Comments on: Is travel metasearch forsaking consumers, caving in to OTAs and airlines?

By: Pete Meyers

Pete Meyers — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:23:43 +0000

Regarding Kayak, I’ve been under the impression they decided to make full details “one click away” in order to clean up their design and not give away freebie brand awareness to advertisers.

Interestingly, though, they default to a pre-search opt-in to also search Expedia in a separate window, which I imagine might be part of a broader agreement.

By: David

David — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:36:39 +0000

Well, to tell you the truth, we stick to our guns. We try as hard as we can to avoid exclusivity deals, and any kind of terms set by vendors. Sometimes this means a lower commission rate, or no commission at all, and about half of airlines we display don’t pay us anything. We’re just going for as complete information as possible.

By: Dennis Schaal

Dennis Schaal — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:42:35 +0000

David: So here’s the question for you and dohop.com. When your sales team goes out and strikes deals with source websites — OTAs, airline, hotels, car rental firms etc. — do you give these companies the choice of not displaying fares? Do any of them choose not to display rates on dohop.com?

I suppose if Expedia.com knocked on your door and said they would participate in dohop hotels, but only if you agreed that Expedia.com wouldn’t show room rates, then you would probably jump through hoops at the chance of landing Expedia, no?

Or would you stick to your principles — maybe they are mine, not yours, now that I think of it — and tell Expedia, show your rates or else?

Oh, what a fantasy world I live in?

By: David

David — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:35:04 +0000

We actually don’t search either, but we do search Orbitz. We have direct agreements with a lot of airlines and then we search a ton of smaller OTA’s like one called TravelPapa, and for some reason they for example tend to have lower prices than the big ones.
I guess our specialty is finding alternative routes between two places, by connection otherwise unconnected flights, with separate OTA’s or airlines. When there is a connection like that available it usually means lower prices, and these are routes that you’d be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

By: Dennis Schaal

Dennis Schaal — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:24:26 +0000

Bill: Yes, I think you identify the business dilemma for the metasearch companies. They want to be comprehensive. They risk losing business and comprehensiveness if companies like Expedia.com, Hotwire.com or American Airlines can’t play in the manner which they want to play. Unfortunately, the consumer is the loser in this equation.

By: Dennis Schaal

Dennis Schaal — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:42:21 +0000

Thanks, David, I’ll check out dohop.com. Do you search Hotwire or Expedia.com and are they playing anything differently on dohop?

By: Dennis Schaal

Dennis Schaal — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:40:42 +0000

Robert: About TripAdvisor, they don’t have hotel metasearch yet, so we’ll have to see how Expedia.com plays that one. And, a lot of the metas have AA flights, but you’ll notice — and you probably know this — that you will never see an AA flight from an OTA and you will never see an AA flight in the same core search results with a competitor.

By: David

David — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:13:25 +0000

Interesting thoughts. For completeness, and a flight meta search that tries to hold on to the old days and compares as many options as possible, you could check out dohop.com. And yes I work there so don’t take my word, just check it out

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:53:07 +0000

Is it more common for meta search to work on a pay per click or a fee only for actual bookings generated or hybrid models ?

I guess the challenge comes when some airlines just start to say that they don’t want to pay anything – or even charge for access to data (?!) It creates a dilemma for the meta search company. Include for a better user experience or exclude and make more cash.

By: RobertKCole

RobertKCole — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:10:30 +0000

Interesting to note that the Hotwire and Expedia rates are listed on the TripAdvisor flight meta-search results. Seems that the Expedia controlled sites are playing more nicely within the family than with the neighbors…

TripAdvisor also includes American airlines flights. Looks like the carriers may be playing favorites with the meta-search sites as well…

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:30:21 +0000

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