The Trip.com was billed as "everything for the business traveler...except the stress." That quote came from the man behind the bytes, founder and visionary Antoine Toffa when the Travelsites.com editors tracked him down in early (...gasp...) 1998.

Launched in September of 1996, this Denver-based company targeted the beleaguered business traveler. Toffa tried to give this road warrior market everything he could just to make their lives a bit easier. "The business traveler is accustomed to finding the products and services that they need in a timely manner. They don't have the time to spend idly surfing."

That's why the Trip gave the user the opportunity to book travel, hotel rooms, and rent a car all at the same place. And business travelers did use it. They used the site's handy frequent flier number recorder to have all their miles and points in one convenient place. They used the chat rooms and message boards to tell each other what hotels were good to stay in when they were on the road. But mostly, they logged on to the site to use the real-time Flight Tracker. Using this service allowed you to identify how many flights are in the air at any given moment, track the airspeed of those planes, and see the estimated time of arrival for these flights. Even if you weren't booking, you can use this to check flights that friends or relatives are on. Ultimately, trip.com was purchased outright by the Galileo GDS for around $269 million. The brand never materialized as a transactional force under the new ownership and it was then sold to Cendant for about $40 million in 2002.

But the Travelsites team still remembers trip.com fondly. As we wrote then, "The Trip's wants to become the number one resource for the business traveler. We think it has the chance. Toffa is a compelling personality who really wants to help the business traveler. If you book your own business travel, The Trip.com is a sure thing--go there."

<back to where to buy online