Orbitz.com Advertised price not available, holds still placed on card, Internet

Planning a trip from Chicago to Beijing.  A travel agent found lowest fare was $2500 on American Airlines.  I found a $1500 flight on Hainan Airlines on Orbitz.com.  The flight was the same one as AA ("operated by American Airlines").

Walked through the booking process on Orbitz.com including entering credit card info.  Final submit resulted in "flight no longer available" message.  This flight has been on the site for at least two days.

Searched again and flight was still there.  Tried again.  Got through the whole process again.  Final submit resulted in "try again later" message.

I now find that I have 4 holds on my credit card for the flights (two from Orbitz for $2 each and two from Hainan for the costs of the flight).

Contacted Orbitz before I knew about the credit card holds and was told flight information changes all the time and the web site doesn't reflect what's actually available (my summary).

This is BAD on two counts:  1) If you know the flight isn't available after I enter my credit card, why don't you know BEFORE I start the process?  Especially since the flight has been showing at the same price for two days.  2) Why put a hold on a credit card when you can't provide the service requested.  Save the hold until AFTER the flight is confirmed.