The company will use reservation- booking partners and is launching the feature through the Travelocity Partner Network. Travelocity will process the transactions and provide customer service.

“This option adds to the existing selection of booking choices available through Kayak today, including booking directly with hotel providers and through online travel agencies,” the company said in a blog post.

“We’re committed to continue offering people choices where to book, but we know some people would prefer to complete their purchases without leaving Kayak.”

Bing said the partnership with KAYAK will allow it to provide a more comprehensive travel search experience.

In the coming weeks KAYAK will provide Bing with flight search results from multiple cities, airports and airlines. Going forward, Bing will have access to all of KAYAK’s travel search services globally.

Here’s how Bing describes the partnership: “Bing Travel is getting more powerful and comprehensive when it comes to helping customers plan and book travel.”

“When combined with Bing’s own tools and technologies such as Price Predictor, rate indicator, flexible search tools and Flight Answers, we are really doubling down on giving customers the tools to make faster, more informed travel decisions,” said Krista Pappas, Global Travel Industry Director at Bing.

"By introducing Kayak’s best-in-class flight search engine, Yapta members now have greater access to flight data and are able to track prices for virtually any flight in the world," said Tom Romary, president and CEO of Yapta.

"Tracking airfare prices prior to purchase will help travelers save money 45 percent of the time. And those travelers that continue to track the price of their flight after purchase will find that they’re eligible for an airline refund about 15 percent of the time. By combining Yapta’s price tracking capability with Kayak’s flight search, we’re looking to help even more travelers save on their airfare — before and after they book."

Kayak said it plans to eventually pair Yapta’s airfare tracking service with the search results on some of its websites.

Yapta said it has tracked pricing on more than 3 million flights and has provided more than $300 million in savings for its members.
 

TripAdvisor says its search engine provides more flight choices in its search results along with direct booking links to major travel companies including Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire, and nearly every U.S. airline.

"TripAdvisor is the most popular travel community today because we’ve always believed that travelers are smart-they just need honest, unbiased information in order to make the right decisions for themselves," said Steve Kaufer, CEO of TripAdvisor.

"We’ve provided this model for years for hotels, attractions and restaurants-now it’s time to bring this same philosophy to revolutionize flight search."

TripAdvisors entry into the meta-search category puts it in competition with Microsoft’s Farecast, Yahoo’s FareChase and Kayak.com.

Hoping to set itself apart from the rest of the pack TripAdvisor has introduced a Fees Estimator tool. By clicking on the Fees Estimator button travelers will be able to view the true cost of  a domestic flight, providing details on ticket prices, fees for checked luggage and any other fees.

"It’s easy to rack up hundreds of dollars in extra charges for a single trip. said Bryan Saltzburg, general manager of new initiatives at TripAdvisor and head of the new flight search engine.

"TripAdvisor’s Fees Estimator reveals the differences during the planning process, so there are no surprises at check-in."

FareChase is now front and (sort of) center on the main Yahoo Travel page; it was previously relegated to one small tab at the top.  This is all fine and well.

What’s a little embarrassing is that Kayak took over SideStep before Christmas, and it’s to this incident that Yahoo seems to be responding.

We can live with a turnaround of less than a month.  What’s really bad is what Yen Lee, who broke this story, notes: Yahoo acquired FareChase in 2004.  Small wonder the company is often trailing in comparisons.

This may nonetheless win over a number of new customers, however, since even at the time of the Kayak-SideStep deal, FareChase was being mentioned as a serious competitor.

Meanwhile, Sramana Mitra has identified travel search as a serious soft spot in Google’s lineup.  So we’ll direct a hat tip to Greg Sterling, wait and watch, and while we’re at it, wish you a good weekend.