Priceline will buy meta-search engine Kayak.com for $1.8 billion. Readers of Loyalty Traveler may know I am a frequent user of kayak.com. Both sites rank in the Top 10 travel sites in the USA.

Priceline makes most of its money from hotel bookings. Kayak makes 80% of its revenue from flight search referrals according to the Financial Times.

It should be interesting to see how the Priceline/Kayak partnership takes on the Expedia online travel network.

Priceline.com is the biggest competitor to Expedia.com who owns TripAdvisor.com, hotels.com and hotwire.com.

Then there is Google who owns itasoftware.com.

The online travel market is consolidating into technology empires.

TopTenReviews has an informative article 2013 Online Travel Sites Comparison with reviews of leading online travel sites and a highly detailed chart of their features.

Hotels.com offers a coupon for 10% off a hotel booking made by November 22, 2012; valid for the first 40,000 participants.

The coupon is not valid for reservations at most major hotel chains.  Looking over the extensive list of excluded hotel brands I noticed Choice Hotels’ brands and Best Western are not listed in the excluded brands. All the other major hotel chain brands appear to be excluded.

Remember though that no hotel loyalty points are offered for bookings made through online travel agencies and the coupon also makes the stay ineligible for Hotels.com Welcome Rewards credit.

Use promotion code OctoberUS10 by November 22, 2012 for travel through April 30, 2013.

Hotels.com 10% off coupon T&C

Discount Coupon Property Exclusions and Basic Terms

1. Coupon is valid for a new hotel booking of a participating pre-paid Price Match Guarantee hotel. Package bookings, bookings made through a group travel service or bookings paid directly at the hotel are not eligible.
2. Participating hotels are subject to change.
3. Only one coupon per booking may be used and the coupon cannot be combined with other offers. Usual booking terms and conditions apply and all bookings are subject to availability.
4. Coupons may be transferred, but are not valid if sold.
5. All taxes, fees, charges, and surcharges are applicable to reservations made using coupons. These charges must be paid at the time of the reservation and are the responsibility of the customer.
6. Coupons have no cash or refund value except when redeemed in accordance with all terms and conditions of this offer. Coupons cannot be returned for cash or its equivalent. Coupons cannot be applied to the cost of prepaid reservations or other miscellaneous charges.
7. Single-use coupons will be deemed fully used once a qualifying reservation has been made and will not be returned or replaced and there will be no refund if a Coupon is redeemed in part. Multiple-use coupons will be deemed fully used in accordance with the restrictions set out in the individual coupon terms and conditions.
8. Hotel bookings made using a Coupon are not eligible for welcomerewards™ credits (where available).
9. Other restrictions, such as maximum redemption, booking dates, travel dates, will apply.

Welcome Rewards is the 4-year old hotel loyalty program for Hotels.com booking site, an Expedia affiliate company. The loyalty program is very simple. Book through Hotels.com and after you stay 10 nights at any partner hotels. you earn one free night credit at any partner hotel. The program is a 10% rebate program for every hotel stay that you can redeem after 10 hotel nights booked through hotels.com as a Welcome Rewards member.

The value of hotels.com is you earn hotel stay credit regardless of the hotel chain. Stay 2 nights at Hilton, 3 nights at Marriott, 2 nights at independent hotels, 2 nights at Starwood and 1 night at Best Western and you earn a free night credit. Your paid nights carry over from year to year so you earn a free night credit even if it takes 30 months to reach 10 nights.

The value of the Welcome Rewards free night is the average rate of the 10 paid nights.  If your room rate for 10 nights is $1,300, then your free night room credit is $130. You can even stay at a more expensive hotel than $130 using your free night credit and pay the difference for the higher rate room.

What are the disadvantages of Hotels.com Welcome Rewards? Read More…

This two bonus nights promotion is only for new U.S. members to the Hotels.com WelcomeRewards hotel loyalty program. The basic deal with Hotels.com WelcomeRewards is a free night after every 10 nights at any of 65,000 hotels booked through Hotels.com. This Challenge promotion gives an extra free night bonus  after 15 nights and 30 nights completed by October 1, 2011.  Bonus free nights have a $150 value.

Hotels.com WelcomeRewards Challenge  promotion link.

WelcomeRewards free night is normally the average rate paid from the 10 nights you purchased at Hotels.com. This WelcomeRewards Challenge has the feature of offering a bonus night after 15 nights and 30 nights worth $150 in Hotels.com credit. This gives a promotion leverage potential for anyone paying under $150 night average rates.

One of WelcomeRewards terms appears to allow only one free night per hotel booking.

“Limit one (1) reward night per booking. If you have accumulated more than one reward night, you may choose which reward night to apply to a particular booking.”

WelcomeRewards Terms & Conditions

WelcomeRewards Example: $100 per night average room rate

• Assume you pay an average $100 per night at Hotels.com.
• After completing 10 purchased nights you earn a $100 credit for another hotel night at Hotels.com.
• After 15 nights earn another $150 credit with WelcomeRewards Challenge.
• Pay $1,500 for 15 hotel room nights and get $250 in hotel credit = 16.7% rebate.
• Pay $3,000 for 30 hotel room nights and get $600 in hotel credit = 20% rebate.
• After 30 nights by October 1, 2011 you will be able to book two future hotel nights with $150 per night credit and three hotel nights with a $100 per night credit
• You can always book a more expensive room at Hotels.com for your free night and pay the rate difference of your credit and the hotel room rate.

WelcomeRewards Example: $50 per night average room rate

• Assume you pay an average $50 per night at Hotels.com.
• After completing 10 purchased nights you earn a $50 credit for another hotel night at Hotels.com.
• After 15 nights earn another $150 credit with WelcomeRewards Challenge.
• Pay $750 for 15 hotel room nights and get $200 in hotel credit = 26.7% rebate.
• Pay $1,500 for 30 hotel room nights and get $450 in hotel credit = 30% rebate.
• After 30 nights you can book two future hotel nights with $150 per night credit and three hotel nights with a $50 per night credit.
• You can always book a more expensive room at Hotels.com for your free night and pay the rate difference of your credit and the hotel room rate.

welcomerewards® Refer-a-Friend Email Program

There is a referral program to give a free night to a WelcomeRewards member referrer for any member referee who signs up for the challenge and stays 15 nights. If this Challenge looks like something of interest to you -please consider using my email, ricgarrido@loyaltytraveler.com as referrer.

I’ll check back in a year and see if I have any free night credits.

Or pick a spouse, relative or friend to earn more free nights by using the referrer-referee opportunity.  

WelcomeRewards Challenge Quiz

There is a sweepstakes quiz portion to the challenge for current members of WelcomeRewards. Answer three simple questions about Hotels.com and WelcomeRewards and be entered to win a Flip Ultra Camcorder. You can enter once per day through December 31.

WelcomeRewards Challenge Quiz rules.

Hotels.com advantage over traditional hotel loyalty programs

65,000 hotels are a competitive advantage for Hotels.com. Wyndham Rewards, Choice Hotels, and InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) are the three largest hotel chains globally.

Wyndham has 13 brands with over 7,000 hotels and continues to acquire new hotel brands every year.

Choice Hotels has 11 hotel brands and more than 6,000 hotels globally.

Wyndham Rewards and Choice Privileges provide hotel loyalty programs for hotels priced in the economy hotel market segment. These tend to be more Mom & Pop type owned and managed hotels.

IHG has around 4,500 hotel properties, most famously Holiday Inn brands, and IHG is the largest hotel chain globally by number of rooms.

Hotels.com Welcome Rewards has the advantage of many hotel choices across all hotel chains. There is a rebate potential in the 20% to 30% range if you use this promotion on inexpensive hotel nights through the WelcomeRewards loyalty program.

WelcomeRewards is a good rebate opportunity when staying at hotels that are not otherwise in a hotel loyalty program like Priority Club, Wyndham Rewards, Choice Privileges and such. You will generally get a better rebate value, potentially in excess of 30% by taking advantage of hotel loyalty program promotions from the major hotel chains.

Hotel.com WelcomeRewards Challenge for new U.S. members

“Consumers should remember that hotel affordability across the world has not been this good since 2004.” – David Roche, President Hotels.com 

Hotels.com Hotel Price Index is a good report for the frequent guest to gauge global hotel prices and price changes over the past year. There are many tables and graphs for the reader accompanied with some insightful commentary that coincides with industry forecasts from other sources I’ve read this summer.

The survey provides travel destination indicators like Bali, Indonesia. Hotel prices have gone through the roof year-over-year – up 57% from $129 per night 2009-Q2 to $203 per night 2010-Q2 in the wake of ”Eat, Pray, Love” fascination with this location. A flood of tourism dollars is a good sort of tsunami for the region, but rapidly inflated prices steer me to better value locations for my travels.

Bargain destinations like Ireland and Portugal may be the better choice for a budget vacation.  Eastern Europe is giving out great value for travel dollars.

The Hotel Price Index preface notes by David Roche, President of Hotels.com, indicate hotel room rates have shown a global rise, about 2% year-over-year for the first time since 2007.  

Asia is recovering most rapidly. Singapore and Bali aid that growth.

Much of North America, Europe and the Middle East are sitting at hotel rates common to 2004. David Roche points to corporate travel picking up more in North America than in Europe in 2010.

And staycations seem here to stay. Recession travel. There are tables showing the average room rates for the 50 states and major cities.

Hotels.com Hotel Price Index survey

1. Global price changes in the first half of 2010
   Overall
   By region
2. Price changes in global destinations
   Prices across the world’s top cities
   Most expensive destinations
   Highest price rises and falls
3. U.S. hotel prices by state
4. U.S. hotel prices by city
5. Caribbean and Latin American destinations
6. European city destinations
7. Prices paid at home and away
8. Where to go for $150 or $100 per night
9. Average room prices by star rating
10. Luxury for less
11. Travel habits
    Top U.S. destinations for U.S. travelers
    Top overseas destinations for U.S. travelers
    Top U.S. destinations for travelers from overseas

I particularly like the sections “Where to Go for $150 and $100 per night” and “Average room prices by star rating”. Cities where I can expect to find a 4-star hotel for $150 per night is the kind of information I find valuable for travel planning.

“Average Room Prices by Star Rating” table shows a European vacation can be upscale and significantly cheaper if you stay in hotels in countries like Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria and Germany. 4-star hotels may be half the rate in cities around these countries compared to Paris, Rome and London.

I look most closely at the spread between the 3-star, 4-star and 5-star room rates. In Europe I particularly prefer the 4-star rating due to several experiences in unacceptable 3-star hotels. I am looking for a place where there is a low spread in room rates between 4-star and 3-star hotels and a high spread between 4-star and 5-star.  A place like Amsterdam shows a 4-star hotel is on average $36 more than a 3-star hotel. The rate difference is a high $72 to move up to 5-star room rates. This is a good example of a city where the step up to 4-star is half the cost compared to the step up from 4-star to 5-star rates.

15 cities with the best 5-star value is another great table for cities where a luxury hotel is still available for under $200 per night. Las Vegas is the only cheap hotel destination in the USA.

New York City just blows my mind with its room rates. $150 per night doesn’t even buy a 2-star hotel room. $300 is the average room rate for a 4-star hotel. When I wrote about the InterContinental Hotel New York Times Square yesterday all I could think is how I could save $500 to $600 per night on this luxury hotel by using 40,000 points. Loyalty points are a great investment travel plan if you have need for NYC hotel rooms and you are paying your own bill.

There are several Starwood resorts in Portugal on my bucket list and  I see Cash & Points awards at 4,000 points + $60 for a hotel like the Convento de Espinheiro, Evora. Provided the right SPG promotion I might even go for 149€ per night. My frequent flyer accounts call to me – redeem.

All good stories come to an end, and sequels rarely match the original offer. Hotels.com launched WelcomeRewards in July 2008 with a simple proposition: Book and stay at any Hotels.com property partner with a Price Match Guarantee sticker and a base rate of at least $40 and the member earns a free night for any hotel up to $400 value after accumulating 10 nights within 18 months. Qualifying hotel night credits expire after 18 months.

My initial review of the Hotels.com WelcomeRewards program launched July 10, 2008 was highly favorable.

“WelcomeRewards is the first loyalty program I have seen to emerge from the online travel agencies that holds significant value comparable to the corporate chain frequent guest programs like Marriott Rewards, Hilton HHonors, and Starwood Preferred Guest.  I look forward to seeing how the hotels.com program evolves.” – Loyalty Traveler, July 25, 2008

The potential to leverage 10 cheap hotel nights into a luxury hotel night worth $400 is definitely a great deal for some travelers. A $40 night here and a $60 night there over the course of 18 months had potential for a high value rebate on your total Hotels.com hotel spending.

Here are the program details highlighting the major features of WelcomeRewards and changes.

Welcome Rewards Program Current Rules for Bookings made before March 9, 2010

1.       You receive one loyalty credit for each qualifying night’s stay booked on Hotels.com at a Price Match Guarantee property priced at $40 or more before taxes and fees.

2.       Bookings must be made on US hotels.com site.

3.       Package bookings and bookings using a coupon do not qualify.

4.       Hotel credits expire after 18 months.

5.       Maximum of 10 free nights (100 WelcomeRewards credits) can be earned in a calendar year.

6.       Maximum value of free night is $400 before taxes and fees and must be a Price Match Guarantee hotels.com partner property.

WelcomeRewards Changes Effective March 9, 2010

1.       Any loyalty credit earned before March 9, 2010 will be subject to new rules.

2.       The minimum room rate for earning loyalty credits is removed, but must be more than $0.00.

3.       Hotel credits expire after 36 months.

4.       Any loyalty credits earned before March 9, 2010 which have not yet expired will receive a new expiration date of March 8, 2013.

5.       There is no limit on free nights earned in a calendar year.

6.       The value of the free night will be valued at the average daily rate paid for the 10 qualifying nights.

7.       The reward night can be used for a higher priced room than your WelcomeRewards credit value, but member must pay the room rate difference.

Sources: Hotels.com WelcomeRewards webpage on March 9, 2010 program changes

Hotels.com Terms & Conditions for WelcomeRewards

In effect, WelcomeRewards has removed the leverage factor whereby a member could get great reward value from low priced hotel stays. Currently a person can stay 10 nights in a $40 per night room and then redeem the credits for a $400 per night hotel. Spending $400 and receiving a $400 credit was the potential leverage factor that made WelcomeRewards a viable alternative to hotel loyalty programs for the frequent traveler desiring flexibility in hotel choice.

Next month the rule changes mean the $40 per night average rate paid by a hotel.com guest will only earn a $40 hotel value credit after 10 nights.

And you thought the Hilton HHonors changes were bad!

Here is a positive note in the 2010 hotel loyalty program scene. Carlson Hotels GoldPoints Plus program has eliminated FlexNights Premium award levels for free nights. The program also lowered the cost for a free night at nearly 30% of their 1,000+ hotels.  

Loyalty Traveler will take a closer look at the GoldPoints Plus program later this week. In this tough hotel economic climate there are programs making consumer-oriented changes and there are programs repositioning their value through loyalty member takeaways.

Thanks to Jeff B. for bringing the WelcomeRewards changes to my attention.

San Francisco seems like a good place to hang out for St. Patrick’s Day. There are quite a number of Irish pubs in the City.

Tuesday night hotel rates in San Francisco can be astronomical at any time of year.  Find yourself in town on a convention night and the upper upscale hotel room is going for $350+ per night. Hit a quiet weekend night or holiday and rates can plummet to $90 for a four star and $120 for a five star hotel and all its associated loyalty program benefits.

Starwood Hotel Rates

San Francisco,

Tuesday night March 17, 2009 (St. Patrick’s Day)

Fisherman’s Wharf is the best rate, but a Union Square/Market Street hotel is going to be more conducive to a pub crawl.

San Francisco has a 14% hotel room tax and at $189 for Westin Market, the one night hotel rate is going to cash out at $216 for a night. I want a better priced option than that.

Kayak.com Comparison for Hotel Rates

A quick survey of Kayak.com rates showed discrepancies between Westin Market Street displayed for $129 at Hotels.com and The Palace Hotel at $119 at HotelClub.net.

I tested the Palace Hotel with HotelClub.net and the system kicked me out near the end of the booking process. When I restarted my search the room rate for the Palace Hotel increased to $249. I also tried other sites still showing a $119 rate for the Palace Hotel and all searches resulted in a rate change with the third party online travel agency to the rate shown on Starwood Hotels sites.

I tried the Westin Market Street through Hotels.com and the rate actually came up even lower at $109 for a Traditional room and the rate was bookable. Even better, an added value certificate for $50 on a future two night Hotels.com booking would accompany the $109 room rate.

I rechecked the Starwood site and the lowest priced room for the Westin Market Street was $169 and called a Grand Deluxe. The Starwood Hotels internet rate had dropped $20 on the room between 6:11pm and 6:53pm.

The Palace Hotel had also dropped in price during the hour, from $249 to $211.

I filed a Best Rate Guarantee claim for the Westin Market Street citing the $109 rate at 6:57pm, March 12, 2009.

Westin Market Street Hotel, San Francisco

The Day After

I checked my email this morning and there was nothing from Starwood Hotels Best Rate Guarantee.

I checked SPG.com for St. Patrick’s Day hotel rates in San Francisco. The Westin Market Street was still listed at $169 for a Grand Deluxe room at 8:00am, March 13.

I saw another opportunity for a BRG claim at the Le Meridien San Francisco for this weekend at $119 on Hotels.com compared to $139 at Starwood Hotels sites.

I checked a few times today looking for the Starwood BRG email, but nothing came.

5:40pm March 13, 2009; Starwood Hotels response came 22 hours, 43 minutes after filing my BRG claim for the San Francisco Westin Market Street. My claim was approved. The Starwood rate is $233.75 and if I book a room at that rate within 24 hours, then my rate will be adjusted to $109 and I will also receive 2,000 Starpoints (a $70 value) for a successful BRG claim.

The $233.75 rate puzzled me so I went to SPG.com and searched rates.  The Westin Market Street rate was displayed as $289. When I selected the hotel rate , the rate dropped to $159 for a Premier room. Premier is a higher category room for $30 less than last night’s initial search showing a Grand Deluxe San Francisco hotel room on the Starwood sites for $189.

The fundamental question I considered these past 24 hours was whether a hotel chain, not Starwood per se, but in general,  ‘Could a hotel skirt the best rate guarantee by just altering inventory to move cheap rooms through third party sites?’ 

A hotel chain could maintain higher category rooms at higher prices on its own sites at times for the guest who doesn’t search around to get better rates or from loyal customers who may not go elsewhere to compare rates.  Best rate guarantees that do go through could technically be voided because the room types are not the same when a lower category room is on a third party site and that room is not bookable online at the hotel chain’s own site.

The point was moot anyhow since Starwood Hotels honored my Best Rate Guarantee claim for $109, a rate $60 less than the $169 Starwood rate for the Westin Market Street, San Francisco, despite the room types being different between the Starwood Hotels and Hotels.com sites.

Hotels.com showed the rate at $229 for March 17, 2009 when I checked just after I received the email of my successful Best Rate Guarantee claim.

TripAdvisor.com is growing at an incredible rate.  I primarily use the site for hotel reviews.  There are also travel forums for discussion, restaurant reviews and recommendations, and destination guides.

In July when I was “mile-high” in Denver I wrote a post, Online Hotel Reviews, comparing TripAdvisor.com to other hotel review sites and its dominance for online hotel reviews.  Looking at the post again today I noticed it was littered with inaccurate assumptions which led to incorrect mathematical analysis of the data.  I had made the assumption that the 1% of site visitors making consumer-generated comments were all hotel reviews when they actually include all types of comments from bulletin board forums to restaurant and sight-seeing recommendations.  I’ll blame my inaccurate analysis on oxygen-deprivation for this California coastal kid writing on the high plains of Colorado.    

The main point I made then and now is TripAdvisor.com is way ahead of the pack for sheer numbers of consumer-generated online hotel reviews. 

TripAdvisor’s media network includes www.Airfarewatchdog.com,  www.BookingBuddy.com,  www.CruiseCritic.com, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.theindependenttraveler.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com,  www.travel-library.com,  www.travelpod.com,  and www.tripadvisor.com.  Expedia.com is the parent corporate entity of this online travel site empire.

And with the financial backing of Expedia, TripAdvisor’s parent company, the social media website acquisitions of TripAdvisor makes this travel conglomerate the Bank of America of online travel research and search sites.  24 million unique monthly visitors and over 6 million registered members is an incredible database for the TripAdvisor-branded websites.

Tripadvisor fact sheet 

TripAdvisor does not actually sell hotel rooms.  Revenue is generated from pay-per-click sponsored ads on the webpage.  For example, looking at the Omni San Francisco Hotel webpage on TripAdvisor, there were 12 sponsored links for booking the Omni San Francisco Hotel through 8 different websites:  hotels.com (an Expedia family website), Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Omni Hotels, HotelClub.com (Orbitz owned), CheapTickets.com (Orbitz owned), Priceline.com, and Otel.com.

From the top of the page the first booking option for the Omni Hotel is a toll-free telephone ad for hotels.com (Expedia owned).  The box below that has four sponsored links: Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Omni Hotels, and Hotels.com.  Two of these links are Expedia booking sites.

Further down the page were four more sponsored links: HotelClub.com (Orbitz owned); CheapTickets.com (Orbitz owned); Priceline.com, and Otel.com.  The bottom of the webpage showed the same sponsored links as the top box.

While there were 12 sponsored links and one telephone toll-free number for actually booking the hotel from the main TripAdvisor webpage for the Omni San Francisco, the fact of the matter is five of these options are Expedia-owned websites and four are Orbitz-owned websites.  Omni Hotels has its own sponsored link appearing twice.  The other two sponsored link options were Priceline.com and Otel.com.

This analysis doesn’t help the consumer in determining which website link will have the lowest room price.  I am just looking at the webpage options provided to the consumer for this hotel property and the fact that most links from TripAdvisor go to Expedia or Orbitz companies.

Share of Online Travel Agency referrals from TripAdvisor for April 2008

Compete.com is a website analytics company that analyzes consumer behavior.  A Compete.com travel research report from July looked at the actual percentage of TripAdvisor referrals going to the different online travel agencies for the month of April 2008.

·         Expedia 48%

·         Travelocity 19%

·         Orbitz 16%

·         Hotels.com 11%  (Expedia)

·         Priceline 5%

·         Cheaptickets 1% (Orbitz)

·         Hotwire <1%  (Expedia)

Source: http://www.competeinc.com/research/newsletters/july-2008-travel-research/

The interesting aspect of this data is the large percentage of referrals going to Travelocity.com who had no sponsored links on the TripAdvisor webpage I studied for the Omni San Francisco hotel and few sponsored links on several other TripAdvisor hotel review pages I searched.  A few years ago (2005?) there was a Cornell Center for Hospitality Research report showing Travelocity.com most frequently had the lowest hotel rates of the Online Travel Agencies.  I have no idea if that would have any validity now in 2008.  I always book through the hotel owned websites for the best deal or seek the Best Rate Guarantee from the hotel company when I occasionally find a better rate with an online travel agency.

Compete.com had another interesting report posted September 11, 2008 analyzing the search traffic share for seven major online travel agencies.  The data reflects all travel search, not just hotels.  Expedia is the online search leader.

Online Travel Agency search share for July 07-July 08  (Expedia at 26% is referenced in the article and the other numbers are my estimates based on the Compete.com chart shown here)

·         Expedia 26%

·         Travelocity 17%

·         Orbitz 16%

·         Hotels.com 10%

·         Priceline 13%

·         Cheaptickets 10%

·         Hotwire 7%

Another chart in this report shows the percentage of paid search traffic to Online Travel Agencies (OTA).  36% of all search traffic comes through sponsored links.  The discussion at the beginning of this post regarding sponsored links on the hotel review webpages of TripAdvisor.com seems to correlate somewhat with this data.  Hotels.com has the highest percentage of visitors accessing the site through sponsored links (44%) and Hotels.com is also the most prominent OTA present on TripAdvisor webpages.

Travelocity is the second highest in percentage of paid search referrals (about 40%) and this may account for the high proportion of referrals from TripAdvisor although I did not see many Travelocity sponsored links on the TripAdvisor hotel review pages I checked.

Orbitz and its other company, CheapTickets.com, show about 35% of traffic is from paid search referrals. Their sponsored links are highly visible on TripAdvisor.  Expedia and Hotwire are around 34% paid search traffic.

Interestingly, Priceline.com has the lowest percentage of paid search traffic (about 27%), yet Priceline is showing strong growth in market share.  And I would expect them to gain even more market share in these tough economic times.

TripAdvisor.com “Take this job and shove it”

A former TripAdvisor web content editor, Diedre Kiely, filed a complaint in July claiming TripAdvisor violated Massachusetts law by classifying her and other content editors as independent contractors.  The suit is pending class-action certification in the U.S. District Court of Boston.  The independent contractors edit reviews of hotels and restaurants according to the complaint. 

The experience of unequal pay for the same work as a “permatemp” led me to say “screw corporate greed” and venture out on my own as Loyalty Traveler.  I still have no benefits and no paid vacation, but at least I have the opportunity to provide value-added content to other hard-working consumers and I can travel when I want.  

Posted from BlogWorld 2008, Las Vegas.  A big thank you to Randy Petersen and BoardingArea.com for sponsoring my trip here.