Orbitz - Worth It?

Just back from my trip to Chico. Overall, it was a worthwhile trip. Lots of tips for advanced editing, though I missed the multi-camera shoot session and one of the theory sessions.

Booked a new trip, to Chicago in April (also to Milwaukee and Peru, IN - but those are other stories).
I booked my trip through United Airlines, rather than Orbitz, Travelocity, or Kayak or any of the travel sites. I did it for several reasons, most related to the trip to Chico.

• It was actually cheaper (excluding taxes) to book with United directly. I suspect that is going to be frequently true, as the major airlines realize that they can't sell seats to resellers and expect to make money. 

Of course how the airlines are losing money is beyond me. Every seat was filled on almost every flight - the exception was Chico to San Francisco - the Embraer experience - noisy and bumpy. Had to move to the front seat on the left side in order to balance the plane. I'm not joking.  But I am digressing.

• I am in control of my reservation. If my reservation gets changed I will change it, not the booking agent.

Orbitz and the airline changed my reservations for the Chico trip. I ended up having 7 minutes to get from gate 87 to gate 45 in the Denver airport. I did not make it. I ended up losing part of the first day and all of the last day of the workshop I attended. I am not happy about that. I specified on my original booking that I wanted to return afternoon, and Orbitz changed my flight to the morning.

The airlines are making a big mistake with this charge for baggage checking thing, if you ask me. They're encouraging people to take barely reasonable carry ons to avoid the charge, and then forcing them to check at the gate - which the airlines then have to check through without the fee. Don't see that that's working.

So I'm home. Crabby about parts of the trip -- being herded like sheep or cows, crowded like sardines and fed like -- well, not fed at all. Disappointed a bit in the Super8 - the network was a disaster. But the video editing was fantastic.