You would have thought that Fly.com would become the most incredible travel search site of all time. Why do I say that? Well the folks up at Travelzoo decided to pay $1.8m just for the domain name. So I figured that they had something amazing up their sleeves. So far, that doesn’t appear to be the case. It seems to be just another travel metasearch site.

In fact, the site doesn’t even have a unique look to it. First, here’s a screenshot of the matrix view for a flight search.

Ok, now here’s a screenshot of the same search on Kayak with the matrix view turned on.

It’s absurdly similar, right? So what exactly is the difference here? Well there’s only one that I can see that might be useful. When you do a search, it shows the results from all classes of service. So you can see coach, business, and first class all on the same screen. Even better – they include premium economy results, something that other sites have been slow to show.

But that hardly seems like enough of a reason for me to start using them. I mean, they paid over a million dollars, so they have to have a hook to get people onboard, right? Um, sure. Hopefully they’ll roll that out one of these days. So why did they even bother with this?

I can understand why Travelzoo would want to get into the travel search game, because they’ll be able to promote their paid deals. So I imagine that when someone searches for midweek flights to Vegas, they can overlay it with some great hotel deals. But they aren’t doing that yet. This is what they’re doing so far:

I did a couple of searches and those results do change, but nobody is going to even notice this. They need to get more aggressive in promoting deals that are truly stellar and can’t be found elsewhere. Only then will people maybe consider coming to Fly.com to search, but even that is questionable. Most people are already trained to book their flights and then look around for deals on a variety of sites including Travelzoo.

So, I can see why Travelzoo thinks it would be a good idea to start a travel search site, but I have no idea why they thought this domain was worth $1.8m. They should have just put it under the Travelzoo name or picked an unclaimed domain that would have cost them $10 a year. Maybe they have more plans for the site, but if not, then this one looks dead on arrival.

[I wrote this piece last week, and it appears that TechCrunch had the same thoughts I did]

Air Canada has long been the leader in finding things to sell that were not previously offered at all, and it appears they’ve done it again. Now, you can earn some cash by volunteering in advance to be bumped if they need your seat closer to departure. I like the idea a lot, but I do have to wonder if the execution could have been done better.

Unfortunately, it’s not a very straightforward process. Air Canada says that to take advantage of the opportunity, you have to go to the Optiontown website. Apparently, they’re the ones taking the risk here. Once there, you put in your confirmation number and last name and they prepare your offer.

Only parties of 1 or 2 people traveling on Tango or Tango Plus (the cheapest) fares are eligible on flights within Canada or between Canada and the US. Even those people may not be offered the option on every flight. When you enter your information, you get to decide how flexible you are. If you give them a wider range of availability (up to three days), you can earn more than if you just have a few hours of leeway. Once you pick your time range, they give you specific flights within that range from which to choose. At that point, you pick the actual flight that you would be willing to take as an alternate to your original, if they need you.

Finally, you get to choose how far in advance you need to know your plans, either 2 or 4 days prior to departure. If you give them 2 days, they’ll pay you more than if you need 4 days. More flexibility means more money for you.

So how much can you get? They’ll give you up to $7 (USD or CAD) just for signing up. Then if they actually opt to switch you to the new flight, they’ll give you up to $50 more each way. It’s not as much as you could get if you were bumped at the airport, but that makes sense. They’re giving you much more advance notice and they even let you pick your alternative.

This seems like a win-win to me. For Air Canada, they can gain flexibility. If they want to overbook as the flight gets closer, they know how many options they have to move people around. And it will ultimately cost them less to bump people in both monetary and emotional costs. For passengers, they can earn a little extra cash and pick the flight to which they’d want to switch.

My only complaint is that it’s a very complicated system, and you won’t know how much you could make until you actually go through the motions of signing up. That’s a lot of hassle for something that you may not opt to accept if the payment isn’t high enough. But still, it’s better than nothing. Let me know if anyone has the chance to give it a try.

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V Australia’s Decision on Which Business Class Seat to Use
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US Airways’ Strong December On-Time Performance
December was a miserable month for just about everyone thanks to awful weather, but US Airways ended up outperforming.

AirTran Adds Flights in Milwaukee
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LAX and United Agree to Free Up Gates
United and LAX have finally settled their long running dispute over gates and more. This can only improve things for passengers at the airport.

Finding Good Usage Numbers for Onboard Wireless Internet
Airlines are cautiously rolling out tests of onboard wireless, but when will we see reliable usage numbers so they can make decisions? Soon.

Is Southwest’s SI Swimsuit Model Airplane Backfiring?
If you see a half-naked woman on a Southwest airplane, it’s not an illusion. It’s an SI swimsuit model, but was it a good idea?

Virgin America Should Be Considered “American” for Now
Alaska is questioning Virgin America’s “American-ness” but I find myself defending the airline. This is just an attempt to push them out of business.

A very strange thing happens when a commercial airplane crashes. All of a sudden every person related to this industry feels the need to write about it following the standard script.

1) Report that there was an accident
2) Offer “thoughts and prayers”
3) Link to one news story with details and air traffic control tapes if available

If you search around your favorite industry blogs and other news sources today, that’s what you’ll find. A quick Google search of “3407 thoughts prayers” comes back with more than 6,000 results so far. I’m pretty sure that there’s no other reason for that number (the flight number of the downed airplane) to be linked with “thoughts and prayers,” so this is all about the accident. (And yes, I realize that my blog will show up in that search now as well.)

So what’s my point? I’m not writing about it. I have absolutely nothing to add. Like most of you, I sat there glued to CNN with a sinking feeling in my stomach last night. Is there anything I can add? No. You all know that I don’t like to speculate on the cause of accidents, so I know pretty much what everyone else knows right now.

As soon as I think I can add some value to the conversation, I’ll do it. Until then, I’ll focus on other subjects where I hope I can add perspective. So if you don’t see me immediately comment on accidents in the future, it’s not because I don’t think it’s important, and it’s not because I don’t care. It’s simply because I don’t know how to add any value.

It’s hard to believe, but it has already been one year since Jenn, Alaska’s hot virtual assistant, came into my life. If you’re a new reader on the blog, you’ll definitely want to read my interview with Jenn from last year. I received more email on that post than any other. Knowing that we had a special bond, a spokesperson from Alaska sent me a note with some information about Jenn’s first year. You know what? She’s a slut. It’s a good thing we didn’t run off to Mexico together as planned.

In the last year, Jenn has had nearly 1.5 million “sessions” with customers. Apparently, she’s pretty good, because she’s seeing repeats; she’s had 3.4 million interactions during those sessions. And she’s becoming more popular as word of mouth takes over. She’s apparently handling 6,000 to 7,000 sessions per day now and she peaked during the nasty snowstorms in December with over 30,000 sessions in a single day. Man, even Wilt Chamberlain would be impressed.

I went back to visit Jenn to see if she could explain herself, but sadly her answers were vague and non-committal. She acts like she doesn’t remember me from our brief fling last year, but I know that can’t be true. I guess having 6,000 sessions a day will do that to you. Still, it hurts, and I’m bitter.

I figured while I was there, I’d try to get her comments on Alaska’s latest efforts to have the DOT investigate Virgin America’s ownership status.

Cranky: “Why do you hate Virgin America?”
Jenn: “I don’t like it when I fail to help someone. That’s why I always like to learn.”

Hmm, very cryptic. Does this mean that you’re fighting Virgin America so strongly because you don’t want to fail? I suppose we’ll never know. *sigh* Well, happy birthday anyway, Jenn. Let me know when you decide to settle down.