Mac Users Have Money to Spare, Says Orbitz

Apple users, happy to pay what many see as over the odds for their consumer electronics, are also more than happy to hand over a few extra dollars for hotel rooms.

According to the Wall Street Journal, travel website Orbitz has discovered that people who use Macs are willing to spend as much as 30 percent more per night for hotel rooms compared to the more frugal Windows PC users. To take advantage of this the company has rolled out what it calls a “predictive analytics” initiative in an attempt to increase revenues.

The WSJ notes:

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.

Mac users are also 40 percent more likely to book a four or five-star hotel compared to Windows users, and when Mac and Windows users book at the same hotel, Mac users tend to stay in more expensive rooms, the WSJ also reported.

Bottom line, if you're a Mac user, Orbitz isn't showing you the best deals.

It's worth noting that Orbitz isn't showing the same room to different users at different prices, but more luxurious rooms at higher prices. Orbitz were also keen to point out that users can opt to rank results by price.

The WSJ notes that Forrester Research has found that the average household income for Mac owners is $98,560, compared to only $74,452 for Windows PC owners.

Now that Orbitz has made this discrimination public, I would now expect Mac users to use alternative travel sites, such as Priceline and Expedia -- both of which have confirmed that they do not segment users based on operating system.

[UPDATE: This in from Orbitz PR firm Allison+Partners:

What we're actually doing - from Orbitz CEO Barney Harford

Nonsense that we'd charge Mac users more for the same hotel, which is unfortunately the incorrect impression that many readers seem to be drawing from this article's "subscriber content preview."

However, just as Mac users are willing to pay more for higher end computers, at Orbitz we've seen that Mac users are 40% more likely to book 4 or 5 star hotels as compared to PC users, and that just one of many factors that determine which hotels to recommend a given customer as part of our efforts to show customers the most relevant hotels possible.

More on what we're actually doing to create a personalized experience in my recent USA Today blog post: https://bitly.com/JWLTzz.

Unfortunately WSJ editors have chosen to hide the full story behind their pay wall, so most of the world is reacting to a confusing headline, while the key point "the company isn't showing the same room to different users at different prices" is hidden because... the WSJ is steering users to pay more to be able to read the full article and understand what's actually happening.