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If you’re searching for flights on Yapta.com today, you may notice that the search results look a lot like those delivered by KAYAK.com.  Well, your eyes are not deceiving you.  KAYAK, the largest travel search site in the world, is now powering Yapta’s flight search.

This is great news for you!  By integrating KAYAK’s flight search, which provides prices and itineraries for hundreds of airlines, you’re now able to track prices on virtually any flight in the world.

All of us at Yapta are really excited to bring this enhancement to you – so give our new flight search a whirl and let us know what you think.  And if you would like to learn more about Yapta’s partnership with KAYAK, you can read our news announcement.

The next time you visit Yapta (and if you like saving on airfare, you should) you’ll notice that we’ve integrated our airfare tracking service with TripIt.com – a terrific trip management site that will help you organize and share your travel plans.

Using TripIt is easy.  Simply forward all of your travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an airline, hotel or car reservation —TripIt automatically creates a master itinerary that combines all your travel plans plus weather, maps, restaurants and more.  You’ll love it.

So what’s the benefit to using Yapta and TripIt together?  Well, now when you forward your flight confirmation emails to TripIt, you can have Yapta start tracking your flights for airline refunds or credits with a single click.  It will save you time, money and the frustration of not having all your travel plans in one place.

If you’re a Yapta member, look for the “Connect with TripIt” button on your MyTrips page and try it out today.  And if you’re a TripIt member, click here to connect your account to Yapta.

Oh, and don’t forget to let us know what you think.  Your feedback is very much appreciated.

Today we’re happy to report that Yapta has struck a partnership with the popular travel planning site TripIt.  The news was alluded to in a panel discussion at the PhoCusWright Conference in Orlando featuring Yapta’s CEO, Tom Romary, and TripIt’s CEO, Gregg Brockway.

For over a year, Yapta has received many requests and suggestions for Yapta and TripIt to merge their services.  Well, the two companies have listened and will now be working to pair TripIt’s travel planning capability with Yapta’s price tracking expertise.  This means travelers will be able to build price assurance into all of their travel plans simply by forwarding their airline confirmation email to TripIt.

Here’s how it will work:

1.   Forward your airline confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com

2.  Organize and share your itineraries on TripIt

3.  Get automatic refund alerts for all your flights from Yapta

It’s that simple.  The click that organizes your travel plans with TripIt will now also protect you on price with Yapta!

Here’s some more travel news you can use:

• The New York Times reports that last month Responsible Travel, which gives travelers the option of buying “carbon offsets” to counter the emissions generated by their airline flights, canceled its program, saying that while it might help travelers feel virtuous, it was not helping to reduce global emissions. In fact, company officials said, it might even encourage some people to travel or consume more.  Well, it was an admirable effort.

• Figures released this week showed a sharp drop in business-class bookings for September and a concurrent rise in economy-class travel amid continued belt-tightening by both corporate bookers and leisure travelers. That heightened demand for discount seats is expected to keep up into the new year.  The increased competition for economy seating means you may have to be more flexible with your travel plans to keep within your budget.

• American Airlines’ unionized flight attendants are mounting mock strike demonstrations at 13 U.S. airports Wednesday to show their dissatisfaction with 18 months of contract negotiations without agreements on wages or benefits. Representatives of the 18,000-member Association of Professional Flight Attendants will be handing out leaflets to passengers and picketing at airports from San Diego to Boston, New York and Miami, but they will not disrupt passengers or flight operations, officials said.

Yapta.com today announced a unique social feature that allows travelers to flaunt their airfare or hotel savings on Facebook – and point their friends to a potential travel deal.

Hundreds-of-thousands of travelers currently use Yapta to track airfare and hotel prices and to be alerted to savings when their select flights or hotels drop in price. With Yapta’s introduction of Frugal Travel Flaunts, travelers can now choose to flaunt their savings on Facebook once they’ve acted on an alert and booked at a reduced price – or when they’re alerted to a refund or credit from their airline on purchased tickets that have dropped in price.

Yapta members with a Facebook account can post their Frugal Travel Flaunts on their Wall and have friends see them in their news feed.  The flaunts consist of short messages such as, “I found a $116 refund by tracking price drops on a purchased flight with Yapta,” or, “I saved 20% on a flight to Chicago by tracking price drops with Yapta.”  Yapta members simply click the “Share with my Facebook friends” button that appears on your “MyTrips” account page.

It gives travelers an opportunity to celebrate on Facebook when they’ve scored a great deal on a particular flight or hotel – or when they’re credited on an airline ticket that they’ve already booked. It also has the potential to help travelers spotlight a deal for their friends on Facebook who may have an interest in the same trip.After all, a friend who can find travel deals for you is a friend worth keeping.

Additionally,travelers can now also use Yapta to post the trips they’re planning on Facebook.  Whether traveling for business or leisure, sharing travel plans on Facebook can lead to meet-up and networking opportunities or valuable travel tips on places to stay, eat and explore.

Quick Review of When & How to “Flaunt” on Facebook from Yapta.com:

1. When an airline ticket that you’ve already purchased drops in price, Yapta will alert you when you’re eligible for a travel credit from the airline.  The email alert we send drives you to the “MyTrips”
page on our site for all the credit & flight information.  It’s from that MyTrips page where you can “Share with my Facebook friends”.

2.  When the price of a flight or hotel that you’re tracking (not purchased) drops in price, Yapta will alert you when you can book at a lower price.  The email alert we send drives you to the “MyTrips” page on Yapta.com where we would help you kick off the booking process.  The MyTrips page is where you’ll find “Share with my Facebook friends.”

3.  If you simply track a flight or hotel on Yapta, you’ll have the option to “Share with my Facbook friends” from the “MyTrips” page that captures all tracked flights.  This will simply share the fact that you’re planning a trip to Chicago (for instance).

Questions?  Contact us at info@yapta.com

Yapta is proud to announce the “Nine Months of Paradise by Marriott“Sweepstakes where we’re giving away 15 prizes every month for 9 months,including Grand Prize packages from Marriott & Renaissance Caribbean and Mexico Resorts, a 1-year Clear Pass, the fast pass for airport security, and Starbucks gift cards.Becoming eligible for the Sweepstakes is easy.  All you have to do isvisit Yapta.com during each month and track the airfare on any flightand Yapta will present you with the opportunity to participatein each monthly drawing.  You can increase your chances of winning bytracking up to 25 flights each month to receive the maximum 25 entriesinto the sweepstakes.

Don’t think you can actually win?  Well, that’s what Emily Lakin from San Francisco, CA and Jan Walker from Springfield, MO thought before they each took home a grand prize in our previous sweepstakes contests.

Here’s some other travel news you can use:

*  The Wall Street Journal reports that, “CheapTickets.com will permanently remove booking fees on flights,becoming the latest online travel seller to do so as the industry triesto capture more business from airlines’ Web sites amid a prolongedslump in the travel sector.”

*  Benjamin O’Dell, the Central Pennsylvania Travel Examiner, writes that JetAmerica’s $9 flights are indeed too good to be true. “Many critics have pointed out that JetAmerica’s $9 airfare only appliesto the first wave of tickets sold for each flight, typically the firstdozen.  Most fares will cost somewhere between $49 and $79 and all willcarry the ubiquitous fees that airlines have grown increasingly fond ofinitiating for services that were once considered standard on Americanflights.  In this sense, while still affordable, JetAmerica’s rates arenot a radical departure from the fares set by other industry playerssuch as Northwest Airlines and Delta.”

*  Mark Malkoff, a comedian often appearing on “The Colbert Report”, is living on an AirTran plane for an entire month in order to get over his fear of flying.  This is the same dude who lived at IKEA for a week and visited all 171 Starbucks in Manhattan in 24 hours.  You can peek in on his experience here: http://www.markonairtran.com/Public/Main.aspx

*  The Daily Beauty Reporter blogfrom Allure magazine (a must-read for Aaron here at Yapta) poses thefollowing question: “Is the TSA Getting Gorgeous on Your Dime?”  Well,apparently they are whenever you dispose of your expensive cosmetics atTSA check-points.  It ain’t easy traveling pretty.

It was only a week ago when Yapta announced it was able to track airfare priceson 5 additional international airlines – including Qantas Airways,Korean Air, Emirates, El Al Airlines, and Spirit Airlines.  Well, the Yapta engineers have been en fuego and today have rolled out 5 more international airlines: Aeromexico, Air Jamaica, China Airlines, Air New Zealand and Air India.

In total,Yapta can now track pricing on 22 international airlines and 13U.S.-based airlines – all in effort to help you get the best deal onyour airfare.

Here’s some more travel news you can use:

* Starting today, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) willstart to implement its Secure Flight passenger identification programby requiring airline passengers to enter their full name — exactly asit appears on their passport or government issued identification theywill be traveling with — when making any flight reservations.

Forexample, if the driver’s license or passport lists the passenger’s nameas “John William Smith” you should reserve your flight under “JohnWilliam Smith” not “John Smith” or “John W. Smith.”

In thesecond phase of the Secure Flight program, which begins on August 15,passengers will also be required to enter their date of birth, genderand watch-list redress number (if it applies) when booking airlineflights.

I don’t know about you, but I feel safer already. (wink)

* Air New Zealand has just launched anew ad campaign called “Nothing to Hide.” The ad features a number of airline employees “dressed” in nothing but body paint. According to The Boston Globe, Rob Fyfe, the CEO of Air New Zealand, reportedly makes a cameo as one of those in body paint.

As if that weren’t enough, The Globe also reports that Air New Zealand is also shopping a singles-only Matchmaking Flight – from Los Angeles to Auckalnd, New Zealand – in October with round-trip fares starting at $780.  There will be a preflight gate party; food,drinks, and games throughout; and a party at the Skycity ConventionCentre in Auckland after you land.  The carrier also has set up a website, www.thematchmakingflight.com, where passengers can upload a personal profile and start connecting before the flight.

If you use Yapta.com to track airfare and hotel prices, please take 2 minutes to complete our short travel survey.  We simply want to gain a better understanding of who you are as a traveler – and how we might be able to serve you better.  Again, it will only take 2 minutes – and we’d greatly appreciate it!

Click here to begin: http://tinyurl.com/cjh7v9

Yapta’s CEO, Tom Romary, has been selected as a panelist for the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference taking place at the Marriott in San Francisco on Feb. 25-27.  Tom will be part of the online travel panel slated for Fri., Feb. 27th at 11 AM PT.  If you’re in the Bay Area, come say hello.  It’s going to be 3 days packed with approximately 150 tech (Apple, Microsoft, RIMM, etc.) and Internet (Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, etc.) companies presenting to about 800 institutional investors.

One of the challenges with planning travel is the volume of changes to airline schedules. With the price of fuel rising this year and a turbulent market, airlines have been cutting flights and rearranging their schedules to cut costs. To get a sense of the scope of the changes check here -and to get a sense of how it impacts fliers you can read this article.

When an airline changes its schedule travelers might find changes to one or more of the legs of their trip. The changes can range from minor time changes all the way to flight cancellations. Yapta customers can get hit by schedule changes like everyone who flies. If the flight change is serious enough you might find your flight labeled with the dreaded “untrackable“on Yapta. We hate seeing this word on our web site as much as you do because it means that the itinerary you saved has changed in a way that we can no longer track. To help you out, we are starting a new program this week to help you adapt to flight schedule changes. If you are tracking a purchased ticket that has gone “untrackable” we are going to use your confirmation number to get the updated information so we can continue price tracking.  If you have not purchased your ticket yet, we are going to use your preferences tofind a few flights that match your original as closely as possible for tracking and send an e-mail letting you know about them. Of course, we can only e-mail you if you have confirmed your e-mail address with us.

As an aside, when talking about this internally we refer tountrackable trips as “bad trips“, and yes, we get that this has lots of connotations.

Today Yapta.com announced the “Track-A-Flight Sweepstakes” where anyone can win one of 20 prizes, including a $500 gift card to Marriott, a 1-year Clear Pass, the fast pass for airport security, or an Airport Lounge Day Pass, which provides access to over 500 airport VIP lounges across the world.  Becoming eligible for the Sweepstakes is easy.  All you have to do is visit Yapta.com during the month of October and track the airfare on any flight and Yapta will present you with the opportunity to participate.  You can increase your chances of winning by tracking up to 25 flights anytime between 10/1/08 and 10/31/08 to receive the maximum 25 entries into the sweepstakes.

To access the rules & registration, visit: http://www.yapta.com/trackaflightsweepstakes/.