I rarely have had to change Orbitz tickets, but I just learned one way it works - which I did not find disclosed on the change part of the website - which definitely will make me think twice about using Orbitz.

It seems that the price that you are charged for the new flight (different day, otherwise same airline, same arrival and destination) is not the price that you can get that flight for on Orbitz. It is some other price they are getting from the airline that is not the same as the price on Orbitz, and is substantially higher.

My example is a flight on AC in business class for $1100. I wanted to change the outbound date up one day. Still all on AC, same return legs in fact. If I were to book that as a new flight on Orbitz it would cost the same, $1100. But Orbitz says they cannot give me that airfare. They would charge me $2400 for the same AC flights I could get from Orbitz online for $1100, plus the $230 change fee, for a net additional charge of about $1500 to change the ticket. Even the AC website will sell me the flights in question for $1100. [After a second call with Orbitz, it appears Orbitz will not sell the same discounted business fare codes on a change of ticket, only full fares on AC - even though they would sell them through the Orbitz website.]

Others may tell me they were aware that the airfare price to change the flight is different than the airfare price that Orbitz shows on its website, but I was certainly not aware of it, and I don't see where it is disclosed they will let you change only to undiscounted fare codes.