.travel domain

The .travel domain application process has so far been one of the worst organised, badly thought out processes I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience. For starters, the only reason for nearly all travel companies to buy a .travel domain is to protect their brand from yet another potential cyber squatting opportunity – I’m certainly not going to start changing the domain name that people are used to over to an unknown one – and neither is any other web manager with their head screwed on… Secondly, the application process has so far been unbelieveably frustrating – firstly, IATA were listed as an AP (Authentication Provider) which turned out to be false – I found out 2 weeks after I’d applied when my application was rejected. Because of that, I had to acquire something called a DUNS number from Dun and Bradshaw which has been like pulling teeth – DUNS have also got our company name wrong -this is despite our being in business for 25 years as a major specialist tour operator! Now I’m presented with a form into which I am supposed to enter a credit card number (not a secure form by the way) and there is no mention of the cost anywhere! Has anyone else actually managed to complete this diabolical process? Does anyone know how much they are planning to charge for these totally unnecessary domains? Grrr! Matt Illston