Mr and Mrs Smith, the UK-based luxe hotel guide and reservation brand, has come a long way in the past few years, especially given its latest decision to scrap a technology partnership to start from scratch and build its own booking system.
An existing agreement with TravelIntelligence, which saw the review company's Starfish platform plugged into the back end of the Smith system, will come to an end in December 2009 to be replaced with a piece of technology created in-house.
The decision to create SAMS - Smith Availability Management System - is one which affects many travel firms which have in the past used third party software to power critical parts of their business.
Not only did the previous system confuse customers with mixed messages on credit card bills (from Starfish), but contracting hotels by Smith's team was difficult in terms of understanding where room inventory ultimately resided.
There is also another important element to consider - many travel brands suddenly find that they have simply outgrown the previous system and are, perhaps most importantly, also reluctant to hand over their hard earned commission to a third party.
So Mr and Mrs Smith has spent around £100,000 and a considerable amount of time creating its own platform to allow reservations both online and offline via a centralised database.
Hoteliers are also able to manage their own content including availability, room descriptions and associated images.
The SAMS system, as many will notice, was created without the need of a GDS.