iMedia Connection: Online Travel: Is Bigger Better? NB travelocity re "total"

Intro "Do you get more by using big travel sites or airline and hotel sites? (part one of three" Are there any inherent advantages or disadvantages for consumers who make their travel plans by going directly to an airline or hotel site versus using one of the big aggregators such as Expedia? That depends on whom you talk to

1) iMedia Connection: Online Travel: Is Bigger Better? 1: Re tactics airline sites use to differentiate themselves from general travel sites.

Checking in and printing a boarding pass 24 hours in advance of travel
Selecting or changing a seat
Accessing SkyMiles (Delta’s frequent flyer program) account balance and activity
Redeeming miles for an award ticket
Qualifying for exclusive mile-earning or mile-burning opportunities.

2) Hotels have similar motivations.: iMedia Connection: Online Travel Part 2: Is Bigger Better?:How hotel sites are making the Web work for them to save on commissions.

The Radisson Hotel Web site was one of the first hotel brand sites, debuting in 1996. In 2000, Carlson launched sites for the remaining Carlson Hotels Worldwide portfolio.

Hepper says hotels often opt to reserve special offers or bonus loyalty points for visitors to their Web sites, and to offer enhanced features, such as a personalized account home page.

Carlson draws customers to its various hotel sites by adapting a wide variety of interactive marketing strategies -- online partnerships, email marketing, search engine optimization, direct search inclusion, paid placement and cross-channel marketing integration -- to ensure that guests receive similar messages regardless of their choice of booking channel.

Jon Peddie, who heads up Jon Peddie Research, a Tiburon, CA-based marketing and management consulting firm, travels the world 50 percent of each month. He still uses a travel agent and prefers airline and hotel Web sites, because he’s not confident that the general sites will enter his frequent flyer mileage numbers and correctly register his hotel preferences.

3) iMedia Connection: Online Travel Part 3: Is Bigger Better?:
What general travel sites are doing to draw customers away from booking direct at airline and hotel sites

"The key advantage to using a general travel site, says Susan McLaughlin, Travelocity�s vice president of marketing, is the ability to comparison-shop a multitude of air fares, hotel room rates, car rentals, cruises and vacations across a wide variety of suppliers"

Travelocity uses a lot of interactive bells and whistles to snare customers and get recurring business and revenue (all of the online travel sites charge a nominal service fee -- at Travelocity, it’s $5 per ticket). Some of these include:

TotalPrice for Cars: consumers get car rental rates that include all taxes and fees, to minimize sticker shock at the car rental counter.
TotalCruise: consumers purchase flights at the time of their cruise purchase, rather than being assigned flights later by the cruise supplier.
Farewatcher: consumers pick five destinations they want to travel to when prices drop below a certain threshold. Travelocity alerts them via email -- and sends roughly 414,000 of these emails daily.
• Intelli-Deck™: displays views of specific ship features, clickable deck plans and cruise reviews by fellow travelers.
Consumer traveler reviews: Travelocity claims it's the only online travel site that posts unbiased hotel and cruise reviews directly from consumers. It also uses the American Automobile Association (AAA) for reviews. McLaughlin says other online travel sites do their own reviews.