TripAdvisor promotes Jetsetter and kills its SniqueAway flash-sales brand

Less than three months after acquiring Jetsetter, TripAdvisor is phasing out its home-grown private-sales brand, SniqueAway, Skift has learned.

When TripAdvisor acquired Jetsetter in April, the spin was that the two brands, Jetsetter and SniqueAway would co-exist, but sales director Kathleen Hanefeld has emailed hotel partners, informing them that “as of June 28, SniqueAway.com will become Jetsetter.com.”

“Our parent company, TripAdvisor, acquired Jetsetter April 9 and, after reviewing what would be the best experience for our travelers and our partners, we decided to combine our assets and have SniqueAway become Jetsetter,” the email says.

Once the SniqueAway brand is phased out at the end of the month, partners will be introduced to “new team members,” and hotels will be given information about how they can partner with Jetsetter, the email says.

It’s rare for TripAdvisor to retire a brand, but despite its financial troubles, Jetsetter clearly was the better known and more successful brand of the two.

TripAdvisor’s Smarter Travel Media launched SniqueAway around September 2010 at the height of the flash-sales craze when, in addition to Jetsetter, Kayak was running private sales, as were companies such as RueLaLa.com and Vacationist, among others. TripAdvisor was still an Expedia subsidiary at the time.

Meanwhile, Expedia partnered with Groupon to launch Groupon Getaways, a flash sales effort where hotels are put on sale for perhaps a couple of days.

While Jetsetter still runs flash sales, about half of its hotel sales these days are of the standard, retail variety with no deadline for completing a sale.

Hanefeld told hotel partners that any sales currently scheduled to run on SniqueAway or Jetsetter won’t be impacted by the consolidation of assets. Jetsetter will operate under TripAdvisor’s Smarter Travel Media group.

Here’s the SniqueAway email to hotel partners:

Dear Partner,

I’m very excited to let you know of a change that’s coming up: As of June 28, SniqueAway.com will become Jetsetter.com.

Our parent company, TripAdvisor acquired Jetsetter on April 9 and, after reviewing what would be the best experience for our travelers and our partners, we decided to combine our assets and have SniqueAway become Jetsetter.

This transition gives us access to an even larger member base, as well as several other fulfillment and service benefits.

Here’s what this means for you:

– Any sales you have scheduled to run on SniqueAway will be completely unaffected by the change.

– Any sales you have scheduled to run on Jetsetter will also be unaffected.

– The partner extranet, our online tool for managing your flash sales, will remain active until the last SniqueAway reservation departs.

– All reservations and payments will remain secure, and our customer-service team will remain at your disposal to answer any questions at [email protected].

The success that SniqueAway has enjoyed has been due in no small part to our relationships with our partners, and I want to offer sincere thanks on behalf of myself and the entire SniqueAway (and Jetsetter!) team.

After June 28, we’ll be reaching out to our partners individually to introduce new team members and discuss options for partnership with Jetsetter. If you have any questions before then, please feel free to get in touch with me or email the team at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Kathleen Hanefeld, CHSP

Sales Director