Orbitz Presenting More Expensive Hotels to Mac Users

Travel shopping site Orbitz is offering more expensive hotels to Mac users because the company found Mac users prefer more luxurious rooms, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Orbitz
Orbitz noted that it was is not showing different prices for the same room to different users, but was presenting pricier hotels more prominently to Mac users than those using Windows. Users can rank hotel options by price and get the same listings no matter what platform they are using.

Orbitz found Mac users on average spend $20 to $30 more a night on hotels than their PC counterparts, a significant margin given the site's average nightly hotel booking is around $100, chief scientist Wai Gen Yee said. Mac users are 40% more likely to book a four- or five-star hotel than PC users, Mr. Yee said, and when Mac and PC users book the same hotel, Mac users tend to stay in more expensive rooms.

"We had the intuition, and we were able to confirm it based on the data," Orbitz Chief Technology Officer Roger Liew said.

The WSJ goes on to note that the average household income for adult owners of Macs is $98,560, according to Forrester Research, versus $74,452 for a PC owner. The paper also says that some high-end hotels see bookings from Mac users hugely out of proportion with their user share on Orbitz.

The targeting efforts are part of Orbitz's "predictive analytics" efforts -- using gathered data to offer more tailored results to shoppers in order to generate more revenue.

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Top Rated Comments

W1MRK Avatar
167 months ago
If I log in on a Commodore 64, do I get a discount?
Score: 103 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dr Charter Avatar
167 months ago
It's alright Orbitz. Since I just bought a rMBP, I'll be sleeping in my car for awhile anyway. :D
Score: 94 Votes (Like | Disagree)
digitaljawa Avatar
167 months ago
It's because we're ****ing classy.
Score: 65 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BrownManUPS Avatar
167 months ago
And yet people whine when an app is more than 99 cents. :rolleyes:
Score: 62 Votes (Like | Disagree)
portishead Avatar
167 months ago
Not really surprising but PC fanboys will figure out a way to spin this to mean Apple users are all terrible people.
Score: 45 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ghsDUDE Avatar
167 months ago
*Note To Self*

If I ever shop on Orbitz (since I never do) do it from a PC...lol.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)