Orbitz travel site targets Mac users with costlier hotels

Mac users booking hotels on the Orbitz travel site could end up paying more for their holidays, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Orbitz told the paper it was showing Mac users different, and in many cases more expensive, hotels to those shown to people browsing on a Windows PC.

Orbitz said research suggested Mac users generally spent about 30% more per night on hotels than PC users.

But it never showed the two user groups the same room for different prices.

Orbitz defended its policy as an “experiment” and said tools on its site let users customize what they saw in a way that would eliminate the differences.

Research into different user groups on the Orbitz site had revealed Mac users were 40% more likely to book a four- or five-star hotel than those logging in with a PC, it said.

In addition, it noticed, when Mac and PC users visited the same hotel the Windows users tended to go for the cheaper rooms.

The average nightly spend on a hotel was $100, Orbitz said.

Orbitz also owns the CheapTickets, ebookers, HotelClub and RatesToGo website.