Orbitz TLC: Making Life Easy for Business Travelers

recently booked a flight to Columbia, SC through Orbitz. Since I plan my own travel, I am always looking for ways to streamline the amount of work I have to do. I figured that booking through a travel site would help me organize my trips a bit better. I was also curious about Orbitz TLC, the site's "concierge" service to its customers. With that being said, I'll give you the high and low points of the service.

My flight was set to depart at 5:20 a.m. The Orbitz TLC service called my cellphone to let me know that my flight was going to be on time... at 2:30 a.m. So, I got out of bed a half hour earlier than I needed to get up. This part was probably the worst part of the experience.

The rest of the experience was much better. As I headed to the airport, I received another TLC alert.

This time, the service let me know that my flight was cancelled because of aircraft maintenance, and left me a 1-800 number to call back and arrange a new flight. The customer service representative (yes, they had a real person and not an automated voice) then contacted the airline and arranged a new flight for me at 8:25 a.m. Fortunately, I had gotten the airline protection plan, and it really saved me a lot of hassles at 5:30 a.m.

The rest of the trip went pretty well. Orbitz TLC sent me updates and kept me informed on the status of my flights throughout the day. In summation, I thought the service was well worth it, but I will probably silence my ringer if I am flying out early in the morning.

Orbitz Part Two

Orbitz TLC really did me a favor on my second trip using the service. I flew into Miami for the day for a meeting. I flew in on American Airlines with no problem. As I was waiting to fly out to get home, my phone rang with an Orbitz alert. Apparently, my flight was being cancelled, but the airline was going to "re-accomodate" me with a flight out the next day (nothing accomodating about leaving a day later, but I guess in airline-speak it makes sense).

I called the Orbitz hotline, and the representative told me that there was a flight leaving out at 5:45 pm with Delta Airlines. This entire transaction happened before American Airlines announced that the flight was cancelled. I hustled across the airport, got to the Delta ticket agent before anyone else, booked my flight, and got home with no further issue. When I arrived, American Airlines happily refunded my money. This incident sealed the deal for me, and I am going to stay an Orbitz customer from here on out.