I got back last night from one of the most grueling epic “vacations” I have ever had. In fact, I am so freakin’ tired and annoyed that my coworkers are avoiding me today as I have already bitten the heads off at least 3 people in the building. If something went right during this journey, I have yet to realize it. The cornmobile had issues, we had a number of small medical issues, an old friend/co-worker died, and one hotel absolutely stunk (literally). I would have rather been back in the game industry for the week, THAT’s just how bad it was. To top it all off, there is some demolition/construction work going on in the office next to mine and I am told it started today and will run the rest of the month.

I am in a REALLY bad mood.

Which brings me to the pinheads thieves at Orbitz.com.

First off I have to say “don’t use Orbitz.com!”

I mean it! NEVER! In fact there aren’t enough bold, italics, CAPS and underlining in the world to even begin to express my intense hatred displeasure with the “service” from this outfit.

The wife arranges the travel plans for all family travel. She is good at it and I hate it, it’s a “win/win”! Actually she hates it too, but since it has to be done and I suck at that whole “organizing thing”, she ends up doing it. If it were up to me, we would drive until I got sleepy and then go the 10 miles back home. She insists we actually GO PLACES. (eyeroll) Anyway, she decided to get some help this time and plotted out our hotel stays with the jerkwads friendly folks at Orbitz. All was well until the plan came into contact with the enemy. One of the small medical issues required canceling a leg of the journey, so we got a dial-up connection on the trusty laptop, headed over to the Orbitz site and canceled the hotel for that night. That’s when we learned just the type of company we were dealing with. It turns out that if you cancel anything with Orbitz, you have to agree to PAY FOR THE WHOLE THING. I don’t mean a “cancel fee” or “service fee”, I mean PAY FOR THE WHOLE THING. We called the hotel directly and asked about it and they said that it was no problem on their end; in fact it was all good because they would certainly fill the room with no problem. Orbiz will collect THE ENTIRE PRICE OF THE ROOM for the “service” of letting the hotel get a better rate by renting the room to someone else.

I am totally willing to pay Orbiz for the fee that they lost on the cancellation, but not THE ENTIRE PRICE OF THE ROOM.

Update: Rep. Murtha (D - Japan) proposes we withdraw our troops from Orbitz-land and redeploy in Travelocity.