Travelzoo Closes Search Business and Sells Fly.com Domain
Photo Credit: The airfare metasearch brand is the most under-leveraged Internet domain out there. Fly.com
Skift Take
Travelzoo has sold Fly.com, the most under-leveraged internet domain name in travel. We hope the mystery buyer has better luck with it than the deals publisher did.
Metasearch isn't the sure path to riches that companies like Kayak, Skyscanner, and Momondo have made it seem — as deals publisher Travelzoo has learned the hard way.
In 2009, the New York City-based company spent $1.76 million to buy the domain Fly.com, which seemed worth the price. It was short, self-evident, and hard to misspell.
Travelzoo launched a metasearch site on Fly.com for flights (and later hotels). The business model was to upsell buyers of flights on some of the hotel and holiday bargains listed on its platform and in its weekly email newsletter offers to millions of subscribers. The goal was to challenge Kayak in the U.S
