Is it ill-advised to use websites like orbitz for flight booking?

Just about every flight booking website will have bad reviews. People generally tend to be more vocal about poor service than average to good service. There's also the many times where the customer actually misunderstood something that was 100% their own fault, but still wrote a scathing review for their booker.

I once booked a flight through a site that I didn't research properly. It was after they charged my credit card that I learned that they had a really low score of 1.5/5; quite possibly the lowest review I've ever seen. But hey, no problems whatsoever. And guess what? I forgot to put up a good review for them.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=orbitz_blows

>>1287605
This guy>>1287606 is right, as far as that goes.

You can book through such sites and, if there are no issues, it all works great.

BUT...

If there is a problem, you will often find that you cannot del directly with the airline, because you did not book directly with them, but you have to go through the booking site's customer service, which may or may not be shitty.

After one instance of a foul-upwitha ticket booked through one of these sites, and the huge pain in the ass it was to get them to sort it out, never again.

Frankly, the prices I see when I comparison shop a ticket bought directly from the airline's website are usually about the same now, anyway.

>>1287606
I wish this were the case with travel insurance. For every bad review I see 10 that say "great insurance, I didn't have to use it! :) "

>>1287605
airline fag here in internal support.
Its better to book direct with the airline, that way they own the booking. Good luck dealing with these outsourced retards should something go wrong.
Use ITA/Google. they price shop then direct you right to the carrier for ticketing.

>>1288189
Problem is while I found the flight I want through Google Flights, the only option it had for actually booking it was "call the fucking airline or find a travel agent :^)".

I called the airline, which is ANA, and got connected to a Japanese woman who was very hard to understand who basically just told me "if you can't find it on our website you'll have to find another website".