The battle between airlines and travel sites is starting to heat up, but for different issue.The relationship between airline and secondary travel sites is interesting. Most have a relationship like travel agents used to, where the site will get a referral fee for making the booking. However any extra money made from hotels or cars is kept by the outside site.
Back in October 2008, American Airlines went to battle with Kayak.com. Kayak.com is pretty darn cool and I don't mind giving them a plug. You are able to say where and when you want to go someplace and they will compare fares. They will also let you know if the cheapest fare is on the airline's website (which I find it almost always is) or on another site like Orbitz or Expedia. Kayak doesn't actually sell you anything, but just refers you to another site to make the actual purchase. Back in 2008, American was not happy since they wanted Kayak to only link to their site and not to third party sites like Orbitz, Expedia, etc for comparison. It appears that American won, since their site is the only one listed under American fares on Kayak.
No comments:
Post a Comment