This morning, while enjoying my coffee, I received an email from Orbitz about a trip I had booked. It made me think for a few minutes about the phenomena of making and managing travel arrangements online.
Back in the day (here we go again!), we used a travel agency and the phone. It was a great, personalized service. After an interview, and some experience together, the travel agent knew my likes and dislikes, and thereafter my choices were focused on a short list of options I would find acceptable to meet my needs. Wonderful.
Then in the late 90's, wiseass brownosers started bragging in meetings about how much they had saved the company by booking online. So we dumped the travel agent for all but the high level execs who couldn't do anything more technical than tell an admin where and when they wanted to go. It was then game-on for travelers.
As quickly as the process changed, Orbitz and Expedia rose to the top. Later specialization and consolidation would give us Bing and Kayak. There are more, but I don't use them, so will ignore them.
Now the trend for airlines is to allow the travel search engines to show their flights, but require you to book via the carrier. There is probably a good reason for this. What it does for me is make me keep a version of Firefox on my MBP so I can book with American. They don't recognize Safari or Chrome.
It also makes me want to evaluate a travel agency again. But now that AA and Expedia have made up, maybe things will be better.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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