Just 12 months or so after coming back from a three-year hiatus, Travel-Ticker has been sold to HotelPlanner… and immediately closed once more.

Since its return, Travel-Ticker has been based in United Arab Emirates – making it the first overseas acquisition by online group hotel booking serice HotelPlanner.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed and the site already redirects to HotelPlanner.

Earlier this year, HotelPlanner bought mid-range online travel agency InternetHotels and sister-site HotelsAtAnywhere, also for an undisclosed fee.

Both brands from the earlier deal have also been switched off.

Born in 2006 as an offshoot to Hotwire (under the stewarship of Barbara Messing, now chief marketing officer at TripAdvisor) with a focus on so-called “insider deals”, Travel-Ticker had a subscriber base of around ten million travellers in the US.

Three years later, Expedia Inc-owned Hotwire shut the service after the onslaught of brands such as Groupon and LivingSocial came on the scene.

The brand name and domain eventually ended up in the hands of Eimantas Balciunas from Lithuania.

HotelPlanner CEO and co-founder Tim Hentschel says “acquisitions are important to our overall growth strategy”.

“As a specialist in online hotel sourcing for individual and group travel, we want to expand our offering globally.

“Acquiring Travel-Ticker allows us to showcase our brand to travelers worldwide. Our ability to book business in multiple languages and in 99 currencies gives us a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”