Pro-X-Travel

DING! Southwest Airlines App Now Available On App Store

Your iPhone is perfect--you just wish you could hear that Southwest trademarked DING!, right? Well now you can. Southwest Airlines announces its first app for iPhone and iPod touch now available from the App Store. Customers can book reservations, checkin for flights, check flight status, view flight schedules, and download DING! to get exclusive, deeply discounted fares on Southwest flights. And, in true Southwest style, the app is free! To check it out, click here: www.southwest.com/iphone or visit www.itunes.com/appstore/.

"Southwest is known for convenience and simplicity, and our new app is a great example of that," said Kevin Krone, Southwest Airlines Vice President of Marketing, Sales, and Distribution. "Whether you are managing Rapid Rewards credits or need to checkin for your flight, the Southwest Airlines App now offers Customers the flexibility to do that and more--with plenty of Southwest flair!"

To celebrate the new app, Southwest Airlines is offering special DING! fares for Customers today. These fares are only available through the DING! feature so Customers have to download the app and register for DING! to access them. Click here for details: www.southwest.com/iphone

After 38 years of service, Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) continues to differentiate itself from other low fare carriers--offering a reliable product with exemplary Customer Service. Southwest Airlines is the most productive airline in the sky and offers Customers a comfortable traveling experience. Southwest Airlines is the nation's largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded, currently serving 68 cities in 35 states. Based in Dallas, Southwest currently operates more than 3,100 flights a day and has nearly 35,000 Employees systemwide.

SOURCE Southwest Airlines

TRAVELOCITY’S DEALS TOOLKIT MAKES IT EASY FOR CUSTOMERS TO FIND THE DEAL THAT’S RIGHT FOR THEM

Innovative new suite of tools answers travelers’ call for an 

easier way to pinpoint and rank best deals

Travelocity today announced a Deals Toolkit ( www.travelocity.com/toolkit ) that makes it easier for consumers to find the best travel deals based on their preferences and flexibility. The toolkit offers three new ways to look for deals, including:

• An on-site tool that walks through a customer's preferences and returns the best deals, customized for them
• A tool that shows the best deals on a map, and
• A tool that can be downloaded onto a customer's desktop and feeds deal updates

Built on a proprietary algorithm developed by Travelocity, the tools quickly pinpoint the best flight and vacation packages listed on the site. As consumers continue to expect both overall value and deep discounts from their travel provider, in a format that still provides some flexibility, Travelocity has taken deals searching to a new level with a customized system for shoppers to quickly and easily locate the most relevant deals.

“Travelers are telling us they want to be able to more quickly identify and select deals based on what matters most to them,” said Victoria Treyger, chief marketing officer, Travelocity. “Our deals toolkit answers their calling with a totally new framework for shopping that helps them filter through thousands of options to hone in on only the best, most customized results without spending a ton of time.”

Customize Your Deals

With an emphasis on value and customers' preferences, the customized deals engine, which can be accessed directly on the Travel Deals and “My Deals” tabs on Travelocity's homepage, is a one-stop-shop for the site's best flight and package deals. A completely interactive tool, it features several filters allowing customers to personalize and sort deals by price, date range, theme, destination and travel product. Shoppers can view and compare up to five deals at a time and also explore more specific trip details, including available travel dates, customer reviews and more, narrowing down deals by what's most important to them.

Map-Based Shopping

The new map-based feature gives travelers the best way to visually search top flight and vacation package deals from their departure city with at-a-glance shopping. The map-based option is available at www.travelocity.com/dealsonamap and directly from the Flights tab on the homepage. Once there, consumers can click on the “Find Deals on a Map” link to access the new tool.

Deals are displayed on a map by region and then city, with up to 15 displays shown at a time. Customers can zoom in on deals most intriguing to them, view hotel information and stats on how much the trip is discounted, and access links to check availability and book flights or packages.

Travelocity Desktop Application

The desktop application, which can be downloaded directly from http://www.travelocity.com/desktop , gives consumers direct access to the best vacation package deals without using a browser while tracking the customer's preferred information for a completely personalized shopping experience. Available for both Mac and Windows users, the application can be set to monitor trips from their departure city to a favorite destination, notifying them when new deals to their destination are found, and serves up to 100 deals at a time all with a minimum savings of 20 percent. Users also have the ability to share relevant deals with their social networks via Facebook and Twitter.

“Despite the recent growth and rebound of some sectors in the economy, we believe consumers' expectations of value and desire to shop for the best deals have changed for good,” said Treyger. “We're answering their call to first and foremost provide the best tools for locating top deals in a faster format with more relevant options.”

SOURCE Travelocity

LAN Online Discounts

As you can see, we have LAN as a premium sponsor on Pro-X-Travel. While reviewing their website for deals and discounts, I came across a few little known facts you may be interested in.

3% Online Purchase Discount

From LAN.com: Don't miss this opportunity to save, exclusively at LAN.com. Travel from any city in the United States and you'll get 3% discount on your tickets.

• The 3% discount is exclusive to LAN.com.
  
• The discount only applies to the U.S. site (English and Spanish versions).
  
• The discount applies to codeshare flights (i.e. flights operated by other airlines).
  
• The discount applies to available Tourist, Business and First Class.
  
• The discount doesn't apply to promotional fares.

Overall, still a great discount off their published fares.

No Booking Fee

From LAN.com: At LAN.com you will always find great fares, plus you will never be charged booking fees.

Buy now your ticket through LAN.com, by far the best option to book your next trip to South America!

• Please note that for purchases made through our Call center or offices, fees may apply.

A large number of airline don’t charge an online booking fee, however as with some the fees are concealed on the fares.  In LAN’s case, they truly have no booking fee for online purchases.

Additionally, LAN seems to always have some type of special offer on their website.  This month we see a promo for a 3rd bag for free from the U.S. to South America.  That is a actually a very valuable promotion for the right traveler.  Some airlines charge upwards of USD 150.00 for a third bag.

SOURCE: LAN.com

Priceline.com Launches New, Enhanced Hotel Reservation Service

New hotel guest satisfaction scorecards highlight enhancements

Priceline.com announced today the launch of its new, enhanced hotel reservation service that makes it easier than ever before to find the best hotels and the best deals. The service provides a streamlined yet powerful shopping experience that provides comprehensive hotel information, multiple search options and priceline.com’s unique hotel guest scorecard/review program for hotels.

Key features of priceline.com’s new hotel reservation service include:

• New, comprehensive guest scorecards for hotels. Most hotels now feature a detailed guest scorecard. The scorecard ranks the hotel’s popularity among Priceline hotel guests and shows when a hotel is ranked among the top-rated hotels for a specific city. Also, each hotel receives a guest satisfaction score in 5 different satisfaction categories - overall quality, cleanliness, staff, location and dining. Unlike other hotel review services that allow anyone to post a review, the priceline.com scorecards are based on surveys that priceline.com hotel guests receive after they’ve completed their stay.
• Enhanced guest hotel reviews and exclusive Zagat reviews and ratings. Now, guest hotel reviews can be sorted and grouped according to 7 different traveler types - solo travelers, groups, seniors, couples, families with teens, families with young children and business travelers. This gives potential hotel guests the ability to search their hotels through the eyes and experiences of like-minded travelers. Priceline.com also offers exclusive hotel and restaurant ratings and reviews from Zagat Survey, LLC.
• Similar hotels. We’ve made narrowing your hotel choices more convenient and quicker. Now, for each hotel, priceline.com also suggests similar popular hotels you might want to consider. This allows hotel shoppers to compare hotels and choose the one that’s right for them.
• Expanded Winning Bids feature. Priceline.com’s successful Winning Bids feature just got a lot bigger and has been expanded to include hundreds of cities around the world. As visitors are shopping hotels on priceline.com, they’ll see examples of recent winning bids from Name Your Own Price® hotel guests for specific star-levels across various neighborhoods in that city. Shoppers can find the best published price hotel, or they can bid up to half-off for a room through priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price hotel service.
• 3 different ways to sort and view hotel listings.Map View. “Virtual pushpins” identify the location of hotels, along with road grids, landmarks and other geographic features. The scrollable, zoom-able map is powered by Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.

1. Map View. “Virtual pushpins” identify the location of hotels, along with road grids, landmarks and other geographic features. The scrollable, zoom-able map is powered by Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.
2. Matrix View. This popular snapshot view lets travelers quickly see what star levels are in different parts of a city and what the different price points are for each star level. One click lets travelers drill down to the full list of available hotels for an area.
3. List View. Travelers can sort hotels in a destination by most popular among priceline.com customers, lowest price and star rating. They also can find a hotel by specific name or find hotels that are close to various landmarks.

• More hotels. With the challenging economy, more and more hotels have decided to offer their rooms through priceline.com. Priceline.com also has given its hotel guests access to tens of thousands of international hotel offerings from its international hotel reservation service, Booking.com. When you add them all up, priceline.com now gives its hotel guests more than 75,000 hotels to choose from, including over 37,000 in Europe and Asia.
• Virtual hotel tours. Many priceline.com hotels now offer visual 360-degree “virtual tours” of their lobbies, public areas, rooms, spas, pool areas and more. In addition, listings feature amenities summaries and descriptions, photos, maps and guides to nearby restaurants and attractions.
• Faster checkout. Priceline.com’s hotel reservation process has been compressed. Type in your room choice and dates and you’ll be taken to a shortened checkout screen that completes your reservation in minutes.
• Name Your Own Price® hotel reservation service. Priceline.com’s hotel reservation service wouldn’t be complete without its famous Name Your Own Price® hotel service that lets customers save up to 50% compared to published rates found online. With priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price hotel reservation service, customers receive their specific hotel information after their reservation is completed.

“Priceline.com’s new hotel reservation service enhances our ability to deliver the best hotels and the best deals to our customers,” said priceline.com’s Senior Vice President, Hotels, Tim Gordon. “We have more hotels than ever before. We have more information than ever before. We have a faster, easier reservation process than ever before. What hasn’t changed are the outstanding deals customers will find through our specially negotiated rates, reduced hotel booking fees, no change/cancel fees and, of course, our famous Name Your Own Price® savings.”

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 28 languages in over 78 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Included in the priceline.com family of companies is Booking.com, a leading international online hotel reservation service, priceline.com, a leading U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers, and Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service. Priceline.com believes that Booking.com is Europe’s largest and fastest growing hotel reservation service, with a network of affiliated Web sites. Booking.com operates in over 70 countries in 22 languages and offers its customers access to over 66,000 participating hotels worldwide.

In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises than any other Internet travel service. In addition to getting great published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using priceline.com’s TripFilter advanced search technology, customize their search activity through priceline.com’s Inside Track features, create packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com’s famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available.

Priceline.com also operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com also has a personal finance service that offers home mortgages, refinancing and home equity loans through an independent licensee. Priceline.com licenses its business model to independent licensees, including priceline mortgage and certain interna

Source: Priceline.com Incorporated

THRIFTY.com Hits the Road with Upgrade, New Features

Thrifty Car Rental, a subsidiary of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc., today took the wraps off its recently retooled Web site, THRIFTY.com. The streamlined THRIFTY.com debuts with new features that will greatly enhance consumers’ driving experience on the site, including:

• Improved “Cars” display: the “Our Cars” section has been greatly enhanced, providing Flash images of vehicles and a 360-degree view (domestic vehicles only). Customers can select from exterior or interior views, and are presented with a comprehensive list of car features along with passenger and luggage capacity and fuel efficiency ratings.
• Predictive-text location search: with minimal typing (as little as three characters), consumers will be more than happy to let THRIFTY.com do the driving as it offers up suggestions for city/locations. Consumers will be well on their way to booking a completed reservation in no time.
• Improved “Specials” section: visit the “Deals” page and sort promotional offers by specific location. Special offers are sorted by domestic or international, and those that are in conjunction with Thrifty’s airline, hotel and other partners.
• “Location” section upgraded: once the location is selected, consumers have the ability to view all nearby locations, along with interactive maps for each specific location.
• Refined look-and-feel, resulting in a streamlined reservation process that will speed consumers through the process faster than ever before, offering improved look-and-feel to streamline the reservation process; and
• Real-time rate calculation: the site displays price changes as rental options like child safety seats and GPS are added to the reservation.

“The new THRIFTY.com is built for speed and offers a customer experience that is second to none,” said Charlie Coniglio, Vice President, Marketing and eCommerce. “Our goal is to provide consumers with as much information up front as possible so they can make the best car rental decision. At the same time, we have optimized the experience and cut out the clutter. We think visitors to THRIFTY.com will be very pleased, particularly with the great rates and variety of vehicles.”

About Thrifty Car Rental 

Thrifty Car Rental is a subsidiary of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc., a Fortune 1000 Company headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Together with its corporately-owned locations and those of its franchise owners, the Thrifty Car Rental brand serves value-conscious travelers from 1,042 locations in 74 countries. For more information, visit www.thrifty.com or www.dtag.com.