Desperate times call for desperate measures benefit consumers. As online travel agencies slug it out in the hunt for market share, many are starting to cut booking fees -- ironically, in stark contrast to what the airlines themselves are doing. While the airlines are looking to squeeze every last ounce of revenue from each passenger mile, the websites that put people in seats are hungry for any competitive advantage they can find.

Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW) has permanently kicked its airline booking fees on both domestic and international flights. Travelocity is following suit, to a limited extent, at least, by continuing to wave booking fees ... a measure that Expedia Inc (NASDAQ: EXPE) is taking, as well. What started as promotions are fast becoming the norm.

The on-line travel business is coming out of its first major downturn. Who is positioned to benefit most from the current upswing? Expedia Inc (NASDAQ: EXPE) is being mentioned more frequently. So much so that the on-line travel giant announced a $3.5 billion share repurchase this morning.

Thomas Weisel believes Expedia is in the early stages of a potentially material turnaround, regardless of any LBO or buyback and has placed a $37/share price target, in a report published yesterday. Expedia's stock rallied late last week on news that it might be taken private. Barry Diller, the on-line travel giant's CEO, owns 58% of the voting stock.

Much of the on-line travel business has gone through considerable consolidation as financial buyers bought up Travelport (Cendant's on-line travel business) and Sabre Holdings, which owns Travelocity, was acquired by Silver Lake and Texas Pacific Group. The change in ownership helped add pricing discipline to the market.

Expedia has invested close to $1 billion in developing software to improve services and develop new products. So much for believing the Internet has low barriers to entry. Who is going to be able to replicate a decade of code writing to surpass the purest Internet travel play. The answer is no one.

Expedia changed management a year ago and is beginning to see the fruits of new strategies. In addition, Expedia appears to benefit from economic slowdowns as its on-line reservation platform is a great vehicle to reduce excess hotel room inventory. Stock upgrades, LBO speculation and improved operating performance all bode well for Expedia shareholders.

If you're hoping to earn more money at your job (Who isn't?), then you cannot afford to miss the New York Times piece on using the internet to gain leverage in your salary negotiation. This is the most important paragraph from the article:

New Internet technologies are providing information that has never been available to the average person and transforming the way they sell homes or buy airline tickets. It could have the same effect on the 47 million people who look for new jobs each month and the countless others who think they are underpaid at the ones they have.

What sites like Salary.com and PayScale.com are doing is establishing a more efficient marketplace. Just a few years ago, you would have had to spend hours on the phone to find the best deal for a plane ticket. Now, you can log-on to a site like Travelocity, and browse rates from all the major airlines. Likewise, access to more information about salaries will provide employees with the information they need to know if they're being paid an amount comparable to what they might earn elsewhere.

Most interesting, PayScale.com offers information on jobs where it's typically hard to find data, including porn star, crossing-guard, or Rabbi.