Expedia just announced they're waiving their $20 fee for the 7% of Americans who book their itineraries over the phone, establishing themselves in a niche and sticking a finger in the eyes of competitors. Airline centers mostly charge $5-$35 for telephone bookings—Southwest is the only exception—while Orbitz and Travelocity charge $25 per ticket. Priceline doesn't even offer that option.

This won't be much use to us, since our calls to booking agents are limited to rants about the impossibility of reserving rewards travel these days. But Expedia had already eliminated flight booking fees online, and it's nice to see anyone cutting any fee for any reason, no matter how marginal or symbolic the gesture:]]> Omri 2009-11-06T17:24:23-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/4/13265/63769

There's been a bit of buzz going around about the new "partnership" between Expedia and SeatGuru. The agreement will allow Expedia, which is owned by Expedia Inc. which owns TripAdvisor which owns SeatGuru, to integrate SeatGuru's plane-by-plane, seat-by-seat reviews into Expedia's interface. Here's the lo-down:

The partnership, announced today, integrates SeatGuru flyer reviews of airplane seats into the seat maps for most flights sold on Expedia.com. This development marks the first time user-generated airline content is available on an online travel booking site.

First things first. The reviews are not "user-generated reviews from real flyers." They're the same carefully crafted reviews that SeatGuru has always had. This is not "the first time user-generated airline content is available on an online travel booking site." Southwest has had an online community going for a while now. And it's not really an "exclusive partnership" since SeatGuru data will still be available even if you don't use Expedia.]]> Omri 2009-08-04T15:21:56-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/7/13/33717/1691

It's time again for the now-annual Expedia survey results on the world's best and worst tourists: and the French have done it again. Done it again on the wrong end of the scale, that is, because the survey says:

French travelers are the biggest skinflints, the worst tippers and the least able or inclined to speak foreign languages. They also finished next to last in terms of their politeness and behavior.

Ouch. At the top of the list were the oh-so-polite Japanese, again, followed by English, Canadian, German and Swiss tourists. In some interesting individual categories, the Japanese were named as the least likely to complain and the Italians won the best fashion sense gong, while Americans, Italians and Spanish scored the top three spots in the "loudest tourists" section.

Keep this info in mind when choosing your travel companions in the future and you might end up having a better trip.

Related Stories:
· French Tourists Still the World's Worst [Time]
· World's Worst Tourists: The French Who Only Speak French [Jaunted]
· Japanese Tourists Are the Best [Jaunted]

[Photo: lecercle] ]]> amandak 2009-07-15T17:34:18-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/5/4/13352/10729

Travel site Expedia has been stepping up its efforts in recent years to get travelers to think of it as an all-in-one stop, convincing users to book flights, hotels and car trips, or plain all-inclusives, via the site.

Usually, we're not convinced of the savings, since the package prices on these sites never seem like that much of a deal. But we're intrigued by the news that Expedia is teaming up with Payless Car Rental to offer more low-fare car rental deals. Payless has some pretty good last-minute deals through their website, with domestic rates as cheap as $23 a day. So along with Expedia's existing partnership with Thrifty, maybe this will make their three-in-one deals a little more enticing.

We've booked flight combined with hotel before, but have never gone for the car too to round out a vacation. What about you all? Do you ever look at Expedia's three-in-one options, and would cheaper car rental entice you to perhaps book one if you never considered it previously? Let us know in comments below.

Related Stories:
· Expedia [Official Site]
· Payless Car Rental [Official Site]
· Car rentals coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Expedia] ]]> BS 2009-05-05T08:46:49-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/5/24/84739/4230

The travel booking folks at Expedia have published the results of a large survey about the best and worst tourists. And it turns out that those bowing, camera-toting Japanese are officially the "best" tourists, mostly due to their politeness and tidiness. Americans and Swiss come in second and third on the overall scale.

In other awards ... the biggest spenders on holidays are Americans, followed by Russians and Brits. But Brits lose out in another category, being crowned the second-worst-dressed of tourists: after the worst dressed Americans. And when measuring the generosity scale, the Pfennig-pinching Germans came up as the least generous tourists.

And we can't leave you without whispering the results of who make the worst tourists: apparently the French are the worst, followed by Indians, Chinese and Russian. Of course, this is all a bit biased by the fact that the 15,000 respondents were hoteliers in Europe, so don't be offended. Unless you belong to a worst-dressed nation and then perhaps you need to spend more Euro shopping in stylish Italy.

[Photo: Photocapy]

Related Stories:
· And the Best Tourists in the World Are ... [Reuters]
· Polite Destinations [Jaunted]
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