Commerce - 6:31 pm on Nov 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

This is not surprising. We run a U.S. based travel site specializing in a type of travel and we get people all of the time contacting us with questions like "Is this the total?" "What are the charges after we book?" and the ol' standby "What are the hidden charges?". Apparently some of our EU cousins are baiting and switching, a clamp down on this is not only expected, but welcomed.

Ditto here. Although I must admit we've pretty much run far away from "cheap" as any form of draw. For us, it generally comes down to being a looser in terms of ad program keyword performance. Getting rid of it has saved us a lot in ad costs, without all that much of a loss in revenues.

I suppose that those consumers who go after that keyword tend to be the ones who get sucked into these unrealistic cheap travel sites the EU is after. I am rather surprised that the airlines themselves are engaged in this kind of activity (though perhaps I should not be).

I've always believed that competing on price alone is generally not a good strategy. Rather, I think it is best to have some perceived or real competitive advantage and lead with that.

-Commerce