> As far as I can tell, the major booking portals for tickets are all basically the same. I’ve been using Orbitz for a long time

This is really bad advice. You should search using a flight search engine like Google Flights, not a single OTA, and book directly with the airline unless an OTA has a much, much better deal. The $10 that Orbitz might sometimes save you comes at the cost of having to talk to their customer service, not the airline’s, if you want to change your trip.

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wkat4242 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

100% this. Having a party in between is a real PITA that one time you need to change something in a hurry.

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nutjob2 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree and do that but a lot of the time its not possible to recreate the stated fare at airline websites or the fares are aggregator only fares.

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mannykannot 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have heard it also puts you in a better position when an airline is bumping passengers or carry-on luggage, though the soft rules are always changing, so I don't know if this is still the case (or ever was.)

	▲	Rendello a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Depending on the region, you can get a pretty hefty payout for getting bumped, if you know what paperwork to file (even if they get you a hotel and later flight). Terrible if you have plans, not bad if you're backpacking like in my case.
	▲	s1ncere 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		This is also true of hotels. If the hotel is overbooked they will “walk” the third party booked people first and keep their reward members / first party booked people happy
	▲	lotsofpulp 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If I were operating an airline, I would have a list of the passengers sorted by revenue or profit and use that to figure out who to bump first. I imagine the “basic economy” tickets are basically first in line for being bumped.

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petesergeant 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Google Flights search is irredeemably broken for long international business-class flights, and I've tried a few times over the years to get someone there to give a shit, and they will not.

Example: You search for a flight from YWG to BKK in business, and it wants to route you YWG-YVR-KIX-BKK, which is basically fine. The flight time from YWG-YVR is under 3 hours, so it'll show you fares where that leg is in Economy, but YVR-KIX is in business, which is also, fundamentally, fine, although it would be nice to filter that. A short hop being Economy to get you on to the long leg in Business is usually acceptable. HOWEVER, it will ALSO show you fares where KIX-BKK (a 6 hour flight) are in Economy, and it won't allow you to filter this, so this messes up any ability to sensibly filter flights by price. If I am searching for a flight in Business, please allow me to filter out ones where *9 hours* of that flight is actually in Economy.</rant>

	▲	missedthecue 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I imagine you could quickly build your own browser extension that parses all visible segments and hides cards where any individual leg exceeds your economy/business threshold. I successfully vibe coded a solution to a different Google flights problem in about 10 minutes.
	▲	2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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amelius 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's true, but on the other hand it is also a pain to have to figure out a different UI every time you book a flight with a different airline.

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rogerrogerr 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

They're all pretty much the same? Going from somewhere, to somewhere, at a date and time. Passenger info, payment info, book.

Every airline wants tech-incompetent grannies to buy their tickets, therefore the UI is simple enough that any HN reader should be able to trivially navigate it.

	▲	dibujaron 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The airline websites that I've used are remarkably bad with their UI/UX. Far from any grandma being able to use it, definitely. I can rarely get through the process without some inexplicable error or missing field that I can't find or misbehaving custom date picker.
	▲	chrismcb 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Are you asking? No they are not the same. Sure they take in the same input, but boy they can figure it how to do it differently
	▲	amelius 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They are not the same because the obnoxious ads and promotions are in a different place. Navigating around them requires mental gymnastics.

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petesergeant 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Less of a pain that the airline itself not being authorized to make any changes to your flight because the OTA does.

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contrarian1234 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

sometimes the airlines customer service is worse and less convenient than the airlines