[ed: An Orbitz rep says they don’t have the capability to tweak prices in this way. It’s probably a mistake, but others have seen this happen too.]

Someone told me a few months ago that Orbitz will detect and raise prices for some customers. It didn’t occur to me to check this until last night. I found a good deal on Orbitz for a hotel+car package, but looked around the web for better deals. After a few minutes, I reran the search on Orbitz and the same deal came up $200 more expensive. I fired up IE’s InPrivate browser and tried again. Now the original, cheaper price showed up. I reran the search in a previous browser and still got the $200 extra charge. Because I lack an MBA, I don’t understand how screwing your frequent customers is a good business tactic. I’ll be searching Orbitz and other travel sites using InPrivate or InFilter mode from now on because I don’t trust their prices anymore. If more people find out about this, people will lose trust in Orbitz and use it less frequently. I suggest people use a different browser or computer to verify that you aren’t getting screwed on prices, particularly package deals.