Kayak.com
is a new kind of web site. It is a travel search
engine. We help you find travel products, and you buy them from other
people. Thus our tagline: "Search with us, book with them."™
Kayak.com
is very much like the Yellow Pages. When you need a
plumber, you look in the yellow pages, it shows all the plumbers, and
you call some of them. When you need a plane ticket, you look at
Kayak.com, we show you a lot of different plane tickets from different
plane ticket stores. Then you go to those stores and buy them.
OK,
so Kayak.com isn't really exactly like the yellow pages.
It's not yellow. And you can be a lot more specific with Kayak.com:
we ask you when (and even where) you want to take a plane ride before
we show you the stuff from the different plane ticket stores. Try
telling the yellow pages you only want to see listings for plumbers
that can fix your sink next Tuesday.
We also can do the all the same
searchy stuff with "hotel rooms"
and "rental cars." Those products are also useful when you travel, so
it is handy to be able to shop around for them.
Kayak.com
is not a travel agent. Web sites like Expedia, Orbitz and
Travelocity are all travel agents. They are plane ticket stores: you
give them money and they give you plane tickets. You don't give any
money to Kayak.com (just like you don't give any money to the Yellow
Pages.)
We're
not saying travel agents are bad. Depending on your needs,
buying from a travel agent might be a very good idea. Kayak.com even
searches travel agent web sites. But if you search the world of travel
with Kayak.com before you buy, you'll be much better informed about
your purchase. And that's the real reason why using Kayak.com is a
good idea: you'll know a lot more, a lot faster than you would
if you had to manually search dozens (or hundreds!) of web sites.
So, search with Kayak.com, get
up-to-date on what prices and
options are available to you. Then go where ever you want and buy.
We try to make it easy, by directly linking to hundreds of hotel
and airline websites. If
your favorite travel site is not linked in to Kayak.com, suggest it to
them. After all, you are the customer.
Kayak.com
Recognized as Best New Travel Web Site
Site
Receives Awards from New York Post, BusinessWeek Online and U.S. News
& World Report
NORWALK, Conn., Jan. 12
/PRNewswire/ --
Kayak.com, the comprehensive travel search engine, kicks off the New
Year by today announcing that a number of leading media outlets,
including the New York Post, BusinessWeek Online and U.S. News &
World Report, have recognized Kayak.com as one of the Best Travel Web
Sites of 2005.
On December 27, 2005, the
New York Post ran its annual Web Guide of
the top travel Web sites and selected Kayak.com as the "Best New Web
Site" with the following review:
"First there were Expedia
and Travelocity. Then there was Orbitz.
Now, a team that had its fingers in all three is giving the world of
discount travel a sound thrashing with the development of this 11-month
old meta-search engine ... It doesn't book your travel -- it just leads
to the sites where you can. It's also possible to look for air, hotel
and car rental deals. Each search utilizes more than 100 sites ... Viva
la revolucion!"
Editors of U.S. News &
World Report recognized Kayak.com in the
December 5 "Best of the Web" issue noting that the site outperformed
other travel search engines in a series of tests, "In the end, we
preferred Kayak. Its results page allows travelers to find exactly the
flight they want. And best of all, the prices on Kayak were typically
$5 or $6 cheaper ... because it doesn't pass booking fees on to you."
Editors of BusinessWeek
Online also named Kayak.com as one of the
three top travel Web sites in their September 25 "Best of the Web"
survey.
Kayak.com was also recently
recognized by Flavorpill, a publisher of
email magazines about culture and lifestyle in major urban areas, which
awarded Kayak.com a spot on its coveted list of "Up-and-Comers."
Flavorpill applauded Kayak Buzz for its unique and industry leading
destination map features by stating, "There are loads of services that
track down cheap airfares, but this is the only one we've seen so far
that mashes it up with Google maps. Drop in your departure city, the
region you're traveling to, and even a theme (skiing, golf, or gambling
of course) then map it all out."
Kayak.com also topped the
charts on two other distinguished awards
in 2005, including Laptop Magazine's Editor's Choice Award (August) and
MasterCard's Usability Excellence Awards (August).
About Kayak.com
Created by co-founders of
Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, Kayak.com
helps consumers make informed decisions in their travel planning. The
site, which launched February 7, 2005, offers a comprehensive search
engine that scours over 100 online travel sites for prices and
information. Kayak.com displays more choices of available
itinerary/price combinations than any other travel site, and is the
first to integrate consumer reviews and ratings and other relevant
travel information with real-time prices and availability. Kayak.com's
investors include Sequoia Capital, America Online, Inc. and General
Catalyst Partners
Kayak.com
Becomes First Meta-Search Site to Launch Fare Watch
& Instant Messenger Functionality
Leading Search Site Also Debuts New Logo and Other Site Upgrades
NORWALK, Ct., Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing to push the travel search envelope by developing the latest technology and convenience for consumers, Kayak.com, the comprehensive travel search site, today introduced Fare Watch and KayakBot. Kayak.com's Fare Watch allows users to track an unlimited number of trip itineraries and receive email notification when the fare meets or beats a traveler's specified price. KayakBot provides travelers with flight, hotel, rental car and flight status search capabilities from the convenience of AOL Instant Messenger. "Consumers with flexible travel plans or tight budgets can now benefit from our new Fare Watch service," said Steve Hafner, Kayak.com CEO and co-founder. "Like Google News Alerts, Fare Watch contacts a user only when the Kayak.com search engine finds a trip that exactly matches the consumer's specifications. And like everything else on Kayak.com, it's free to use." Consumers can register for Kayak.com's Fare Watch by choosing "Best fares by email: specific city" on the Kayak homepage, or by clicking on "watch this fare" at the top of the flight results page. Users can then specify departure airport/city, destination airport/city, travel month, maximum price and frequency (daily or weekly). Users that specify a particular travel month will receive an alert when the fare meets or beats the price for that month. If the consumer does not specify a travel month, an alert will be emailed as soon as the fare meets or beats the maximum price for any month.
KayakBot KayakBot is an innovative fare search feature that lets travelers search prices and availability for air, hotel, rental cars and flight status directly from their AOL Instant Messenger and without the inconvenience of launching an Internet browser screen. As with other bots, KayakBot responds to simple commands, "fly", "room", "status", airport codes and numerical dates. Interested in a trip to San Francisco from Boston? Simply type "fly bos 2/20 to sfo 2/28" in your AIM window to execute a Kayak.com search for flights from Boston to San Francisco on February 20, returning February 28. "Instant Messaging has become a part of any Internet user's daily routine for everything from communicating with colleagues to checking a stock price, but until now, that didn't include the ability to easily search for travel," said Paul English, CTO and co-founder of Kayak.com. "KayakBot is the latest of many recent innovative features that Kayak.com has introduced to make travel search a convenient and interactive experience for online travelers." Users can download the KayakBot from http://www.kayak.com and/or simply add it to their AIM Buddy List by selecting "Add a Buddy" and typing in "KayakBot."
The following additional Kayak.com enhancements are launching on January 26:
-- Kayak Buzz Alert subscribers can now add travel month to their personalized Kayak Buzz Alerts. Launched earlier this month, Buzz Alerts are free, personalized email notifications of low fares found by other Kayak.com users. Consumers personalize alerts by specifying departure airport or city, region, theme, maximum price, month of travel and frequency of emails.
-- Kayak.com moved RSS or (Really Simple Syndication) functionality from the developer's section to the homepage. Kayak.com's RSS feeds will update savvy Internet users on Kayak Buzz, Kayak Deals and new postings from Kayak.com's favorite travel blogs.
-- Kayak.com introduced a new logo to herald the evolution of the site to meta-search 2.0.
About Kayak.com Created by co-founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, Kayak.com is a comparison-shopping Web site that helps consumers make informed decisions in their travel planning. The site, which launched February 7, 2005, offers a comprehensive search engine that scours over 100 travel sites, providing prices and itineraries for hundreds of airlines, more than 103,000 hotels and all leading rental car companies. Kayak.com is the first to integrate consumer and professional reviews and other relevant travel information with real-time prices and availability. Kayak.com's investors include Sequoia Capital, America Online, Inc. and General Catalyst Partners.
