How do travel services like Orbitz and Travelocity make a profit?

To answer your question:

Most places have a "booking fee"- like +$5-$10 on what you book. Many airlines no longer pay commission.

Lore is correct on the bulk buy and resell of rooms.

The large scale agency cuts a deal with the chain- buys 100 rooms at $50- and sells them to you at $60, while the guy off the street (in theory) pays $75.00.

As you can tell by Lore's attitude- the individual hotel employees tend not to like the large scale agencies. They come across a lot of accounting errors with them, and they are the ones that have to deal face to face with the angry customer. (The hotel chain owners like the large scale agencies JUST FINE!!)

In General the attitude at the hotel employee level is ‘You bought it from “big agency”, I am over booked- you get the crappiest room.. IF I can find you one.. and you are going to like it or lump it. Any good room I find goes to the customer who booked directly with my reservations or me.”

However, Lore is incorrect on who causes the mistakes and reservation errors.

Unless the smoking preference is booked incorrectly at the time of booking (if you are booking over the phone) I can't see how any travel agency could just randomly change out the smoking preference.

There is usually a middle man between the travel agent and the hotel.

The consolidator takes the order in one reservation system and places it in the hotel's reservation system or sends the hotel a fax.

If you are booking it yourself in Orbits/travelocity/hotels.com- and you say "non-smoking", most likely if you call them, THEY have "non smoking"

You get to the hotel- and it’s plainly in their computer as “anything you got"

Who do you think made the error?

SOOOOO many problems are caused by the consolidator. that is WHY they are called a consolidator- they consolidate orders from numerous booking systems the different travel agencies use to the reservation system to hotel uses- in effect "plugging" that hotel into all the numerous agencies out there.

I can't tell you how many times the hotel "blamed" the travel agent for wrong doing... the travel agent "blamed" the hotel.... and it's the consolidator all along.

Hotels call the “big chain” to say:

“HEY! We don’t’ have a pool! Get that off your site!! I have a ton of angry people here!!!!”

The big chain is like:

“What do you mean? I plainly have it in my reservation system that you DO have a pool. The website feeds directly off the reservation system information that comes directly from YOU the hotel! WE DIDN'T TYPE THAT IN! "

Yes- the consolidator strikes again.

There are more fingers in your travel pie then you know.

(oh- and if you want to know who HIRES the consolidator.. why.. it's the HOTEL of course. If you are a hotel orders are constantly messed up from agencies using a particular GDS (Global distribution system)- get a new consolidator. If you don't get a new consolidator.. then I guess it really IS the hotel who is at fault, in an indirect way.)

I know with hotels, the hotels offer rooms at a cheaper rate, and then the travel sites tack on an extra 20 dollars...ish. Right now....my hotel rate is 84.99. We're selling rooms to hotels.com for 53.38, and I think the online price is around 75$. That's how they make a profit.

Oh yeah....don't buy from Travelocity. They suck. (they usually end up switching the moking preference on your room, so you end up having to stay in a smoking room instead of a nonsmoking). Boo Travelocity.