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/2009/11/2/43917/1747

You'd think the recession would have catapulted price comparison engine Kayak.com into universal traveler awareness. The company's internal figures, though, tell a different story. Less than 1/3 of the more than 100 million Americans who use travel booking sites know about Kayak. Even less are able to differentiate Kayak from similar-on-first-look but significantly different competitors like Expedia. In a move that's bound to raise eyebrows in the travel industry and among travel advertisers, the company is shifting their resources into a massive offline ad campaign.

The new ad blitz was launched over the weekend and is set to blanket primetime cable through 2010. CNN, ESPN, and MSNBC have all been selected as venues, presumably on numbers promising that most coveted of travel industry demographics: 25-44 year olds with disposable income. Forbes.com has a full writeup on the campaign, including a description of one of the "witty 30 second spots":]]> Omri 2009-11-02T13:54:20-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/12/12736/631

We like winning stuff, so we pricked up our ears when we heard that UK-based travel booking site superbreak is running the Build Your Dream Break contest. You could win the chance to create your own short vacation—up to the value of £1,000 ($1,600), anyway.

The contest closes on October 31 and involves describing what your dream break would be like in 20 words or less. It might sound simple, but we think that it'd take us a few more sentences than that to explain our dreams. Although if you check the terms and conditions it sounds like the winner will be drawn at random, so perhaps the quality of your 20 words isn't all that important. ]]> amandak 2009-10-16T08:59:34-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/11/22302/800

Does the world really need another traveler social network? A whimpered "yes?" comes from the direction of American Airlines, who this week will be launching BlackAtlas.com, a part-facebook, part-travel guide serving as "your passport to the black experience." Indeed they are targeting African-American air travelers, who want to read articles titled "5 1/2 Things About Brooklyn" and watch videos about places like "Sonia's Hair Salon" in Madrid.

The Site doesn't officially launch until Thursday the 15th, but from sneak peek screenshots and more, we're thinking it looks like an expensive new toy for an airline which maybe shouldn't be spending that money right now. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-10-12T11:18:36-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/30/173126/944

We warned you they were coming: vacation sample sales from the luxury discount shopping site Gilt.com. The site launched today, along with their new iPhone app, and they're beginning their life pretty strong, offering "discounted" rates on hotel rooms and cruises from top names like Seabourn Yachts and Peninsula Hotels.

So are you getting a deal? First, the "sample sales" are tremendously limited in time, so you better know that when you're headed to New York in order to book a deal at The Standard New York, prices starting at $225. Now we've definitely stayed there for less, so you have to understand that these sale prices are off the rack rate, which is pretty easy to get around in the first place if you search all the usual travel booking sites.

Even "private" islands get the Jetsetter treatment, after the jump. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-09-30T17:57:06-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/13/135515/329

Priceline is dicey for some things, good for others, and fantastic for a very few. There's an anti-Priceline argument to be made for airlines because flying is enough of a hassle without adding in unpredictability. Hotels are much better, since if you're flexible on location you can pretty much control everything else. Rental cars, however, are all the way at the great end of the "Priceline is awesome" spectrum, since car companies are functionally interchangeable and for the purposes of a short trip, a car is a car is a car.

Name-Your-Own-Price car rentals come with the usual Priceline disadvantages. As always, bids are non-refundable and changes are unavailable. Car rentals specifically also come with the caveat that you can't bid on one way trips.

That said, car rentals also come with the usual array of advantages. Just out of the box, you're likely to get 20%-30% off the discount price. You can push the price down even more by using the usual array of insider Priceline strategies.]]> Omri 2009-08-14T10:24:34-05:00 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 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/