One of our readers wrote to us the other day to ask what happened to CheapAir.com. They said they had used the online travel agency, on and off, for years, but they went to check the site out not long ago, and they had, essentially, an “Out of Business” sign on their front page:
With a little sadness, a lot of memories, and more gratitude than we can possibly express, we have decided to stop selling tickets on CheapAir.com so that we can fully focus on our core business – building travel solutions for businesses.
If you’ve got a booking that you need to change or cancel, don’t worry. Our amazing team isn’t going anywhere. They’ll continue to be reachable at help@CheapAir.com, even as they transition to other parts of our business.
Over the last 35 years, the way travelers book trips has changed a lot. Through it all, we’re proud to have remained focused on building the easiest to use booking tool, with the best human support behind it, even as industry dynamics kept evolving.
Many of you have been customers since the very beginning. We’re proud to have played a small role in helping you connect with friends and family to share some of life’s greatest moments. We will miss hearing your stories and helping you out. Thank you for your support over so many years.
It has been an absolute thrill!
Keep Traveling!
What was CheapAir.com?
CheapAir.com was one of the thousands of OTAs (online travel agencies) out there. But they were a little different.
First, they were established YEARS ago – 1989, to be exact. Yep, the same year the World Wide Web started (some of the most popular OTAs out there can’t even claim that one – Expedia didn’t start until 1999. Booking.com and Priceline both began in 1996. Even Hotels.com didn’t start until 1991).
Second, their “thing” was not only to get you a reservation but also to find the cheapest prices. They even had a Price Drop Payback guarantee, so if the price of your flight went down, they’d refund you the difference.
Finally, CheapAir.com was also an early adopter of things such as payment via Bitcoin (2013 – 1st in the world), the first OTA in the US to book direct flights to Cuba (2015), the first travel agency to launch a monthly payment option with Affirm, etc.
CheapAir.com was never the most popular OTA out there. I mean, they were ranked #38 on the 2022 Power List of Travel Agencies in the US, which I guess is OK, but they were not really medal award winners, either. But they definitely held their own and had their place.
So what happened?
If you read their “goodbye” letter, you’ll see a clue. They “decided to stop selling tickets on CheapAir.com so that we can fully focus on our core business—building travel solutions for businesses.”
CheapAir.com was originally a standalone company. However, the owners eventually expanded and put CheapAir.com under the umbrella of another company that they began in 2011 – AmTrav.
AmTrav was also an OTA but instead of being available to everyone, it specifically focused on corporate and business travel.
In June 2024, the CEO of AmTrav announced that the company was being acquired by TravelPerk, a global business travel management platform based in Barcelona. AmTrav would still be doing what it was doing, but it appears the new owners weren’t interested in maintaining a company arm that wasn’t focused on business travel, so it went bye-bye.
And that was the end of CheapAir.com. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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