Travel Websites

Aiming to put itself in the vanguard of the Internet travel business, America Online will invest an undisclosed amount in an upstart that threatens to lure customers away from Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity. America Online Inc. plans to say today that it is taking a minority stake in Kayak Software Corp., whose software allows travelers to simultaneously scour the offerings of thousands of airline, hotel, and car-rental websites. The investment in Norwalk, Conn.-based Kayak is part of a larger strategy at AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc. , to establish standalone...

NEW YORK - Flying over the holidays is going to cost more this year. And the longer you wait to book, the pricier it's likely to get. The average domestic airfare for the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas is $383, or 4 percent higher than last year, according to Expedia. As airlines fly fewer routes and planes to cut costs, there are fewer seats available. Flights are fuller than ever, and airlines can charge more. Plus, there are fewer high-paying business travelers, and airlines need to make up for that loss of revenue.

Want to find out if the luxury hotel you booked for your vacation is as pristine as it looks in pictures? Listen to the people who have stayed there. Travel websites have brought word-of-mouth into the digital age, featuring a plethora of helpful, amusing, and sometimes cranky reviews written by travelers. The reviews detail everything from leaky sinks to smiling bellhops, and many rank hotels and restaurants by popularity. The Globe perused some of the review websites of the big-name online travel agencies, Yahoo Travel;...

Flying over the holidays is going to cost more this year. And the longer you wait to book, the pricier it's likely to get. The average domestic airfare for the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas is $383, 4 percent higher than last year, according to Expedia. As airlines fly fewer routes and planes to cut costs, there are fewer seats available. Flights are fuller than ever, and airlines can charge more. Airlines have an additional reason to charge families more during the holiday season: there are fewer high-paying business travelers, and airlines need to make up for that...

A group of online travel companies opposing Google Inc.’s $700 million acquisition of ITA software Inc. in Cambridge sent letters yesterday to every member of Congress, urging them to put pressure on the Department of Justice to challenge the deal. The group, formed last month, calls itself FairSearch.org and includes Kayak.com, a Norwalk, Conn. travel website that was backed by Boston venture capitalists; Expedia Inc., which runs TripAdvisor in Newton; Hotwire; and others. The letter invokes the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday travel crush as prime time for consumers —...

Two new specialty travel websites are taking the hassle out of going on the road with your favorite sports team or rock 'n' roll band. SportsGroupie.com and TuneTrips.com link the power of a travel search engine with sports and tour schedules, making it much easier to catch the Red Sox in Baltimore or follow U2 around the country. "There's nothing out there that does this," said Ron Lohse, 39, a computer programmer and Sox fan from Randolph, who came up with the idea for the websites after a trip to spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., last year.

The cost of travel has been going up all year, making it difficult -- but not impossible -- to find summer bargains. The US travel industry is enjoying greater pricing power in large part because it has succeeded in minimizing the supply of airline seats, hotel rooms, and rental cars at a time when demand is rising. Fliers are also paying more as airlines pass along their soaring jet-fuel expenses. The sweetest deals may already have been snapped up, travel experts said, though it is still possible to save a few bucks by planning ahead and remaining flexible.

NEW YORK - Flying over the holidays is going to cost more this year. And the longer you wait to book, the pricier it's likely to get. The average domestic airfare for the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas is $383, or 4 percent higher than last year, according to Expedia. As airlines fly fewer routes and planes to cut costs, there are fewer seats available. Flights are fuller than ever, and airlines can charge more. Plus, there are fewer high-paying business travelers, and airlines need to make up for that loss of revenue.

Flying over the holidays is going to cost more this year. And the longer you wait to book, the pricier it's likely to get. The average domestic airfare for the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas is $383, 4 percent higher than last year, according to Expedia. As airlines fly fewer routes and planes to cut costs, there are fewer seats available. Flights are fuller than ever, and airlines can charge more. Airlines have an additional reason to charge families more during the holiday season: there are fewer high-paying business travelers,...

To help spawn trip ideas, many travel websites are starting to offer detailed information on where their customers are going and what they are doing. The information is hardly exhaustive, since it's based on what one company's customers are saying, and even those customers aren't necessarily representative of society in general. But the companies pulling the data together say consumers often get their travel ideas from what others are doing. For example, the travel search engine Kayak.com has a new feature called Buzz, which provides a...

A group of online travel companies opposing Google Inc.’s $700 million acquisition of ITA software Inc. in Cambridge sent letters yesterday to every member of Congress, urging them to put pressure on the Department of Justice to challenge the deal. The group, formed last month, calls itself FairSearch.org and includes Kayak.com, a Norwalk, Conn. travel website that was backed by Boston venture capitalists; Expedia Inc., which runs TripAdvisor in Newton; Hotwire; and others. The letter invokes the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday travel crush as prime time for consumers —...

Want to find out if the luxury hotel you booked for your vacation is as pristine as it looks in pictures? Listen to the people who have stayed there. Travel websites have brought word-of-mouth into the digital age, featuring a plethora of helpful, amusing, and sometimes cranky reviews written by travelers. The reviews detail everything from leaky sinks to smiling bellhops, and many rank hotels and restaurants by popularity. The Globe perused some of the review websites of the big-name online travel agencies,...

Book a cruise to Bermuda, research the top hotels in Sydney, or hunt for the lowest fare for a trip to Vancouver, and the odds are good you’ll be interacting with a Boston-area Internet travel company. The area’s online travel cluster has grown slowly - and quietly - since the mid-1990s. But that under-the-radar profile seems like it’s about to change. Kayak.com, which operates a popular price comparison service, is talking to investment bankers about the possibility of an initial public offering, and plans to spend $50 million...

Kayak, which runs a popular flight and airfare comparison website, plans to relaunch its TravelPost.com hotel-review site this month to go head-to-head with rival TripAdvisor.com. Kayak said TravelPost will be relaunched March 24 with a powerful search engine that will pull 1.4 million guest reviews from more than 200 websites and room rates from five to 10 websites. The upgraded site will also feature filters that let users pick which websites are searched and find reviews written by guests who share the same interests or demographic...

The cost of travel has been going up all year, making it difficult -- but not impossible -- to find summer bargains. The US travel industry is enjoying greater pricing power in large part because it has succeeded in minimizing the supply of airline seats, hotel rooms, and rental cars at a time when demand is rising. Fliers are also paying more as airlines pass along their soaring jet-fuel expenses. The sweetest deals may already have been snapped up, travel experts said, though it is still possible to save a few bucks by planning ahead and remaining flexible.

Two new specialty travel websites are taking the hassle out of going on the road with your favorite sports team or rock 'n' roll band. SportsGroupie.com and TuneTrips.com link the power of a travel search engine with sports and tour schedules, making it much easier to catch the Red Sox in Baltimore or follow U2 around the country. "There's nothing out there that does this," said Ron Lohse, 39, a computer programmer and Sox fan from Randolph, who came up with the idea for the websites after a trip to spring training in Fort Myers, Fla., last year.

Book a cruise to Bermuda, research the top hotels in Sydney, or hunt for the lowest fare for a trip to Vancouver, and the odds are good you’ll be interacting with a Boston-area Internet travel company. The area’s online travel cluster has grown slowly - and quietly - since the mid-1990s. But that under-the-radar profile seems like it’s about to change. Kayak.com, which operates a popular price comparison service, is talking to investment bankers about the possibility of an initial public offering, and plans to spend $50 million on a splashy new offline marketing campaign later...

Kayak, which runs a popular flight and airfare comparison website, plans to relaunch its TravelPost.com hotel-review site this month to go head-to-head with rival TripAdvisor.com. Kayak said TravelPost will be relaunched March 24 with a powerful search engine that will pull 1.4 million guest reviews from more than 200 websites and room rates from five to 10 websites. The upgraded site will also feature filters that let users pick which websites are searched and find reviews written by guests who share the same interests or demographic...

To help spawn trip ideas, many travel websites are starting to offer detailed information on where their customers are going and what they are doing. The information is hardly exhaustive, since it's based on what one company's customers are saying, and even those customers aren't necessarily representative of society in general. But the companies pulling the data together say consumers often get their travel ideas from what others are doing. For example, the travel search engine Kayak.com has a new feature called Buzz, which provides a listing of the best fares to the 25...

Aiming to put itself in the vanguard of the Internet travel business, America Online will invest an undisclosed amount in an upstart that threatens to lure customers away from Orbitz, Expedia, and Travelocity. America Online Inc. plans to say today that it is taking a minority stake in Kayak Software Corp., whose software allows travelers to simultaneously scour the offerings of thousands of airline, hotel, and car-rental websites. The investment in Norwalk, Conn.-based Kayak is part of a larger strategy at AOL, a unit of Time...