Hi all! Earlier I posted about finding a great itinerary & airfare on ITA (three multi-city legs to/around Europe) for $1553. I was told on this forum that I was most likely going to find a matching itinerary/rate on ORBITZ (where I could actually book it). And, eventually, just as I had been advised, there was the same itinerary on ORBITZ for only $7 more than ITA!!! YES!!!
So I hit the "Select" button to book it and ... I got the message,
"As flight availability can change rapidly based on traveler demand, the flight that you have selected is no longer available. Please make another selection." DARN -- just missed it!!!
So I selected a slightly different itinerary listed below (I can't be too choosey at this point) and ... I got the same message! I started over with another search (same cities/dates) ... and the above itineraries showed up again ... still at $1560! And once again, when I attempted to book them, I received the same message. The only thing I noticed was that if I clicked on the same itinerary 2-3 times, I received a different message,
"We're sorry, the fare for that itinerary is no longer available. The fare for that trip is now $2,049.89." Kind of surprising since Delta, AirFrance & KLM were offering the same itinerary for nearly $300 less...
I phoned an ORBITZ phone rep and explained the above situation. She informed me that they must be doing an "update" and that I would have to pay the higher rate if I wanted to book those flights.
Hoping that they would eventually offer the $1560 rate again, a few hours later I tried again (even cleared all cookies from my computer) ... and I got the same results as above. A few hours later, the same results again. And the next day, the same results -- my search always pulled up my desired itinerary for $1560 but ORBITZ would not let me actually book it at that price! Their "update" sure was taking a LOOOONG time. I might add that during this time, ITA and Delta rates did not fluctuate.
I recently checked ITA and found that the airfare for my itinerary had just gone
down $3 (now only $1550). So, obviously, I couldn't wait to check it out on ORBITZ ... and guess what -- they now had my itinerary for $3 less as well (now only $1557)!!! YES!!!
So I selected it and ... once again got the message about
"flight availability can change rapidly based on traveler demand" and
"the flight that you have selected is no longer available" Also -- when I selected the same itinerary a couple more times, I received the message letting me know that the actual rate was now $2,046.89 ... which is $3 less than the earlier price of $2,049.89 ... and once again $7 more than the current/new ITA price?!?
Are they playing with me or what?!? I've never used ORBITZ before and I only hope that they do not typically conduct business in this manner. It is great that they "match" ITA's itineraries/prices ... but does ORBITZ ever allow people to actually book at those rates?!?
Okay I'm obviously more than a little disgruntled ... but it appears to me that those low prices are only for "show" ... and that they really want you to pay
hundreds of dollars more than you could get booking directly through the airlines. Perhaps there are enough people out there who actually fall for this "game"?
Or perhaps this is an isolated occurrence? Regardless, I'm not impressed. Looking forward to hearing what others have experienced...
