{"id":1713,"date":"2011-03-02T19:06:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T10:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-03-02\/1713"},"modified":"2011-03-02T19:06:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T10:06:59","slug":"orbitz-is-pure-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-03-02\/1713","title":{"rendered":"Orbitz is Pure Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I just booked my summer flight to visit my folks in Ohio. Over the\nyears, prices have been going up and flight selection down, so every year\nit's a bit<\/span> more difficult to find a reasonable<\/span> combination of price and\ninconvenience. I used to<\/span> be able to make the flight for $1,200 but now it's\nover $2,000 for the cheapest flight.<\/p>\n\n

I hunt around various sites like Orbitz and Expedia and Yahoo! Travel\nand the like, and this year I happen<\/span> to have bought from Orbitz.<\/p>\n\n

As you might expect, you have to go through a bazillion<\/span> pages of selection and\nconfirmation and traveler info and billing. Finally, on the very last “click here to purchase”\npage, I luckily<\/span> happen to have noticed that Orbitz had inserted a $330 “traveler's insurance”\nitem to the bill, along with a tiny<\/span> opt-out link. EVIL!<\/p>\n\n

Orbitz is pure evil.<\/b><\/p>\n\n

After you initially select an itinerary, you're presented with a “Review\ntrip details” page that includes the price of the tickets after fees. Then for\nthe next six pages of purchase flow, there's no mention of price at all....\njust stuff like seat assignments, meal selections, and traveler info. So when you<\/span> finally get to the last page, you're both exhausted by the ordeal\nand thrilled that it's done, so the temptation is to just press the “click\nhere to purchase” button, because really, you're well acquainted with all the details\nbecause you've just spent six pages hammering them out.<\/p>\n\n

But their trick is that they quietly buried a $330 bottle of snake oil\nin there, with a tiny<\/span> “remove and reprice” link. They're just betting that\nyou won't notice until it's too late.<\/p>\n\n

Orbitz is pure evil.<\/b><\/p>\n\n

This is not an “oops” mistake... it's a blatant<\/span> violation of the most\nbasic trust. I will certainly<\/span> never use Orbitz again.<\/p>\n\n

And it turns out that I'm not alone... searching for “Orbitz scam<\/a>” yields\nplenty of results going back years.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just booked my summer flight to visit my folks in Ohio. Over the years, prices have been going up and flight selection down, so every year it's a bit more difficult to find a reasonable combination of price and inconvenience. I used to be able to make the flight for $1,200 but now it's over $2,000 for the cheapest flight.<\/p>

I hunt around various sites like Orbitz and Expedia and Yahoo! Travel and the like, and this year I happen to have bought from Orbitz.<\/p>

As you might expect, you have to go through a bazillion pages of selection [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}