Travelocity, Orbitz End Ticket Fees

Travelocity.com, a unit of Sabre Holdings Corp., and Orbitz Worldwide Inc. plan to announce Monday that they will stop charging a fee when customers book airline tickets over the Internet.

During March and April, several major online travel agencies eliminated airline booking fees on a promotional basis through May 31. Then, last Thursday , Expedia.com, a unit of Expedia Inc., eliminated the fee on a long-term basis, forcing other large online agencies to do the same.

Already in 2007, Priceline.com Inc. and Expedia Inc.'s Hotwire.com, permanently stopped charging airline booking fees on most tickets. The fee is usually a charge of $7 to $12 on top of the price of a ticket.

Both Travelocity and Orbitz will still charge the fee on multi-carrier itineraries and flights originating outside the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

The fees are a valuable source of revenue for the online travel agencies. The companies hope that if booking volume increases, the loss of fees will be partially offset by increased commissions paid by airlines and by travelers buying other services, such as hotel and car-rental reservations.

Since its no-fee promotion started in March, Travelocity has seen an increase in the number of people booking airline tickets, as well as an increase in the number of people clicking through to purchase other types of travel, said Tracey Weber, president of Travelocity North America. Expedia and Orbitz have said recently that booking volume for airline tickets increased since the promotions started.

Travelocity also plans to announce Monday it will make permanent a price guarantee on travel packages booked on the site. Under its PriceGuardian program, which began as a temporary promotion, the site promises to refund a price difference from $10 to $500 if another Travelocity customer buys the same package at a lower price at a later date.

The program is similar to a long-term offering on airline tickets and hotel bookings introduced by Orbitz.