About $300 billion is spent each year in the U.S. on "unmanaged" business travel (the kind that doesn't have to be approved by corporate travel policies). These trips are taken by 20 million small-business people who don't get lower negotiated corporate air and hotel rates when they book. So Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline.com, saw he had a new problem to solve. His new travel booking site, Upside.com, is the answer, he believes.
Upside sells air plus hotel packages (it doesn't sell air and hotel separately) with a twist: members not only get lower package prices than they could find elsewhere, but they also get an Amazon gift card of varying amounts, depending on the cost of the trip.
I put Upside to the test by booking sample trips and then comparing the exact same airlines, flight times and hotel room types on the same dates of travel, hoping to find examples where Upside didn't save money when calculating the value of the gift cards. I was unable to do so.
Here are three searches taken at random (I wasn't looking for the lowest price irrespective of flight times or date, but rather searched for specific itineraries just as a business traveler might do).
