have downfalls as well.

 

[ZebraStripes]

I used Orbitz for our upcoming 4/16 trip to MCO. I found that Orbitz had the cheapest price even with their fees. Every other site, including the airlines own sites were about $100 more per ticket. We were able to choose most of our seats though one segment is airport check-in. They sent me an email when the flights changed, have been friendly and helpful with trying to get seating assignments. So far, I'd use them again if they had the cheapest price.

 

[bwbuddy]

In reference to Orbitz fees, it's $6 per ticket, BUT the price that's quoted on their site already includes the $6 (it's not "in addition to").

 

[antmaril]

ALWAYS check the airline websites as well. Most times the airline's website will be cheaper. If it's not, you can always go back to Orbitz.

 

[mplsmom1]

We booked through Orbiz and I stuck with them rather than going to the airline's website as it was connecting flights etc. etc. and it just seemed easier.

All my flights I got seat assignments for. The only gripe I had and I it would have happened also if I used the airline site is that my flight times changed dramatically from when I booked (3-4 months out) and now. Since I was giving up flying direct I tried not to leave so early in the morning - my flight was supposed to leave at noon. But now we're leaving at 9:30 and the length of stay at the intermediate airport is longer

But my DS's are really excited to fly into different cities. Have to remember that child-like sense of wonder!!!! -- one of the reasons I love Disney so much!

 

[bwbuddy]

Interesting, when I checked United's site after booking through Orbitz, United was $150 per ticket higher!