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Mac users pay more for hotels than Windows users

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 27 Jun 2012 9:30 User comments (14)

Mac users pay more for hotels than Windows users

While it is well known that Apple customers pay heavy premiums for the Mac products, it appears they may pay extra for regular items, as well.
According to the WSJ, citing travel site Orbitz, Mac users pay $20-$30 more for hotels than Windows users do.

The site has been experimenting with segmenting their audience by operating system. Reads the report: "The sort of targeting undertaken by Orbitz is likely to become more commonplace as online retailers scramble to identify new ways in which people's browsing data can be used to boost online sales."

Orbitz even admitted that Mac users were seeing targeted ads/search engine hits with higher prices than Window's counterparts were seeing.

For now, it is safe to say that Mac users will likely not be buying through Orbitz, especially when Expedia and other rivals are not "experimenting" with higher prices.

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14 user comments

127.6.2012 22:29

Hee hee hee hee...

228.6.2012 06:34

Yes that sounds like my grandson.He is an Apple freak and wastes all his money.Never saves a nickle of what he earns for the future.

328.6.2012 11:04

Even online retailers are screwing the Mac crowd... I see it on the folks coming into the pawn shop all the time when they think they're going to get a lump of cash for their MacBook... They're simply crushed when we give them the reality of what the thing is worth.

Part of me giggles (cause they're kids & were flippant with their money), in others it's quite saddening simply to really see the realization on people's faces when we show how a Windows machine will hold its value. Even in this f*ked up economy.

You'd think people like Orbitz would be below this. Even if they do offer a difference refund... but is it against their own site?

428.6.2012 16:27

I find it funny that Windows is so loved by everyone. It's more prone to virus' as well as errors and crashing. Yet it's worshiped by everyone almost. It's crazy.

528.6.2012 17:39

Originally posted by LordRuss:
Even online retailers are screwing the Mac crowd... I see it on the folks coming into the pawn shop all the time when they think they're going to get a lump of cash for their MacBook... They're simply crushed when we give them the reality of what the thing is worth.

Part of me giggles (cause they're kids & were flippant with their money), in others it's quite saddening simply to really see the realization on people's faces when we show how a Windows machine will hold its value. Even in this f*ked up economy.

You'd think people like Orbitz would be below this. Even if they do offer a difference refund... but is it against their own site?
i wish there was a like button :)

628.6.2012 18:57

According to Tom Merit over at Tech News Today (the daily TWIT podcast)
He said that Orbits wasn't charging Mac users more for the same rooms, but rather, promoting higher priced rooms to Mac users.
All users were free to sort the offerings as they desired and that the actual prices for the rooms were the same, Mac or PC.

Apparently the WSJ article was behind a paywall and had the provocative headline which got misunderstood.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 28 Jun 2012 @ 6:58

728.6.2012 19:23

Originally posted by bigdan45:
I find it funny that Windows is so loved by everyone. It's more prone to virus' as well as errors and crashing. Yet it's worshiped by everyone almost. It's crazy.

Sorry, but no.

No one with even a morsel of sense "worships" any specific OS, silly. That's *exactly* why Mac fanbois are so amusing ^^'... Being willing to pay a 50% premium for hardware that is significantly behind the technology curve seems quite a bit more like "worship" to me, especially since it comes with the Great White Father, Steve Jobs, as the "Holy Ghost".

828.6.2012 23:30

the only thing that amazes me about this is that anybody even cares.

929.6.2012 01:25

Unfortunately there are too many players in the Windows segment of notebook manufacturers. This would naturally lead to cost cutting for competitive marketing. This in turn leads to premature failure of hardware that simply cannot be repaired. Personally I don't need nor use a notebook. But my daughter working as a Hr consultant travelling 10 to 15 days a month went through 3 HP & Compaq notebooks after experiencing total breakdowns in critical situations. In desperation she switched to a MacBook just for its hardware reliability !

1029.6.2012 05:13

Originally posted by Bozobub:
Originally posted by bigdan45:
I find it funny that Windows is so loved by everyone. It's more prone to virus' as well as errors and crashing. Yet it's worshiped by everyone almost. It's crazy.

Sorry, but no.

No one with even a morsel of sense "worships" any specific OS, silly. That's *exactly* why Mac fanbois are so amusing ^^'... Being willing to pay a 50% premium for hardware that is significantly behind the technology curve seems quite a bit more like "worship" to me, especially since it comes with the Great White Father, Steve Jobs, as the "Holy Ghost".
Well, if it's behind the tech curve why are Macs more resistant to virus, etc. and crashes? Mind you, I haven't used a Mac since they had LITERAL floppy disks. lol That's how out of money my junior high was, we played games on that in 1998. lol But still, I find it repugnant that Microsoft charges for everything, tech support, etc. At least they did when I needed it.

1129.6.2012 08:46

Macs are "more resistant to viruses", simply because very few malware authors care to target a much smaller segment of the market, silly; you go where the people are. As for "more resistant against crashes", well, yes, if you have a MUCH smaller number of possible configurations, it's a lot easier to make a more stable system. And I'll have you know, I've seen Mac users cursing a BSOD (now that they're Intel-based) or the previous Mac crash screen plenty of times =) .

Mac hardware is generally NOT even close to cutting-edge, except (currently) for their Retina displays and their extremely expensive, proprietary "super"-connector. This isn't arguable; you can go and look it up yourself, if you care to.

Now, you should realize I actually *like* Macs. But nothing about them (or most other Apple products) justifies their drastically inflated prices. It's that willingness to pay far too much for what you get, that Orbitz is trying to exploit here, you know ^^'

1229.6.2012 09:16

Originally posted by Bozobub:
Macs are "more resistant to viruses", simply because very few malware authors care to target a much smaller segment of the market, silly; you go where the people are. As for "more resistant against crashes", well, yes, if you have a MUCH smaller number of possible configurations, it's a lot easier to make a more stable system. And I'll have you know, I've seen Mac users cursing a BSOD (now that they're Intel-based) or the previous Mac crash screen plenty of times =) .

Mac hardware is generally NOT even close to cutting-edge, except (currently) for their Retina displays and their extremely expensive, proprietary "super"-connector. This isn't arguable; you can go and look it up yourself, if you care to.

Now, you should realize I actually *like* Macs. But nothing about them (or most other Apple products) justifies their drastically inflated prices. It's that willingness to pay far too much for what you get, that Orbitz is trying to exploit here, you know ^^'
I agree with you entirely. Some 10 years ago I was in Dubai helping my brother relocate his studio. He has some 5 Mac5s with some early version of OS-X. They used to freeze / crash at least several times a day. Remember this was on non Intel Mac hardware. Apple makes money on the their extremely over priced hardware. Why else would they have cancelled the cloning license they granted - i forget the name of the licensee - after a very short period of genuine competition.

I would like to see even a lame effort on Apple's part to come up with absolutely any kind of OS that will install smoothly on as wide a range of hardware that Windows does.

By targeting Windows machine, malware makers get the maximum bang for the buck.

1329.6.2012 16:05

Originally posted by bigdan45:
I find it funny that Windows is so loved by everyone. It's more prone to virus' as well as errors and crashing. Yet it's worshiped by everyone almost. It's crazy.

Windows is not more prone to viruses, it is more targeted for viruses. Why? Well because more people own pcs. If more people had macs, it might be the other way around.

1430.6.2012 02:28

Mac/Apple product lovers............what losers!

They deserve getting up the tailpipe with all their conformist, arrogant ways.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 30 Jun 2012 @ 2:29

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