Travelzoo Talks $1.8 Million Acquisition of Fly.com Domain

Last Friday, travel site Travelzoo announced that it had purchased the domain Chris Crum: Obviously fly.com is a tremendous domain to have for a travel site. How did this transaction come about? Did Travelzoo approach Fly.com or vice versa?

Mindy Joyce: Travelzoo was considering names for its new travel search engine when we became aware of the availability of Fly.com through a domain broker.  We recognized the name as a perfect match to Travelzoo’s renowned approach: simple, fun, and world class.

CC: Who was behind Fly.com before Travelzoo purchased it?

MJ: Decline to answer due to confidentiality agreement with former owner.

CC: When do you expect Travelzoo's version of Fly.com to go live? [note: nothing was up yet when I contacted Travelzoo]

MJ: A beta version of our travel search engine is already available at CC: Will Fly.com differ from Travelzoo.com? If so, how? Will it feature only flight-related content or will it incorporate other forms of travel as well?

MJ: Our commitment to the highest standards of quality and user experience apply to all of our products including Fly.com and Travelzoo.com, and use of both Web sites is completely free of charge. That said, there are differences between Fly.com and Travelzoo.com.

Travelzoo is the home to the best travel deals. Our deal experts review hundreds of offers to find the best travel deals, and publish only the very best deals in our weekly Top 20 e-mail newsletter, which is now received by over 14 million subscribers worldwide. These deals also appear on Travelzoo.com.

Fly.com is a search engine that simplifies travel search.  Users of Fly.com can find and compare the best flight options from multiple sources, including airline and online travel agency Web sites. Once users find their desired itinerary, Fly.com takes users directly to airline or online travel agencies of their choice to book their travel.  We plan to offer hotel, rental car, cruise, vacation package, and other complementary search categories later this year, as well as integrate deals from Travelzoo on the Fly.com Web site.

Thank you to Mindy for discussing the deal with me. Domainwire.com does offer September’s Great Domains auction at Sedo with a reserve over $2 million. The domain was transferred to Travelzoo on January 20, 2009.

It should be interesting to find out how much value the fly.com domain picks up with Travelzoo's efforts behind it. The current state of the economy will certainly have many people looking for the best possible deal when traveling. If they can brand Fly.com well, it could turn out to be a very smart move for Travelzoo (Mindy did not answer my question about what kind of branding strategies they had in mind). If it doesn't turn out well, maybe they can sell it to Levi's who can resurrect their