We are excited to announce the release of our new Hotel API – it is fast, it is intelligent and has full booking support. All packaged in one API and currently available for our customers – business and leisure.

Reducing a long list of results that are impossible to navigate to a more manageable list of the exactly right options for the user. Our solution considers multiple features (location, price, etc) and assesses their value based on specific user request.

It’s also lighter and therefore faster than ever before. We are now able to reduce a long list of results that are impossible to navigate, to a more manageable list of the exactly right options for the user. We factor in multiple features like location, price etc, and we assess their value based on request from the user. We only return the most relevant result for you – a powerful feature for websites but specifically when you develop for mobile devices.

Combine this with full location support – geo-coordinates data for every hotel and the ability to search by that – and you have the perfect solution for tablets and mobile phones.

We also threw in full hotel details and pictures which can be retrieved dynamically – and of course full booking support, including our prepay solution.

Photo credit: Travelfusion

Follow this link to reach the survey – it should take you no more than 10-15 minutes to complete but your responses are very valuable to us! All of your feedback will be extremely helpful and will be integrated into our upcoming planning sessions on site design and usability. We’ll be collecting responses throughout the week and compiling everything after 26 November. Winners will be selected at random from the list and winners will be notified by email.

Thank you in advance for your help and we look forward to hearing from you.

Photo credit: Noël Zia Lee

“Air Extras” refers to the supplementary costs charged by airlines for services or items such as airport check in and extra baggage. Other types of potential Air Extras include charges for premium boarding on some low cost carriers, meal type and credit card charges. Travelfusion’s API technology now provides the cost of these air-extras in the form of a single API command.  Benefits to Travelfusion’s clients using this new technology are numerous, but perhaps most interesting is the upsell potential.  Clients can quote the cost of ancillary services at any point during the booking process, including at the time of search, thus increasing the probability of users purchasing these extras.

Plans are also in the works to soon incorporate this technology on Travelfusion’s own website to allow customers the ability to quickly and easily calculate the “real cost” of their journey, including all extra fees in one simple step.  Watch this space for news about our Complete Cost Calculator!

The addition of these charges to Travelfusion’s already rich and robust Search and Book solution ensures continued success and possibilities for what is the world’s largest distribution system for low cost airline booking.  For any enquiries about our new support for Air Extras or questions about our API, feel free to contact Travelfusion at any time.

Presenting – the Travelfusion Quickshare Code!

Photo credit: Travelfusion

Many of you may have started to notice small black and white squares showing up on posters and products over the past few years.  These squares are two-dimensional bar codes and appear to all be the same. However, each is in fact unique, and with a simple scan can reveal information about a product or, in our case, flights.

Are you still with me? Here’s how it works.  To read the QR codes, first you will need a mobile phone with an internal camera and a QR code scanning application.  For my iPhone, I use the free QR Code Reader app that is free to download (note, link will open iTunes) from the iTunes store but there are other, more sophisticated readers out there as well in paid app format.  For Android phones, try the free Bar Code Scanner or for other phones, the i-nigma reader will work just fine.

Once you’ve got all this ready, you’re only moments away from testing out the Travelfusion Quickshare Code function.  First, visit Travelfusion and perform a search – any destination you’d like.  I’ve searched for a trip from London to Paris since I’m craving croissants! Your search will take you to the results page as seen below:

Photo credit: Travelfusion

At the far right of each result row, you’ll notice a tiny tool button where a menu of features is located. Simply click on this tool menu to see your options – you’ll notice the last choice is a green button that says “send result to your phone.”

Clicking this option will instantly generate a unique QR Code that holds information about the selected result.  Our developers made the code rather large (it’s typically smaller on products and advertisements) after extensive testing with different mobile phones as some phones cannot read smaller codes.

This is where your phone comes in handy.  Simply open your QR code application, scan the Quickshare Code, and within a few seconds you’ll have all the information about the flight available on your mobile’s screen.  Use it to post to Facebook, send an SMS or email to friends or save it for your own use later.  The possibilities are endless!  Be among the first to try out these new feature that has been gaining popularity worldwide.

Have you tried scanning QR Codes in the past?  Will you use ours to save flight information or share with friends?

Photo credit: Travelfusion

You may have noticed when searching on the home page that we now provide a new widget that opens below the search box.  Once you’ve entered your origin and destination cities, this price trend chart will open to reveal the trends of the cost of travel on the selected route.  This is a great tool for those with flexible travel dates or people looking to get the very best deal on their upcoming trip.

Based on cached fares, the price trends chart will show prices for the upcoming month of travel to destinations, as well as the “age” of the quoted price. As you can see in the example below, hovering over a specific date on the chart will provide a pop-up with the cheapest fare found on the specific date, and this fare will also be listed below the chart along with information about when that fare was found.  When you find a price that you like, simply click on “search now” and you’ll be redirected to our results page for your selected route.

Photo credit: Travelfusion

We are already hard at work at offering more options and information on this price trend chart and hope to soon provide return trip data and more!

We’d love to hear from you – have you used the price trend chart? Are there new things you’d like to see us feature?