Author Topic: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo  (Read 20553 times)

Offline Dan

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2017, 03:22:23 PM »
Nope, bought 1 Orbitz ticket this year and had to call to cancel.

Never had to call to cancel a PL ticket.
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

Offline yandmk

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2017, 03:31:24 PM »
With all due respect to Dan and not getting into the commissions discussions, I strongly recommend Expedia for the following reasons:
1) Possibility to cancel ONLINE until 11:59pm PST. (I've done it dozens [if not hundreds] of times)
2) Possibility to book an infant during the booking process without hassle.
3) Results offer options of 2 one-ways that may be cheaper
4) Earn rewards on top of airline miles (not worth that much, but PL offers nothing)
5) Possibility to earn "status" with them (spending $10k in 1 year or booking 15 nights at a hotel gets you gold - none are particularly hard for the typical family TA [pretty much every DDF'er]) with dedicated customer service lines. My personal experience with PL CS was terrible to say the least. It's extremely difficult to get a human being on the line, and when I finally figured out how to speak to someone, I was unimpressed with their service.

Orbitz is similar with a different rewards program (caveat is Orbucks expire after 12 months automatically). I don't have much personal experience with their CS though.

Bottom line, with no offense to anyone, I've yet to find any benefit that Priceline has over Expedia or Orbitz. And no, I'm NOT a paid advertiser for Expedia. I'm just relating my own personal experience in this without any bias of commissions etc.

p.s. And to give credit where it's due, thank you Dan for recently starting to give the option of Orbitz for most airfare deals which helps the majority of DDMS readers flying with babies, and not ONLY giving the PL option with the old argument that "everyone should be buying a seat for their infant anyway for safety and convenience reasons"

I forgot to mention another few benefits I've came across:
6) Expedia/Orbitz/Travelocity show you the fare class you're booking into which is helpful to calculate mileage earnings especially when crediting to partner programs.
7) Expedia recently started offering an insurance for a small fee, that if your ticket price drops after the time of purchase, they reimburse you the difference from what you paid.
8 ) Expedia includes results of select LCC that the PL doesn't like EasyJet.

Offline shapsam

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2017, 05:11:54 PM »
I've also booked dozens if not hundreds of tickets on Expedia/Orbitz and I agree with yandmk, I've earned hundreds of dollars towards hotels and CS is great. I never had to call to cancel, maybe in Dan's case it wasn't ticketed yet so then it doesn't give the option to cancel online but you just need to wait a few minutes till it's ticketed.

Offline Dan

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2017, 05:16:34 PM »
Is it good for all hotels?
Or it excludes all chains?
What other restrictions are there?
Save your time, I don't answer PM. Post it in the forum and a dedicated DDF'er will get back to you as soon as possible.

Offline shapsam

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #24 on: December 31, 2017, 05:22:09 PM »
Is it good for all hotels?
Or it excludes all chains?
What other restrictions are there?
Good for all hotels no restrictions. On Orbitz you earn 1% of what you spend on flights and hotels you earn even more, on Expedia you earn less but you can also use it for flights but you need at least $50 worth of points (7,000) and it has to cover the whole ticket.

Offline ad120

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #25 on: December 31, 2017, 11:01:49 PM »
Nope, bought 1 Orbitz ticket this year and had to call to cancel.

Never had to call to cancel a PL ticket.
I've had the cancellation option disappear online after 24 hours. These were for bookings made over the weekend. So I was still within their cancellation window.

Online yochai

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #26 on: January 01, 2018, 02:42:52 PM »
Is it good for all hotels?
Or it excludes all chains?
What other restrictions are there?
Surprised you don't know. I've earned 1000's of points on Expedia with great gold CS. The gold CS are authorized to give way bigger credits if there's any issue. You can use the points for any hotel and for some hotels the points are worth double. I got a room upgrade and early check in/late check out in Budapest due to my Expedia status. I also find it to have a muchbigger selection of flights from TLV, and discounts for kids/infants. I thought the only reason you recommend PL is because of the commission. Expedia doesn't charge any fees for changing tickets on top of airline fees, unlike PL and all the others.

Offline brodes18

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #27 on: January 01, 2018, 03:41:13 PM »
Maybe a few years ago. As I've mentioned I've done it online with Expedia dozens or hundreds of times. On the contrary, I've had difficulty cancelling PL tickets online (but that was a few years ago). And even recently had that the site kept freezing every time i tried cancelling and needed to call only to be thrown around from one automatic menu to another.

-1000
Two weeks ago, bought two tickets (one from PL & one from Expedia). When I needed to cancel the PL one, I did it online in two seconds. For Expedia it took over 3 hours on the phone with their outsourced phone staff and had to speak with 3 levels of supervisors! First they cancelled it, no refund. Then I escalated all over the place to get my money back. They offered me $100 for my trouble which was nice. I will not be going close to Expedia for anything further.

Offline yandmk

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #28 on: January 01, 2018, 03:51:38 PM »
Good for all hotels no restrictions. On Orbitz you earn 1% of what you spend on flights and hotels you earn even more, on Expedia you earn less but you can also use it for flights but you need at least $50 worth of points (7,000) and it has to cover the whole ticket.
+1
And as Yochai mentioned, points are sometimes even worth double with certain hotels.
Only caveat with Orbucks is that there's a limit of how much Orbucks you can earn on flights annually, while Expedia has no limit.

Offline yandmk

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #29 on: January 01, 2018, 03:54:34 PM »
Expedia doesn't charge any fees for changing tickets on top of airline fees, unlike PL and all the others.
I guess this can be added as benefit number 9. I didn't know that PL adds change/refund fees on top of the airline's fees. Orbitz used to charge a $30 service fee for changes and it was dropped when Expedia bought them a few years ago.

Offline yandmk

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #30 on: January 01, 2018, 04:00:01 PM »
-1000
Two weeks ago, bought two tickets (one from PL & one from Expedia). When I needed to cancel the PL one, I did it online in two seconds. For Expedia it took over 3 hours on the phone with their outsourced phone staff and had to speak with 3 levels of supervisors! First they cancelled it, no refund. Then I escalated all over the place to get my money back. They offered me $100 for my trouble which was nice. I will not be going close to Expedia for anything further.
Does PL offer any compensation ever for frustration? IME, it's very easy to pull a $50 hotel coupon out of Expedia.
Also benefit #10:
10) Expedia has a call back system (similar to the United callback a"h) so you can have someone call you and not wait on hold (can come very handy when there's bad weather and wait times are forever)

Online yochai

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #31 on: January 01, 2018, 06:22:58 PM »
-1000
Two weeks ago, bought two tickets (one from PL & one from Expedia). When I needed to cancel the PL one, I did it online in two seconds. For Expedia it took over 3 hours on the phone with their outsourced phone staff and had to speak with 3 levels of supervisors! First they cancelled it, no refund. Then I escalated all over the place to get my money back. They offered me $100 for my trouble which was nice. I will not be going close to Expedia for anything further.
had the exact opposite many times. In general, I felt priceline's CS is way less professional
I guess this can be added as benefit number 9. I didn't know that PL adds change/refund fees on top of the airline's fees. Orbitz used to charge a $30 service fee for changes and it was dropped when Expedia bought them a few years ago.
PL charges 30$ though it's not hard to get waived.
Good for all hotels no restrictions. On Orbitz you earn 1% of what you spend on flights and hotels you earn even more, on Expedia you earn less but you can also use it for flights but you need at least $50 worth of points (7,000) and it has to cover the whole ticket.
also, you can only earn 50$ a year on orbitz unless you have gold or plat status, Expedia is unlimited.
« Last Edit: January 01, 2018, 06:27:19 PM by yochai »

Offline yandmk

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #32 on: January 01, 2018, 06:38:29 PM »
also, you can only earn 50$ a year on orbitz unless you have gold or plat status, Expedia is unlimited.
I believe the limit is only for earnings on flights. Hotels is unlimited. But nonetheless...

Offline shapsam

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #33 on: January 01, 2018, 07:11:27 PM »
I just just redeemmed about 7.5k expedia points for a hotel booking, was worth double - $105 plus I used a $150 coupon that I almost forgot was in my account...

Offline yandmk

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #34 on: January 01, 2018, 07:22:32 PM »
What does status or their rewards get you exactly?

I just just redeemmed about 7.5k expedia points for a hotel booking, was worth double - $105 plus I used a $150 coupon that I almost forgot was in my account...

Nice!

Offline a good yeshiva bachur

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #35 on: January 01, 2018, 08:32:40 PM »
I’ll stick to my credit card and hotel points while you enjoy your gold Priceline/Expedia status

Offline shapsam

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #36 on: January 01, 2018, 08:37:03 PM »
I’ll stick to my credit card and hotel points while you enjoy your gold Priceline/Expedia status
How about both?

Offline ludmila

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #37 on: January 01, 2018, 08:48:46 PM »
I’ll stick to my credit card and hotel points while you enjoy your gold Priceline/Expedia status
+1
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Offline ilherman

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #38 on: January 01, 2018, 08:52:18 PM »
Did someone here say that he got an upgrade at a hotel due to his Expedia Gold status? Something does not sound right...

Also do you earn points for domestic bookings?
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline shapsam

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Re: Priceline Expedia Orbitz Kayak Travelocity Orbitz Momondo
« Reply #39 on: January 01, 2018, 09:11:34 PM »
Did someone here say that he got an upgrade at a hotel due to his Expedia Gold status? Something does not sound right...

Also do you earn points for domestic bookings?
1. I got an upgrade in the David Citidel.
2. Yes.