Orbitz To Push Pricier Hotels on Mac Users

The travel site will show Apple users pricier hotel suggestions than PC-ers searching for the same thing.

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Apple users will be shown pricier hotel selections than PC users will see in a new trial by travel site Orbitz

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

"Hello, I'm a Mac."

"And I'm Orbitz. Care to rent a room in a four-star hotel?"

After figuring out that customers browsing their site on an Apple computer were willing to spend as much as 30 percent more on a hotel room than Windows PC users were, Orbitz has decided to go ahead and try pushing pricier selections to Mac fans.

The trial, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, will show some Mac and PC shoppers different suggested results for the same searches. Of course, Orbitz customers can always ignore the hotel suggestions and access the same list of hotel options, sorted by price. (The site won't be showing Mac users different prices for the same rooms.)

Orbitz also discovered that Mac users were 40 percent more likely to book a four- or five-star hotel room and stay in more expensive rooms than their PC brethren booking in the same hotel, Forbes notes. An easy explanation for the difference in hotel-booking behavior is the fact that, according to Forrester Research, Mac owners have a higher average household income ($98,560) than PC owners ($74,452).

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