Online Travel Agencies
Online travel agencies are dominated by the big three agencies of Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity, it also includes many others notably Hotwire and Priceline. They all allow you to seek the lowest prices for your flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation packages, and book them online. Comparison shopping here will help you identify the best prices available.
Orbitz
Following the emergence of online travel agencies, and the airlines’ response by the formation of Orbitz by five airlines that dominated the U.S. airline industry, Orbitz fell under the intense scrutiny of an antitrust investigation. Competitors felt that Orbitz’s agreements with the airlines to obtain the lowest fares could give them an unfair advantage in the marketplace, and harm the consumers. As time evolved, the Justice Department concluded that were no antitrust violations, and that Orbitz did not have an unfair advantage. The other travel agencies have been able to reach agreements with the airlines providing access to the lowest fares as well. Orbitz had the unique technology to succeed, and is a major player in the market.
Orbitz has an easy to use interface, and states on their web site that their inventory includes “hundreds of airlines, more than 80,000 hotels worldwide, and 13 rental car brands”.
Travelocity
Travelocity was founded in 1996, and was the first web site to allow consumers to directly search their reservation system, and make the bookings themselves without a travel agent. It uses the Sabre Global Distribution System to search flight information and book reservations on over 400 airlines.
Expedia
Founded initially in 1996 as a division of Microsoft, it was spun of in 1999. Expedia uses the Sabre computer system as well as Worldspan for their reservation system, and state that they are the largest of the online travel agencies.
Expedia is a complete online travel agencies with travel deals for flights, hotels, cars, vacation packages, cruises, and other activities packaged in an easy to use interface.
Priceline and Hotwire
Priceline and Hotwire offer travel deals that can be great, but are “opaque”. In other words, you do not actually see all of the details up front. Priceline now has not only a “name your own price” feature, which is the opaque version of bidding on your travel arrangements, but also now a “buy it now” retail product which does show you the details.
Both have been very successful, and can provide you with a great deal if you are comfortable with this bidding system. If your plans are firm, this can be a great way to go. If the inventory is available, you should get a great price. It really depends on how many rooms are available for the stay. Once your bid is accepted, it is non refundable. Hotwire is owned by Expedia.
