How can Orbitz and the likes be so dishonest?

You know, like when all those cheap flights are listed, but Orbitz tells you that the flight is not available when you want to buy it? Systematically, our recent flight searches have come up with this issue. It seems that this is nothing new and has been going on for years.

This is not only irritating, it also removes a lot of the value Orbitz is meant to provide.

It's not just that you are out of luck and that the system is temporarily out of sync. After all, even after you check such a flight, it keeps popping up in your searches. And it often does the following day as well.

There is certainly a solution to that problem if Orbitz and the airline companies actually want to fix this broken behavior. Given the amount of time this has been going on, I can only assume that it is deliberate.

No matter whose fault it is, I am just wondering: how do we users put up with what only amounts to a permanent lie?

In the meanwhile, I am trying to book flights directly from the airlines whenever possible. Even though they may be the ones providing the disinformation, I have not hit this issue on their web sites, and I want to send a signal to Orbitz, however small.