Kate K.

My experience of booking a flight with Orbitz was very negative due to the deceitful and misleading business practice conducted by Orbitz.

1. When I already started booking the ticket through Orbitz, the price was about 10% lower. However, without ANY notification about the price change, Orbitz wrote off higher amount about which I found out only after my credit card write off. So be careful if you decide to book with Orbitz: the price during the booking process may differ substantially from the sum wrote off of your credit card (and not in your favor). I believe such practice is unfair because Orbitz should honor the inital price once the booking is started or, at least, notify the customer BEFORE the write off that the price has changed during the booking process.

2. Therefore, I applied for refund according to Orbitz Best Price Guarantee Policy. Orbitz made the procedure of applying for refund much more difficult than it should be. They requested me additional info which was not necessasry. Since I am a lawyer, I anticipated that might happen, so I was prepared in advance. However, most of people would not be able to satisfy Orbitz's additional requests to qualify for refund.

3. My refund was approved BUT Orbitz stated that ""Your refund... will be processed 30 days after the completion of your trip. After which, the refund will reflect on your account after 5 days...".
However, according to art. 11 of Best Price Guarantee Terms and Conditions "Verified requests will receive a credit to the credit card used for the booking, within approximately 7-10 days of verification." (https://www.orbitz.com/p/info-other/guarantees).
Therefore, the 30 days approach re refund processing clearly contradicts the provisions of Best Price Guarantee Terms and Conditions which I pointed out to Orbitz employee. Orbitz replied that "Article 11 refers to the approximate days of verification by the credit card company to process the refund."
I wrote the following reply to Orbitz re this:

"I carefully read Orbitz's Best Price Guarantee Terms and Conditions again and I could not find the 30 days refund return rule mentioned in your email. Such rule is expressly set out for Orbucks but not for refund. In fact, art. 11 of Orbitz's Best Price Guarantee Terms and Conditions does not even mention credit card company. Which is logical, because Orbitz cannot guarantee that a third party not controlled by Orbitz (i. E. credit card company) will process the refund within 7-10 days. It would be very strange for Orbitz to guarantee the exact number of days (7-10 days) for performing the actions by third parties not controlled by Orbitz that are located in foreign countries and operate under various foreign laws.
Therefore, according to the legal meaning of the wording of art. 11 of Best Price Guarantee Terms and Conditions and common sense, 7-10 days term refer to Orbitz's own obligation to process the refund and not the obligation of the third party not controlled by Orbitz.
Summing up, I should be grateful if you could send me the quote form Orbitz's regulations or policies stating that 30 days term applies to refund return. Please also indicate the source of this information with a web link attached to it.
Otherwise I would be inclined to believe that Orbitz is willingfully misleading its clients to believe that they will get fast refund from Orbitz in 7-10 days when in fact it is not true. If this is the case, such actions of Orbitz are unfair to its customers and are in bad faith and therefore such actions should be brought to the attention of existing and potential clients and state regulators."

I did not receive any quotes or links to Orbitz policy re 30+days refund processing. In its reply Orbitz has just stated that 30 days refund is their new policy.

That just proves that Orbitz conducts a deceitful business practice leading its customers to believe that getting a refund is quick and easy when in fact it is not.
I am very disappointed with Orbitz and I will not recommend anyone to work with a company that misleads and decieves its cutomers.