NEVER, EVER, EVER use Orbitz for anything.

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  • August 21, 2017 at 5:42 pm #72973
    Mackeyser
    Moderator

    This…is bullcrap.

    Planning our trip to Minny to scout out the twin cities and see if we like it to maybe move there.

    Used Trivago and all of the hotels, 2 nights up, 5 nights there and one night back all booked smooth through booking.com.

    NO problems. The last night, it popped through Orbitz.com. I didn’t care which site and Trivago populates their search fields so all you have to do is choose which room at the place you’ve chosen.

    Unfortunately, it glitched and we didn’t catch that instead of using the dates I’d put into the Trivago site, it used dates that were put in two queries ago, which meant that it booked us for 5 nights from 9/13-9/18. Orbitz’s site wasn’t nearly as easy to read as Booking.com’s and other’s sites so we missed it. The site glitched and we didn’t catch the error until looking at the confirmation.

    So.. we called IMMEDIATELY to the property to adjust the reservation. Says right on the button “reserve”. Doesn’t say “pay now”. Several other sites specifically distinguished between “reserve” and “pay now” with discounts to “pay now”. Well, the property didn’t have a manager on duty at the time. Called Orbitz.

    Turns out every single “reservation” they take is a non-refundable, instant charge. And it’s not like that’s the hotel’s policy because I checked manually on booking.com and it says in red letters that cancellation is available right up until the day of arrival!!!

    So, I feel like crap because the way we were sharing expenses is my mom is renting the SUV and paying for the hotels, I’m paying for the gas and all our expenses up there. We were doing this together and now, because I clicked a button on a glitch, she’s on the hook for $605.

    Anyway, it may not be resolved, but I know folks here travel and if nothing else, please learn from our misfortune.

    NEVER, EVER, EVER use Orbitz for anything.

    Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.

    August 22, 2017 at 3:44 pm #73026
    snowman
    Participant

    Mac, you should be able to cancel any hotel reservation within 24 hours of the date. Talk to the hotel directly.

    August 22, 2017 at 7:40 pm #73045
    Mackeyser
    Moderator

    We did. The General Manager of the hotel site refuses to call us back and the corporate offices refuse to do anything, falling back on how they can’t tell franchisees what to do (I can guarantee if any employee of the franchisee posted something racist on Facebook, Corporate would INSIST on them being fired, so it’s not really true. Even if via the contract they can’t force them, the idea that corporate can’t do anything is pure bollocks).

    So my mom disputed it through her CC company and the charge is removed for now. As soon as my mom sends me the pdf of the reservation, I’ll contact Orbitz through twitter. I sent something to their customer care team on twitter and got a response directly from the @Orbitz site.

    It’s still entirely possible that because of a glitch that likely occurred between Trivago and Orbitz’s systems, my mom will have a $605 charge on her CC.

    I’ll absolutely fight this because it’s so damn wrong. If the dates were correct, I could see them asserting the “non-refundable” aspect. However, the dates glitched between selecting “reserve” and what the reservation showed. How, exactly, do I correct for a glitch that happened after I typed and before I get the confirmation?

    Lastly, since when does “reserve” mean “pay now”???

    Doesn’t mean pay now for any other travel related service. “Book” does. Confirm does. But if you reserve a restaurant table, car, hotel or airfare via ANY other method, payment is not taken (and wasn’t from any other hotel we reserved) until the service is utilized or in the case of certain hotels, unless the cancellation policy is violated.

    I’m trying not to let it dampen my enthusiasm for this trip, but I haven’t really slept for the last two nights because it’s tearing me up how wrong it is. I’ll take Benedryl tonight if I have to in order to sleep, but it’s just not right.

    Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.

    August 23, 2017 at 10:11 pm #73133
    Mackeyser
    Moderator

    Update: the site manager at the hotel made things right. Turns out the site manager takes care of two hotels and was dealing with a funeral. That explains the lack of contact.

    What isn’t cool is that Orbitz won’t even acknowledge their error, their culpability nor their need to make amends in the event of an error on their behalf.

    It’s going to work out well, thank the Good Lord.

    That said, I still will never use Orbitz again.

    Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.

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