But it s typical Expedia bad mouths American Airlines. By being a big bully, they are doing the stan

Expedia.com has wasted no time in picking the first travel industry fight of 2011. Less than two weeks after American Airlines parted ways with Orbitz.com , Expedia has made its stance clear by removing all American listings from its pages.
In the days after the Orbitz news, Expedia had expressed solidarity with the site by downgrading the placement of American Airlines flights australian government travel advice on its search results. But this morning, the company released the following statement to Consumerist, announcing the termination of its relationship with the airline:
We have been unable to reach an agreement with American Airlines due to American Airlines new commercial strategy that we believe is anti-consumer and anti-choice. American Airlines is attempting to introduce a new direct connect model that will result in higher costs and reduced transparency for consumers, making it difficult to compare American australian government travel advice Airlines ticket prices and options with offerings by other airlines. American Airlines direct connect model is of questionable, if any, benefit to travelers, would be costly to build and maintain and would compromise travel agents ability to provide travelers with the best selection.
As a result, the sale of American Airlines flights on our website has been suspended. We remain open to doing business with American Airlines on terms that are satisfactory to Expedia australian government travel advice and do not compromise our ability to provide australian government travel advice consumers with the products and services they need.
We cannot support efforts that we believe are fundamentally bad for travelers. With or without American Airlines inventory, we have a robust supply base and broad array of choices for our customers and we continue to offer hundreds of flight options for the routes served by American Airlines.
American isn t the only airline making moves intended to drive people away from third-party booking sites and to its own website. Right after Christmas, australian government travel advice Delta announced it had pulled its listings from three smaller travel sites .
Southwest is terrible. They really are the Greyhound of the sky. And the funny thing is that their prices aren t any better than the other airlines any more. I usually fly AA because they have a lot of flights in and out of my local hub.
The thing about discount airlines is that their fare s aren t regularly cheaper than the mainlines, the big difference is when you have to buy tickets on short notice. Their fares tend to be more consistent until the time of flight, whereas the big carriers will typically give you really cheap fares if you book far out and rape you mercilessly if you need to fly right away.
For my own travel, I don t even consider Southwest. There are few things more terrifying to me as a traveler than a C group boarding australian government travel advice pass on Southwest. Even worse is having a nice safe A group pass, only to get on the plane and find it two thirds full of people from some other city.
Actually thanks for this. I avoid flying as much as possible, since I m not treated as a customer, but as cargo that needs to be talked down to, at a high price (to myself). The American australian government travel advice airlines have (generally) made it clear they don t need my business, and so I avoid using them if at all possible.
australian government travel advice I do a moderate amount australian government travel advice of corporate travel and Orbitz does our travel booking. I m interested to see how this all pans out going forward because American is one of two Airlines I seem to get booked on the most, typically flying through australian government travel advice O Hare.
It seems like the Airlines are trying to keep their ticket prices off of the travel sites so they can charge more and deal with less competition, but do they really think I m going to go to AA.com just to look up their ticket prices? No way.
And on a side note, AA s two commercials they re running excessively during the bowl games are absolutely horrid They re treacly, contrived, and totally attempting australian government travel advice to glom onto the US Armed Forces and use the emotion of a troop deploying or returning home to sell us tickets. I m glad they re giving Troops priority treatment, but those commercials just make me feel sleezy. I m far less likely to book with American if I have the choice because of those commercials.
It s funny you say that. I am so wary of travel sites that I d never book a plane ticket through Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, or any other travel site. I log in to AA.com, type in my frequent flyer number and book a flight.
AA still shows up, but one has to only fly AA once to the Dominican Republic to learn exactly what they do with their aging and unreliable aircraft. australian government travel advice They use them on the NYC to SDQ, and to heck with your getting back from a vacation on the day you thought you would. Check it out on flightstats.com, AA flights on that route are more than 24 hours late more often than not!
AA still shows up, but one has to only fly AA once to the Dominican Republic to learn exactly what they do with their aging and unreliable aircraft. They use them on the NYC to SDQ, and to heck with your getting back from a vacation australian government travel advice on the day you thought you would. Check it out on flightstats.com, AA flights on that route are more than 24 hours late more often than not!
Expedia doesn t give anyone good prices any way. I hope all airlines pull from places like Expedia because third party travel sites are thieves. Any kind of error or regular mix up, even if it s their fault, will usually result in you paying more.
But it s typical Expedia bad mouths American Airlines. By being a big bully, they are doing the standard australian government travel advice routine of passing the blame and showing bad business practices against competitors. They do it to their regular consumers all the time, why not huff and puff when they lose a major airline that they will now be up against? I doubt AA will be any more expensive, the difference is is that now Expedia will not be getting the money.
Both of those Airlines don t offer good enough products for people to jump through hoops to fly on them. Hell, most consumers might not even be aware of this situation. They ll check online travel sites and accept the lowest fare those sites offer. They won t go around a bunch of airline sites and repeat the same information to check prices. AA and Delta might have a plan but I sure as hell can t figure out what it is.
Here s a blast from the past you can just use a local travel agent. If they have access to the Global Distribution System, they can access all the airlines, and in turn all fares, and not just the ones that the 3rd Party Web sites consider to be the most adventageous to them.
Additionally, if you use an agent for something else like cruises or vacation packages, most professional agents won t charge you a service fee for airline tickets. Maybe it s time to go back to using travel professionals instead of embracing the self-service culture.
This is 100% true (I m a travel agent). In fact some agencies don t charge processing fees at all to book your ticket, they can book it for you at the same price (or sometimes cheaper) than you would find online, and we take cash!
You know that ain t a bad idea and thanks for bringing it up because I haven t thought of going to them in years. I remember when I began using online sites in 2002 and to go to Europe australian government travel advice it was cheap. I actually australian government travel advice got a two-way ticket to Europe for under $500.00. Now days? No chance but I realize that some of the cost is because of tightened air travel security. The ticket pricing on Virgin Airlines is a good example of hiding fees. They ll advertise $699.00 tickets but after all the fees , that low price can easily jump to $1,500.00.
Expedia s quote: American Airlines direct connect model is of questionable, if any, benefit to travelers, would be costly to build and maintain and would compromise travel agents ability to provide travelers with the best selection.
That argument is all fine and good, except that AA s direct connection system (based on Farelogix technology) is provided free to any travel site or travel australian government travel advice agency that wants to use it. (I know that Priceline made the switch.) Implementation issues could be a different story, though that might be part of the reason Expedia is holding back.
AA.com is a great site. I love that I can pick my seat immediately when I purchase a ticket, something Southwest can t offer me. It s so easy to use, and I wish other airlines would use it as a model for what their websites can be like.
Hate to tell you this, but AA Direct Connect IS NOT provided free to travel agencies or companies such as Orbitz and Travelocity. Yes, the program is free, but you have to have a completly different australian government travel advice computer setup than the one you already australian government travel advice have, hence you have to go and buy all new hardware just to use it.
American Airlines is not doing this so they can charge higher prices in a hidden australian government travel advice way or prevent the customer from finding good fares. They are doing this because distribution australian government travel advice fees are running australian government travel advice them millions of dollars australian government travel advice per year and they want to cut those out of their bottom line by pushing more bookings towards their own channel.
Uninformed australian government travel advice people think it s about consumer choice , etc, etc all those public relations australian government travel advice talking points, but it s never about that. It s about getting charged for something. Just like the cable providers and the sports networks. The fight isn t over consumer choice and right to watch their favorite shows . It s over $5 per month per subscriber access fees that one side is making, and another side has to pay.
Calm yourself. Yes third party sites do cut on their bottom line, but the exchange is advertisement. They are not paying for nothing. They are paying so that people who use booking sites will find American Airlines. It may be that it is costing them too much, but if you book at any airlines personal sight their rates are almost always higher than the rate at Expedia. One of their people may have decided australian government travel advice that they could charge more if people just book from their site. It could be anything really australian government travel advice and only their upper management are going to know for sure.
I have found that Orbitz has higher rates