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American Airlines Turns To Hotel Bookings
June 25, 2008
In what may be a last-ditch effort to survive, in addition to reducing flights/routes and implementing fees for checked luggage, American Airlines is now turning to hotel bookings as a revenue opportunity.
My interpretation of this news? When your core business is failing, do whatever you can to diversify your revenue streams. I'm not sure what makes the airline think it can compete with hotel or hotel brand Web sites, the OTAs or sites like TripAdvisor, but hey, do what you've got to do, I guess...
So American is "adding thousands of additional hotel properties to AA.com," enhancing the site with virtual tours, traveler ratings, area maps and more property photos, and offering a new price-match guarantee as well as a no cancellation or change fee policy on hotel bookings. Wow, really innovative stuff there.
But hey, here's a way to differentiate: American also is offering 250 AAdvantage miles for each booking made via the AA.com hotel site. With that bonus, it'll only take me 100 hotel bookings to earn a restricted free ticket that I'll have all kinds of trouble actually using--what a deal!
Posted by Derek Gale on June 25, 2008 | Comments (0)