Dollartravel.com: Can You Say Affiliate?
Written: Nov 7, 2001
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The Bottom Line
This is a weak travel service, made up entirely of affiliate links into other web service sites.
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In my quest to find the perfect on- line travel service, I will sometimes surf the internet and utilize search engines, to find something new and different to try out. Some of these travel sites turn out to be worth the wait, while others prove to be too basic and too lacking in products and/or features. One of my recent discoveries falls into the latter category. It’s a little- known travel service called dollartravel.com, a web site that specializes in flight, hotel, and car rental reservations.
What Does This Site Have to Offer?:
Let’s begin with the flight reservation service. When you select air travel, from the homepage, you are taken to another screen where you will be asked to enter the usual information: departure and arrival cities, dates, cabin class, number of passengers, preferred airline, etc.
The results list in price order, from lowest to highest. If you want to change your information, you can click “search again”, and go back and make some adjustments to your original search criteria. It would be easier if there was a way to quickly change the criteria, right there on the results page, but there isn’t. However, when you click this icon to search again, it does retain your original data, which is better than some other sites that I’ve used that require you to reinput all the criteria again.
This flight search function is slow. I timed it, and it took about 40 seconds to display the results. Also, the price that displays includes taxes, but it doesn’t include the site’s service and delivery charges, which will add from $10 to $45 per ticket, depending on how quickly you need to take delivery.
Hotel Reservations:
With lodging reservations, dollartravel.com offers a decent service. You enter your dates, number of travelers, and city, and the results page shows the possible hotels to choose from, along with a rating for the hotel and the price for each night, listed separately. If you want more information, you can click on “more info”, or click to view a map. The option to view more info is good. It shows you the amenities of the hotel, along with pictures of the exterior, the rooms, lounge area, pool, etc.
Car Rental:
There’s really nothing special about the car rental search option. You have to enter your name and e-mail address, before you can proceed and lookup the available car rental information. You can search by entering a city name, or an airport code. The results page will then ask you to select the size and type of vehicle that you want. You then will be asked to enter your credit card data, if you want to make a reservation.
Other Services:
Dollartravel.com offer just a few other minor services. You can lookup information on the weather; track flights by number and airline; and view maps of different cities. There’s also an option to view destination guides that describe, in detail, many of the world’s best known destinations.
Final Thoughts:
The search options available in dollartravel.com are adequate, but I have one major problem with this site…
All of it’s features are nothing more than links into other travel service web sites!
You heard me correctly. Each and every option and search function in dollartravel.com is simply a link into another travel web site. Flight Reservations? They are provided by trip.com. Hotel Reservations? Provided by hoteldiscount.com. Car rental? Dollar rentacar.com. Maps? Trip.com. Flight Tracker? Trip.com. Weather information? Trip.com. Destination guides? Once again, trip.com provides the link.
In other words, dollartravel.com is nothing more than an affiliate web service that someone made up, to make a little money on click- throughs. It doesn’t even have a customer service and support line, or e-mail, to contact. It really doesn’t need to, because if you have any problems, you will need to contact either trip.com, dollarrentacar.com, or hoteldiscount.com, since these other web sites provide all the services.
If you need to make travel reservations, dollartravel.com does give you the small advantage of being able to make all your reservations in one place. But so do other travel sites that have their own unique search functions, products, and services.
Dollartravel.com is a lame excuse for a travel service. If you need to make three different reservations, and your desired web services only offer flight, hotel, and car rental reservations exclusively, do yourself a favor and just open up three separate windows on your PC. Don’t waste your time with this travel service mockery!
Recommended:
No
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About the Author
Member: Bryan Carey
Location: Houston, TX
Reviews written: 3899
Trusted by: 1561 members
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