Upiq

Upiq.com (pronounced “you-pick”) is a travel search aggregator based in San Diego, California. It allows users to compare prices on flights, hotels, car rentals and other vacation tours and packages by aggregating the results simultaneously from hundreds of travel search websites and consolidators including other fare aggregators, then showing a one page comparison of the best deals found on the web. It then redirects the visitor to the travel site with the best rates to complete the booking.
Unlike most travel booking sites, Upiq earns its profits through commissions so it circumvents the need to mark up its quoted prices to earn a profit. Upiq's official Facebook page has also been growing and gaining new fans much faster than Kayak's official Facebook page..
In 2007 NBC Today’s Travel recommended that when it comes to finding the best offers on flights, people should go to travel search aggregators instead of traditional travel agencies or travel booking sites that actually sell airline tickets and are dealing directly with the airlines.
Upiq.com is multilingual, offering flights, hotels, car rental searches and availability on all major travel sites in over 27 languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Bulgarianm, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Greek, Icelandic, Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese.
History
Upiq was launched in September 2005 including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, US Airways, American Airlines, JetBlue, Continental Airlines, Allegiant Air, Frontier Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Airtran and Virgin America.
It has also expanded its geographical reach to include carriers to, from and in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world, including Lufthansa, British Airways, Ryanair, Air France, KLM, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Air Canada, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Air China, SkyWest, International Airlines Group, Qantas, Air Berlin, EasyJet, SAS, TAM Airlines, Alitalia, Iberia, Royal Air Maroc, EgyptAir, Japan Airlines, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Asiana Airlines.
In December 2007 the company launched a hotel search service that offers advanced tools for people seeking hotel reservations, reviews and content search functionality for both pc and mobile devices, covering over 223 countries and territories, 27 languages and 120 currencies.
In August 2008 Upiq launched a car rental search service that offers a large selection of car rental options from over 600 leading and independent car rental companies like Avis, Hertz, Entreprise-rentacar, Europcar, Sixt in 5 continents. Upiq's car rental service searches covers 30,000 city and airport locations in over 170 countries, in 30 languages and quoting in multiple currencies.
In November 2009 Upiq collaborated with Viator to provide the industry's largest and most diverse selection of worldwide tours, activities and sightseeing experiences.
How Upiq works
Upiq offers its travel search services for free to the public. It does not sell airline tickets directly to end users; instead, the site can be used to find the cheapest deal for a desired flight after which users are automatically transferred to a travel booking site or to an airline website to make their booking directly. The same concept applies to their hotel and car rental searches. Upiq generates its income through commissions from travel booking sites; this strategy allows the company to display its quoted prices without mark ups.
Product
Travel Search Aggregator
Upiq is a travel metasearch engine that searches multiple computer reservations system databases for airfares in one single search. The site displays up to 2,000 flight results and combinations for each city pair searched with a condensed flight matrix on the flights listing page. Upiq.com compares airline, hotel, car rental and other vacation deals from other travel sites including other fare aggregators.
Technology
Upiq.com is built on a Java, Apache, PHP, Perl, and Linux platform.
Market share and popularity
Upiq boasts the second largest community on Facebook among all other travel search aggregators, only second to Kayak. Upiq's official Facebook page has also been growing and gaining new fans much faster than Kayak's official Facebook page. Visitors to the site spend about eighteen seconds on each pageview and a total of three minutes on the site during each visit. The median Upiq users are people with children, 35-44 years of age, have a college degree, and are making an income of over $100,000. Relative to the general internet population, people who went to graduate school are greatly over-represented at upiq.com.

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