Yesterday Amazon updated its travel section of its Local Deals page with this message:
Effective October 13, Amazon Destinations stopped selling reservations on travel.amazon.com and the Amazon Local app. If you have a reservation, your reservation is valid and will be honored by the hotel.
Content for hotels and bed-and-breakfasts on the Oregon Coast and a handful of other US destinations within drive-time of major cities has been removed from the site, a mere half-year after its launch.
A spokesperson was not available to comment as of this morning. Will update the story once we know more. The company gave a statement to the Seattle Times saying:
"We have learned a lot and have decided to discontinue Amazon Destinations."
It was only two weeks ago that the company was offering prizes to promote its Destination page. For instance, the company was giving away a free year of Amazon Cloud Drive with any hotel purchase by October 15.
But yesterday the company deleted references to the promotion and removed the Amazon Destinations Facebook account.
Meanwhile in Britain, the other country where Amazon had launched a travel product, Amazon.co.uk last sent out a promotional message from Amazon Destination and Local Deals in September and early October. But today the message on its travel pages is the same:
"Effective 13 October 2015, Amazon Destinations stopped selling hotel breaks in the UK."
FROM APRIL:No, Amazon isn’t launching a travel site, but it did this instead