ORBITZ Can Satisfy All of your Travel Needs
Written: Sep 21 '03
| Ease of Ordering: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
|
|
| Selection: |
|
|
|
| Full Review |
Believe it or not, I only recently discovered the travel website Orbitz. I’d seen it on pop-ups and other advertisements both on-line and off-line, but I’d never thought it any different than most others. My favorite site for travel had been Expedia for a long time and I relied on that site more than anywhere else.
I took an online survey in which I was paid to browse around the Orbitz website and give my opinion of it. I have to say, I was quite impressed by the site after doing this.
When we needed one-way airfare from New York to Ft. Lauderdale, I browsed through most of the online travel sites. Orbitz had the cheapest rates, and I booked the flight for my husband through them.
The biggest complaint I’d had with the Travelocity website was the fact that it could not seem to get notifications of flight changes out to us when our flight had been cancelled months in advance. Orbitz sent notifications by email about the delays which caused the flight’s departure time to be pushed back. I could have (and should have) had these notifications sent to my husband’s cell phone, but this was new to me.
Since I have been so happy with Orbitz for our flight needs, I began using them to look at other options. The site is very easy to navigate, as there are tabs across the top of the home page which bring me directly to whatever I am currently shopping for under flights, hotels, cars, cruises, or entire vacations.
I booked two hotel rooms from our last trip through Orbitz, and had no problems when I arrived at my destination. The prices were equal to or better than any online rate I’d been able to find, even at the hotel’s own site.
The site is brightly colored and enjoyable to browse at. I have build many “fantasy” trips on the site just to see how much my travels would cost me. However, I’ve also used it for my hotel reservations more recently, instead of my old favorite, Expedia. In comparing the rates, Orbitz generally has the lowest I can find, while still knowing exactly what hotel I am choosing to stay at. I prefer that to the guesswork that comes with Priceline or Hotwire.
In addition, the information at Orbitz about the hotels is very thorough. Where Expedia boasts pictures of the hotel, I have found that Orbitz boasts a much better description, with all relevant information such as location, amenities, dining information, and the hotel’s check-in and check-out times as well as pictures contained on a single page, rather then having to click between pages and waiting for them to load.
When I search on Orbitz, the first item displayed on the top of the Results page is a grid. For hotels, this grid gives a starting price of results by location going vertically and star-rating horizontally. This way, I can easily see where hotels in my price range begin and end. Beneath that are the individual hotel listings. Each rate within each listing has a Book It button next to it for fast booking.
For flights, the grid is made up of the number of stops the flight makes vertically by the airline horizontally. This is a terrific way to compare the various options available from the different airlines.
Their vacation packages are always easy to decipher as well. Some sites have things very complicated, and where I can’t make changes to the package (such as the room that I want) until I am well into actually purchasing the package. By changing my room to, say, a concierge level before I am into booking the package, I can more easily see exactly how it will affect the price, and not have to take unnecessary steps only to do comparisons between resorts.
For cruises, I have had fun thinking about last-minute cruises out of New York. Recently I was this )( close to booking a trip for our anniversary on Norwegian Cruise Lines just because of the terrific rate. I sorted the cruises available by port to make sure we could embark in New York, then perused the itineraries. When I started seriously looking at the Norwegian Cruise, Orbitz notified me of the online specials available and gave me details of the cabin upgrades available right on the page where I chose the cabin I would stay it. This made it so easy to compare what I could have and what the better value for my money was.
From now on, I think I’ll be using Orbitz most of the time for my travel needs. Unless something changes drastically with them, they seem to have a good idea of what customer service really is while at the same time offering great rates in an easy-to-read format.
© 2003 Patti Aliventi
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? flight & hotel reservations
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
AliventiAsylum
|
 in Movies, Hotels & Travel |
 in Movies |
 - Top 50 |
|
Member: Patti Aliventi
Location: Mount Washington Valley, New Hampshire
Reviews written: 2069
Trusted by: 686 members
About Me:
Interstate National Dealer Services from AAA is Automotive Extended Warranty hell: http://www.epinions.com/content_5328707716
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.