Little bit of movement in the world of round-the-world ticketing and long term travel buying as AirTreks sells to rival service BootsnAll.
The acquisition by Canada-based BootsnAll of San Francisco-headquartered AirTreks was made for an undisclosed fee.
BootsnAll CEO Sean Keener will take over as boss of both companies. Each business will continue to operate as separate entities and brands and all staff will be retained.
Keener says:
"Our friends at Priceline, Expedia, and Orbitz have ignored the long-term traveler since…well, forever. We continue to see an awesome opportunity to connect with the long-term and complex multi-stop community."
"Let them fight each other over hotel room nights. We’ll focus our relationships on folks wanting to do the unusual, and we’ll continue to build trust with the long-term traveler. Quality over quantity."
Like many of the players in the multi-stop and long term travel sector, such as UK-based RoundTheWorldFlights, both BootsnAll and AirTreks have been in the game for some considerable time.
Keener and co-founder Chris Heidrich created the company in 1998 initially as a member-led advice and forum service, whilst AirTreks was launched a year before with a bid to help travellers pull together complex and multi-stop trips.
Earlier this year BootsnAll unveiled its Indie flight search platform to let users to figure out multi-country stops, a launch which amusingly now saw then-Airtreks social media manager Nico Crisafulli react somewhat angrily in the comments.
BootsnAll claims it has helped more than 100,000 travellers plan a trip with the service since its launch in January this year.
NB:Laptop beach image via Shutterstock.