I booked a room at the Fort Lauderdale Airport Hilton for one night in November. I found the hotel on tripadvisor.com, and paid $192 for a king-bed room through Orbitz. Upon arrival we were checked into a full-bed room. The hotel gave me a receipt on checkout for $154. No problem, I thought, they'll just charge the difference back to the credit card, right?
Wrong!
After two weeks with no refund, I called the hotel. They told me to call Orbitz. So I called Orbitz. I was connected to a foreign call center, where the representative put me on hold for 20 minutes while she "called the hotel." Then I was told that there was no answer at the hotel's accounting department, and that they had left a message for the hotel to call them back. I don't know why any of this should be my problem, but I agreed to call Orbitz back later that day.
I called again the next day. I got exactly the same response: 20 minutes on hold, then they said there was no answer at the hotel. This time they took my number and promised to call back after the hotel returned their call.
A week went by with no response. Still showing $192 on the credit card. So I called again. Again, I got the same speech about calling the hotel. I told the customer service person that I had already made two calls about this, but she apparently didn't have any information in their system. She put me on hold again to - surprise! - call the damn hotel. And - surprise again! - no one answered at the accounting department, so would I please call back later.
At this point I asked for a supervisor, explaining that I had been through this twice already. The representative said ok, but that first she needed to get my callback number. Then she hung up on me! Mid sentence! Right in the middle of the word "number, " she just hung up.
I called again, getting yet another person on the phone. I explained I had lost my connection while waiting for a supervisor. I was put on hold for another 10 minutes, then a "supervisor" came on. She sounded exactly the same as the regular customer service people, and put me on hold again while she "called the hotel." I was expecting the same BS about calling back, so while I was waiting, I went online to find the number to my credit card company so I could reverse the charge. However, when she got back on the line after 10 minutes the "supervisor" said she had initiated a refund.
(There was no explanation of why the other rep got no answer at the hotel 10 minutes earlier.) She said it would take 3-5 days. At the time I am writing this, I don't yet know whether that is really going to happen. I'll write an update if it doesn't.
I WILL NEVER USE ORBITZ AGAIN! Stay away from this worthless middle-man company! Even if that refund happens, it took 4 aggravating phone calls to customer service and an hour on hold, all for a measly $35 that should have been automatically credited to my card. Orbitz's customer service is absolute crap. Next time I'm just calling the hotel directly.
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