Need help with Travelocity's XML datafile

Great tool - if only I knew how to use it.

[hhayes]

I wrote to Travelocity's affiliate program asking for deep links to specific hotels, and they sent me a hoteldata.xml file with a page of instructions.

The instructions said to download the file. Check. Then unzip it. Done. Then "parse the file as appropriate." I'm afraid I don't even know what that means!

I have only a basic knowledge of web programming, so this is way over my head. But I would really like to be able to link to Travelocity's specific hotels like I can with Venere (love their affiliate site), so I'm hoping there's a solution, a script, or instructions that someone out there might be able to point me to.

Thanks.

[skunker]

hhayes,
save your time and hire some cheap programmer from Belarus or something. It's amazing what you can get for almost pennies! That's what I did.

Good luck.

[hhayes]

Sounds good to me! Any suggestions on where to start in finding a cheap programmer?

[vfilip]

Where do you find cheap programmers from Belarus or similar ?

[cornwall]

You just unzip and open in Excel spreadsheet.

From memory you have to add your own cid number, and splice a few columns together to get the link to each hotel with your cid on.

Look at an example of what the finished number looks like on another site

The only bit that needs much thought is how to splice excel columns together. You should be able to get that info out of Google, its not very difficult

I think you will find it quicker that way, than trying to find a programmer on the Russian Steppes to do it for you