Expedia News

The HomeAway-Expedia partnership is an important milestone for HomeAway, in particular, marking a new era of expanded distribution that starts with Expedia.com in the U.S., but will likely appear in other places, as well.

The skirmish between Expedia and Orbitz over their respective revamped loyalty programs continues, as Expedia points out that that its VIP program has more hotels, and its points don't expire as quickly.

Why didn't someone think of this before? (Perhaps someone did.) It isn't the end-all, be-all in travel search, but it is a step ahead in ease of use.

Booking.com is a big-time leader in travel marketing through Google, and Expedia spends a ton of money on search engine marketing, too. While both companies are committed to this type of "pull" marketing, Expedia is making a big bet on multi-device search and "push" notifications as the future of travel booking.

Online travel and airline CEOs love it when their companies' advertisements go viral, and they can only pour ice water over their heads, dry off, and admire how the ALS Association has crowd-funded its cause.

What a difference a couple of years makes. No longer sister companies, Expedia doesn't want to participate in TripAdvisor Instant Booking, and declines to do anything to help the brand that it is competing with, along with Booking.com, on TV in their competing commercials.

While it is exciting to see the consolidation happening in the online travel booking space, the lack of new scaled startups to challenge the biggies remains a worry for anyone. And possibly consumers as well.

While this seems like an opportunistic buy with Wotif's financial troubles, for Expedia this ties into two priorities: Expanding in Asia-Pacific and growing its global hotel business in competition with the Priceline Group's Booking.com and Agoda.

The merger and acquisition frenzy in the travel industry continues apace, and Expedia's acquisition of the Auto Escape Group will enhance Expedia's global competition with the Priceline Group.

2014 is turning out to be a consolidation year, with big getting bigger. But there is lots of interesting jostling beyond leaders, and that's where the action will be rest of the year. Airbnb's rise has been spectacular, and will continue to break through on the charts.