Travelocity has been sold to former rival Expedia Inc. for $280 million cash in a deal that would shake up the competitive online discount booking service industry.

Sabre Corp., which is based in the Dallas suburb of Southlake, announced on Friday that it would sell Travelocity, two years after the two companies had entered into a “strategic marketing agreement” in which Expedia was in charge of operations while Sabre conducted marketing, according to a Dallas Morning News report.

Both Travelocity and Expedia offered a way for customers to search for discounted flights, car rentals, and hotels and to book on the site itself, saving the hassle of searching the rates at numerous businesses, which has proved to be a very popular service with many other companies competing for market share.

Sabre, which was once owned by American Airlines, created Travelocity all the way back in 1996 when the Internet was still getting its bearings. It was a bold new effort and one of the first to allow travelers to book travel and bypass travel agents.

The Roaming Gnome mascot was the face of the company and was featured in countless ads on television and elsewhere. However, as new, competing websites launched, the site began to lose traffic, and it currently ranks at 2,571 in popularity on Alexa.com — Expedia ranks 511.

Sabre started to pull away from the consumer market as enthusiasm for Travelocity waned. Sabre is focused more on technology matters for travel providers, making the decision to hand off Travelocity to another company a more attractive option.

A European sister site also owned by Sabre, LastMinute.com, will also be sold.