I haven't seen the information appended below discussed previously, so I thought I would post it. Has anyone had sucess in finding prices at travelweb.com that are lower than on other websites? I have been checking travelweb.com for years and, even after the changes in March, have never found a price on it that is compelling enough to make a booking.


March 4, 2002 | Pegasus Solutions, Inc. has finalized its contract with Hotel Distribution System, LLC (HDS), a newly formed venture of Hilton Hotels Corporation; Hyatt Hotels; Marriott Hotels, Resorts and Suites; Six Continents Hotels; Starwood Hotels and Pegasus.

In addition, Pegasus has transferred its consumer site, TravelWeb.com to HDS as part of Pegasus' capital contribution to the venture. Pegasus Solutions is a leading provider of technology services to the hotel industry.

HDS was formed in February 2002 to distribute discount "net-rate" hotel rooms over the Internet. Utilizing the technology leadership of Pegasus, HDS plans to provide Internet sites with the ability to sell hotel rooms at net rates via direct connections to hotel central reservations systems.

TravelWeb.com, launched by Pegasus Solutions in 1994, was the first site to offer real-time online hotel reservations. The site evolved to offer reservations and detailed online content for more than 42,000 hotels.

Under the three-year technology contract, Pegasus will develop new and innovative technology and provide related services that will automate the net- rate reservation and "merchant model" processes for HDS and the participating hotels. Pursuant to the contract, Pegasus will receive an initial payment of $1.5 million and a $3.00 transaction fee for each reservation processed by the new technology.

"The current online hotel net-rate discount marketplace has been flourishing despite using virtually all manual processes," said Pegasus Solutions Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board John F. Davis III. "Companies offering net-rate inventory currently process all of their net-rate reservations manually, using faxes or email to communicate hotel reservations between the hotel discounter and the hotel.

"Using the new Pegasus technology, hotels will be able to electronically and seamlessly supply net rates via their central reservations systems (CRS) directly through Pegasus' Electronic Distribution System to net-rate providers, significantly reducing the hotels' distribution costs. As a result, for the first time, hotels will be able to conduct real-time revenue or yield management of their discounted net rates, ensuring that they leverage the discount channel as it's intended to be used: to fill hotel rooms during low occupancy periods.

"In addition, HDS will be the first hotel discounter to use our new automated net-rate 'merchant-model mark-up' technology, which provides the credit card processing and automatic rate mark-up capability," Davis said.

"The end result of our new net-rate technology will provide benefits to both online shoppers and hotels by providing better information for consumers, greater accuracy in reservations and customer service, and more reliable efficiency in reservation system connectivity to Internet retailers," Davis concluded.