Yahoo! announced the beta of its Yahoo! FareChase hotel product (http://farechase.yahoo.com
), an extension of the Yahoo! FareChase travel search offering announced in August of 2004. ÊExpanding on the ability to search for flights, this beta offers consumers the opportunity to search multiple trusted hotel sites including hotel chains and online travel agencies to find the best hotel and related travel information available online. ÊWith unbiased search results and easy bookings directly with provider sites, the product eliminates the need for multiple online searches, saving consumers time, effort and money by using one trusted travel source.

The new Yahoo! FareChase hotel product offers a variety of powerful search, sorting, and refining capabilities, which are presented to users through an easy-to-use interface.Ê The customized, dynamic sorting instantly redisplays results by price or distance from specified location and automatically lists hotel amenities, address and distance in miles. The hotel beta also provides features and tools that help make choosing a hotel easier, such as hotel photos, user ratings and reviews, interactive maps that display hotels and attractions, and other useful travel content.

“As part of Yahoo!‘s commitment to providing the best search experience on the Web, consumers now have a free, relevant and unbiased product to help them find and book travel quickly and easily,”Ê said Yen Lee, General Manager of Travel at Yahoo!. “This beta launch marks just the beginning of what we are capable of providing for travelers and will continue to leverage our world-class search technology and content to provide the most valuable travel search solution to our users.”
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