Pilot vs. Orbitz in 2026: Which should you use?

Orbitz is a travel booking site with rewards. People use it to book hotels, flights, and cars and earn Orbucks rewards. It is built to complete a booking rather than plan the trip around it, and it books as a middleman rather than directly with the hotel.

Pilot is a trip booking and planning app. You plan the whole trip in one place, a flexible itinerary, a map of your stops, and notes, and you book your hotel in the app at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents. Where Orbitz completes a booking, Pilot plans the whole trip around the stay, instantly reserves your room with its hotel partners and has a real person confirm each booking with the hotel, and keeps the planner free.

Yes. Orbitz is a real online travel agency that launched in 2001 and is owned by Expedia Group, so it books a large inventory of hotels, flights, rental cars, and cruises. The thing to know is how it is rated on experience: Orbitz sits around 1.3 on Trustpilot, with recurring complaints about prices that climb at checkout, support that is hard to reach, and slow refunds. Pilot is a smaller, newer option focused on hotels: it lets you book over 3,000,000 stays at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results, and real people on support. So Orbitz is legit; just go in knowing the trade-offs at checkout and on support.

Yes, Orbitz is free to browse and book, the same as Pilot. Neither charges a subscription. The difference is in how each one earns. Orbitz is an Expedia Group site that makes money on commissions and by selling sponsored placement, so the result at the top isn't always the best deal for you, and the headline price can grow with fees added at checkout. Pilot earns from hotels when you book and never sells placement, so results are ranked for you, and the full trip planner stays free.

Orbitz earns commissions on every hotel, flight, car, and cruise it books, and it sells sponsored placement to properties that want to rank higher, which is why the top result isn't always the cheapest. It also runs the Orbucks rewards currency to keep you booking through Orbitz. Pilot earns from hotels when you book and doesn't sell placement, so you see results ranked for you, not for whoever pays the most, and Pilot can offer private 'book early' rates straight from hotels while keeping the planner free.

Yes. Booking hotels is one of the main things Orbitz does, alongside flights, rental cars, and cruises, all in one checkout. Pilot also books hotels, over 3,000,000 of them, right in the app, but at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results. Pilot lets you book hotels only, not flights or cars, so if you need to bundle a flight or a car with your stay, Orbitz covers that. If you mainly need a good rate on a hotel and a place to plan the rest of the trip, Pilot does more for that.

Orbitz is widely reported to show a headline price that climbs at checkout once taxes, resort fees, or service fees are added, and refunds can be slow. That pattern is part of why it sits around 1.3 on Trustpilot. Pilot lets you book your stay at a private rate straight from the hotel, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results pushed at you while you pay. Booking runs through Pilot, so we work with the hotel on your behalf if anything needs sorting out.

It depends on what you are booking. If you want to bundle a flight, a hotel, a rental car, or a cruise in one checkout and earn Orbucks, Orbitz has the inventory for that, as long as you are comfortable with prices that can climb at checkout and support that is hard to reach (a big reason for its 1.3 Trustpilot score). If you mainly want a good hotel rate and a place to plan the whole trip, Pilot is worth a look: private rates straight from hotels, real human support, and a flexible planner with a map, notes, AI import, and real-time group editing, all free.

Use Pilot to plan a trip and book the stay: private rates straight from hotels, real human support, and your whole trip, the plans, the group, the map, and the booking, in one place, for free. Pilot lets you book hotels only. Use Orbitz if you need to bundle flights, rental cars, or cruises with a hotel in one Expedia Group checkout and want to earn Orbucks, and you are willing to accept the prices that climb at checkout and the slower support that tend to come with it.