Travel Rants merges with online giant Expedia
By Darren Cronian on Sunday, April 1st, 2007

Yes, you read it here first, the Travel Rants blog merges with online travel giant Expedia in a £20 million deal. Editor, Darren Cronian becomes an over night millionaire and heads up the blogging department of Expedia in the UK.

Travel Rants merges with online giant Expedia

Expedia and Travel Rants will sign the contract in a deal which has shocked the online travel industry in what has been a year of mergers between the big four travel operators.

Enjoy April Fools Day!


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35 responses to “Travel Rants merges with online giant Expedia”

Goodbye Budget Globetrotters, The End has Come | 1 April, 2007 at 7:05 am

[...] 451 Press, and Expedia.com. Yep, the real Expedia.com. I did not take them seriously until they officially purchased Travel Rants, another travel [...]

gje | 1 April, 2007 at 11:56 am

Happy 1st April!

Kevin May | 1 April, 2007 at 12:33 pm

Wow - what a result for you, Darren. I am sure many companies had their eye on you - but only someone with the funds of Expedia could afford it… :-)

Car Seat Traveler | 1 April, 2007 at 12:52 pm

Funny. You had me going! haha. I better be on the look out all day long…

Darren Cronian | 1 April, 2007 at 1:41 pm

Thanks Gje! You too :)

Kev, who would of thought it huh ;) haha

Car Seat [whats your proper name cos I cant keep calling you that!] glad you got a laugh out of it! :)

James Avery | 1 April, 2007 at 1:51 pm

Darren,

Many a serious point is said in jest, eh?

See:

http://news.flightmapping.com/07/04/01/ryanair-in-fat-fee-row_1236.html

James

Darren Cronian | 1 April, 2007 at 1:52 pm

James, yes I just read that!! haha

Rohan | 1 April, 2007 at 2:00 pm

You had me wondering for a second!

Darren Cronian | 1 April, 2007 at 2:09 pm

News of the merger is on USA today

Rohan | 1 April, 2007 at 2:12 pm

OMG hahah how did you get it on USA Today???!

Darren Cronian | 1 April, 2007 at 2:18 pm

Rohan, its one of the many wonders of Blogging! ;)

Kevin May | 1 April, 2007 at 2:22 pm

haha - this is perhaps the moment when the industry discovers Expedia doesn’t have a sense of humour, and Darren starts looking for flights to Mongolia…

Darren Cronian | 1 April, 2007 at 2:24 pm

hahaha as long as Ryanair aren’t the only airline to fly to Mongolia I’ll be fine Kev! :D

Christine | 1 April, 2007 at 2:41 pm

Oh my, you totally had me going with this. I was so dissapointed when I realised it was 1 April!

Happy 1st April.

Kevin May | 1 April, 2007 at 2:45 pm

What do people think Expedia would do with Travel-Rants, if they owned it?

[I suspect we'd see far fewer posts about bad experiences online eh, Darren :-)]

Rohan | 1 April, 2007 at 3:04 pm

We would see less anti-ryanair posts for one.

I dont think the blog would be as interesting to read and it would have Expedia ads all over the place.

Debbie | 1 April, 2007 at 3:11 pm

Nice try Darren!

Kevin I think that Expedia would have to keep Darren on as their writer.

Charles | 1 April, 2007 at 4:54 pm

I think it would be difficult for any travel company to acquire the blog and keep it within it’s niche.

Trip advisor or a large social networking company, well, that’s different.

Kevin May | 1 April, 2007 at 8:11 pm

Debbie: Expedia would probably do what they hell they like…

Charles: Of course, as you probably know, TripAdvisor is owned by Expedia. :-)

Darren Cronian | 1 April, 2007 at 9:03 pm

Expedia wouldn’t be able to afford this blog hahaha :D

Carol Long-McDonald | 1 April, 2007 at 9:34 pm

Ha! Ha! Very funny Darren….you can dream on!!

April Fools Day Travel Roundup | 1 April, 2007 at 11:50 pm

[...] Expedia Buys Travel Rants - Travel-Rants [...]

Car Seat Traveler | 2 April, 2007 at 1:55 am

My name is Nicole, although my blog is written from my son, James perspective. ;-) I’m pitching to Travelocity next week - haha

Karen Bryan | 2 April, 2007 at 10:48 pm

Good laugh Darren but although you jest when the large companies start to have blogs you may well be headhunted!

Darren Cronian | 2 April, 2007 at 10:55 pm

I can only wish Karen!

I’d love to pack in the day job and write about travel all day :)

Christine | 3 April, 2007 at 12:22 am

I agree with Karen - you have talent for this - being able to write on the subject from many different viewpoints that appeals to the average reader. Travel Blogs are a dime-a-dozen out there - yours is one of 2 that all of us in my office read every update of. The big companies need a guy like you to manage their blogs. We don’t want to read badly written travel reviews anymore and nor do we wanna be “sold” to when we read a blog. So I believed what I was reading about Expedia “buying” you out - its not totally out of the realms of possibility - maybe the price was a bit over the top, but not the actual possibility that it could happen.

Thanks again for writing and managing this blog… as you can see by this post’s comments, you have many fans! :)

Darren Cronian | 3 April, 2007 at 12:53 am

Thanks for the nice comments Christine.

I’m glad people are enjoying the blog posts, but more importantly, I am glad that people are participating in the blog, that’s what is more important to me that we can all put our ideas and knowledge together to help each other.

Like Charles mentioned, I couldn’t see a travel agency wanting to pay money and keep the blog within the same niche. They couldn’t be seen having a go at holiday companies and airlines like I do from time to time.

Flightblogging.com - Flightmapping’s blog » Blog Archive » Travel Rants sold to Expedia | 3 April, 2007 at 1:07 am

[...] I must congratulate Darren at Travel Rants for his excellent April Fool about selling out to Expedia! [...]

Carly | 4 April, 2007 at 12:36 am

Hi I found your blog on Tail Rank, as news story of the day for Monday.

You can visit the site http://tech.tailrank.com/posts

Darren Cronian | 4 April, 2007 at 1:09 am

Thanks Carly, I couldn’t find any mention of the site :(

Darren Cronian | 4 April, 2007 at 1:10 am

Sorry, ignore me I found it

jingle | 4 April, 2007 at 4:14 pm

You had me for a moment! I was thinking you jammy ******!

Margaret MacGillivray | 6 April, 2007 at 9:22 am

Brilliant, Darren ….. that’s one cool way to get negotiations underway for your excellent blog!

Best
Margaret!

Romero | 3 May, 2008 at 11:11 pm

All I know is I hope I never have to use Expedia again. We booked flights from Austin to Ny to Casablanca and paid for it. Then we get tickets from Austin to NY to Belgium w/7hr wait till our flight into casablanca! Of course all representatives are in the Phillipines and cannot help at all, with no supervisor available. This is soooo wrong.

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