Dennis Schaal

Terry Jones and Rich Barton, the founders of Travelocity and Expedia, respectively, offer verdicts on what were once hot-button issues, as well as lessons for travel startups and more mature companies, as well.

This script is getting very familiar. There is a helluva competition going on in China's online, mobile and call center travel businesses, and the biggest players (Ctrip, Qunar, eLong and now Taobao Travel) are coming to the U.S. to raise some big bucks, intensifying the competition.

Let's see: AvisBudget now realizes 15 months after touting all of the envisioned fleet-sharing synergies with Zipcar that there are costs involved in shuttling the vehicles back and forth between locations? Very curious. One solution is allowing Zipcar to introduce one-way rides, which is a very attractive option for customers regardless.

Is the quality of Gogobot's user generated content really enough to make a difference as it launches hotel metasearch and brings itself into conflict with more well-heeled rivals? Gogobot thinks so, but it really has a lot to prove.

It was refreshing to see Priceline publish an app that was a bit dicey and experimental.

In a few years, the streamlined, cross-platform searching that Hipmunk and Expedia are creating will be taken for granted because any company worth anything will have to offer it. So far Hipmunk Anywhere is more intuitive than Expedia's Scratchpad with fewer clicks or taps, but these are very early days.

If any company were an expert in search engine marketing, you'd figure it would have to be Priceline since it's had so much practice and success. It is a testament to the complexity of the genre that the Priceline Group decided to go out and acquire a tiny, 2-year-old startup to further advance the effort.

Talk about ancillary revenue streams. Vancouver Airport Authority takes in a bunch of revenue by streamlining the flow of passengers through Customs at a handful of airports in Canada and the U.S.

Reputation management firms such as ReviewPro are evolving into being more than reputation management firms as the competition heats up. One of the key issues for hotels is that many of these tools aren't truly global, failing to tie into Chinese social networks, for example, and working only in a limited number of languages.

Spirit Airlines' all-encompassing inflight advertising program is totally in keeping with the airline's culture. Whether it is charging passengers myriad fees or offering advertisers the chance to place their logos on everything from flight attendants' aprons to window panels, no revenue opportunity is ignored.