Get Cash Back by Booking Your Airfare Through Orbitz

  Airfare Booking Strategies

We recommend using Orbitz, rather than other third-party booking websites, mostly because you’ll get 1-2% back on your airfare purchases. It isn’t much, but there is no reason to use Expedia, Travelocity, or other well-established booking sites instead.

Advantage of booking with Orbitz

• It can be easier than dealing with an airline’s website (which you may not be as familiar with). When you use an Online Travel Agent to book your tickets, you can store much of your information with the service and reuse it for reservations on different airlines. You won’t need to learn to use the user interface of some random airline website. And you can usually book trips that combine several airlines in a single reservation, resulting in less information to enter and track.
• Orbitz isn’t some possibly shady, unknown online travel agent. When you shop through an aggregator, you will occasionally find lower prices for tickets booked via smaller online travel agents. Some of these are fine. But some will wind up tacking on extra fees, can be difficult to worth with, or have deceptive pricing. Sticking with Orbitz might cost you a bit more, but you don’t have to worry about them engaging in questionable practices.
• They have a 24-hour cancellation policy on almost all reservations. This is mandated for flights booked to/from the United States, but Orbitz lets you cancel almost any airline reservation within the first 24 hours, regardless of where you are flying. They can’t make this available on every flight, but Orbitz will show whether they do or not, directly in the search results.
• You’ll get 1-2% back through their loyalty program. That’s not an amazing rate, but it is better than nothing and higher than what is available through the other big sites. You’ll get 1% for reservations booked online, and an extra 1% if you use their app instead of their website. And you’ll still get frequent flyer miles for the airline and points from your credit card.  Just be aware, that you’ll need to use any points you earn from Orbitz within one year of when you earn them; and you can only your points to book hotels that you pay through Orbitz, rather than directly with the hotel.

If you buy your airfare as part of a package, you can get an extra 4% back by taking advantage of a shopping portal, for a total of 5-6% back.


• Buying your airfare sometimes entitles you to a sweetheart deal on a hotel room. Orbitz, and other large online travel agents, can give you “bundle” pricing on hotel rooms, even if you book your hotel as a separate reservation long after booking your airfare. You won’t always find a great deal, but you may save some money when you are booking the rest of your trip.
• There are no extra change or cancellation fees. Your only on the hook for what you need to pay the airlines.

Advantages with booking directly with the airline

Even though we often book through Orbitz, we sometimes choose to book directly with the airline.

• Sometimes, you won't get an opportunity to take advantage of your elite status benefits or airline upgrade offers unless you book on the airline's website. In the worst case, when you book on a third-party site, you may not be given a chance to choose your seat. In some cases, you may not get an opportunity to take advantage of any seat upgrade opportunity that you are entitled to from your elite status. And in most cases, you won’t have access to a variety of different “upsell” offers that are shown during the airline’s checkout process.
• It might be easier to deal with any problem with your flights. Many people recommend booking directly with the airline because you eliminate any scenarios where the airline tells you that you need to deal with the travel agency and the travel agency tells you that you need to deal with the airline. This shouldn’t normally be a concern. You should be able to deal with Orbitz to make changes ahead of time and deal with the airline for any problems on your travel dates. However, there is some risk that you’ll have extra headaches.
• Some airlines will let you choose your exact booking class. Third-party travel sites usually only allow you to buy at the lowest possible fare for the cabin you want. However, you may want to pay a bit extra for a fare class that is “upgradable” to a premium cabin or that offers a higher frequent flyer earning rate.

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