A new website -- coming "soon" -- forsakes the comprehensiveness gods and will focus on discount airlines only.
Budget Center, which recently launched BudgetHotels through an affiliate deal with HotelsCombined, aims to launch BudgetAirlines.com in the next week or s0, and plans to have an exclusive focus on low-cost carriers because "discounted flights and airlines are generally difficult to source on large travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity and are being under-serviced to online consumers," the company says.
The company says BudgetAirlines will search discount airlines -- including Southwest, JetBlue and WestJet -- but "will not search for flights from the major carriers such as British Airways, Cathay Pacific etc. as these airlines do not represent its target market."
BudgetCenter, which is seeking to leverage its portfolio of budget-oriented travel domains, is coy about whether it will scrape discount carrier websites or whether it has agreements with airlines or third parties for inventory access.
Inventory from Southwest Airlines, for example, isn't available on most travel websites, although the airline participates in Travelport and, to some extent, the Sabre GDS.
Asked about inventory access, Budget Center president and CEO Bob Chalmers says "we are looking at several options just now..." but he declined to comment further, citing confidentiality agreements.