Travelnow.com: A Helpful, Full- Service Travel Web Site
Written: Jan 25 '02 (Updated May 16 '05)
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Travelnow.com is a full- service travel web site that assists the tourist or business traveler in finding lodging, airfare, and car rentals. It also includes links to help you with food and entertainment, sightseeing, sports, sightseeing, and shopping in your destination area. This service began its on- line presence in 1995 and has been helping travelers ever since.
How Does This Site Work?:
This service does not require that you establish a user account and password first, to use its search functions. You can logon and start looking for travel deals immediately.
From the home page, travelnow.com has areas to quickly search for airfare, lodging, or car rentals by simply entering the name of the city and state/country. After you enter this basic information, you will be taken to another screen to enter specific data on what you desire. Here’s how the three search functions operate:
Flight Searches: This function will take you into a screen where you will be asked to enter your dates of departure; time preference (morning, afternoon, or evening) for your flights; number of passengers; and preferred airline. If you have no preferred airline, travelnow.com will search them all.
On the results page, travelnow.com will display up to nine flight options, listed in price order from least to most expensive. If you want to conduct another search by selecting different dates, you will have to hit the back button, on your browser, and change the dates. If you want to search for a different airport, you will have to hit back twice, and reenter a new airport code or city, then reenter your dates and other flight information. There is no easy way to change this. You have to go back and start over.
Hotel Searches: Searching for hotel lodging involves entering the dates that you wish to stay, and the number of guests. There are no other options available to narrow your search (for example, by desired amenities or specific location). If you already have a hotel chain in mind that you want to stay, you can enter the specific name of the chain and conduct the search that way instead.
The results page doesn’t list the hotels in any particular order, and there is no way to specify an order. You just have to look down the list, until you find a hotel that interests you.
With each listing, the price for each day of your stay will be displayed, along with the rating (from 1 to 5 stars) and a quick indication of where the hotel is located (“east of downtown”, “near airport”, etc). To find out more information, you can click on “info” and examine the amenities and look at a few pictures. Travelnow.com is a little skimpy with its pictures section. Each hotel will usually show only two photos: one of the outside of the building, and one of a standard room.
Car Rental: If you need a rental car, you just enter your desired city, along with the dates that you need a vehicle (along with pickup and drop off times); the type of vehicle that you want (economy, compact, convertible, etc) and the car rental company that you prefer, if any. Your results page will show you the cost per day of your rental, with a listing of rental companies to choose from.
Other Services Offered:
From the main screen, travelnow.com has an area with featured special hotel offers that change periodically. These special offers are quoted as a rate per day. You can click on any one of them, for more specific information.
There is also a newsletter service offered by travelnow.com, that you can sign up for, which will keep you informed of any special travel offers on hotels, condo rentals, car rentals, and cruise specials (Please note that travel.com doesn’t have a web page for cruise information. You have to call a toll- free number, to make a reservation). The newsletter will also keep you up to date on any important travel- related news.
Travelnow.com also has a handy destination guide that includes all sorts of information on 270 cities in the United States and around the world. You can look up things like shopping, events, dining, entertainment, religion, tourist attractions, museums, etc, for any one of these cities. This can really help if you are completely unfamiliar with a certain city and want to know what it has to offer.
Customer Service:
If you have any questions about your reservations, you can call a toll- free number and ask the help desk for assistance. You can also send an e-mail, if you want to, with a question about reservations or the site in general. And, if you don’t want to enter your credit card data, you can just call and make your reservations over the phone.
Final Thoughts:
Travelnow.com is a good, full- service travel web site. It has lots of options available to help you with most all of your travel needs.
The search functions are fairly good, but they could be better, if the people at travelnow.com would invest a little time and money to make them better. First of all, I don’t like the fact that you have to press back, on your browser, to conduct another search. There should be a way to enter new search criteria right from the search results screen. I also don’t like the lack of any way to sort the output, in the case of hotel lodging. At the very least, the listing should be in price order, just like the flights. Results, for a travel web service, should never be in random order.
One good thing, about the search function, is with the entering of dates. When you select your month for departure (or car pickup, or hotel arrival), the next date (for your return flight, or car return, or hotel check out) will automatically change to the same month. The same is true for the day of the month that you enter (it will automatically change to one day after the date that you entered for departure). This can help by saving you a few keystrokes. For example, if I’m looking for a flight in July, leaving on July 10, as soon as I enter July, and then select the day of the 10th, the date for my return flight automatically changes to July, for the month, and 11 for the day. I still need to change the day, but this does help save a little time and frustration.
The information in the destination section is very helpful, and it includes a good number of cities. Some lesser- known vacation cities will not be listed here, of course, so you will have to look elsewhere. But the information that’s included for the 270 listed cities is helpful.
Travelnow.com is a good web service overall. It’s a little slower than I would like (searches take 10 to 20 seconds to complete) and the search functions themselves have some room for improvement. But this full- service site is still very useful and the prices are good. If you like to travel, I recommend checking it out.
Be Sure to Click the Links Below to Read More Reviews on Other Popular Travel Sites:
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Recommended:
Yes
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