If your Using Orbits to book your next trip, you’ll want to consider carefully before closing the deal from your iPad, all things are not equal between Mac and PC users are shown the more pricey hotels first while the travel site assumes PC users are less concerned about where they stay and more concerned about getting a cheaper deal.
Orbitz representative stated it was showing Mac users different, and in many cases more expensive, hotels to those shown to people browsing on a Windows PC. The reason for this they say is; research suggested Mac users generally spent about 30% more per night on hotels than PC users.
However, it is important to note the site never shows the two user groups the same room for different prices.
Orbitz defended its policy as an “experiment” and said “tools on its site let users customise what they saw in a way that would eliminate the differences. Nonsense that we’d charge Mac users more for the same hotel, which is unfortunately the incorrect impression that many readers seem to be drawing,” said Orbitz chief executive Barney Harford.
“However, just as Mac users are willing to pay more for higher end computers, at Orbitz we’ve seen that Mac users are 40% more likely to book 4 or 5-star hotels as compared to PC users, and that’s just one of many factors that determine which hotels to recommend a given customer as part of our efforts to show customers the most relevant hotels possible.”
In addition the firm noted that when Mac and PC users visited the same hotel the Windows users tended to go for the cheaper rooms.
The company also owns the CheapTickets, ebookers, HotelClub and RatesToGo websites.
