When searching for the best fare on a flight, it’s not uncommon for customers to peruse a third-party travel site like Expedia or Priceline and jump at the lowest number they see associated with a flight. But some United Airlines passengers say this tried-and-true method has resulted in the unexpected purchase of a no-frills Basic Economy ticket. [More]
priceline
Priceline CEO Resigns After In-House Investigation Uncovers Relationship With Fellow Employee
By 4.28.16
Online travel booking site Priceline announced today that CEO Darren Huston — who has served in that role since January 2014 — will be resigning after a company investigation discovered he was in a relationship with a fellow employee. [More]
Starwood Hotels, Priceline Sign Hospitality Deals With Cuba
By 3.21.16
Now that travel is opening up from the U.S. to Cuba, hospitality companies are jumping at the chance to get in early: both Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Priceline have inked deals that will get them into business with the island nation and provide services for travelers. [More]
Does Booking Direct With The Airline Actually Offer You The Lowest Price?
By 6.8.15
It’s no secret that some airlines have little love for online travel-booking sites. Southwest only lets travelers book fares directly through the airline and Delta has cut ties with a number of booking/listing sites, including TripAdvisor. The airline industry claims that booking directly will get consumers the lowest prices on airfare, but is that true? [More]
New Travel App Only Lets You Book Last-Minute Hotel Rooms
By 1.15.15
Every once in a while, customers get stranded in an unfamiliar town for any number of reasons: flight cancelled, last-minute business meeting, the list goes on. If you’ve ever found yourself in one of those situations then you know it can be difficult to score a last-minute hotel room without forking over the big bucks. Priceline-owned travel company Booking.com (you know the company with annoying booking.yeah commercials?) claims to have the answer in the form of its Tinder-for-hotel-rooms mobile app, Booking Now. [More]
Priceline Announces It’s Buying OpenTable For $2.6 Billion
By 6.13.14
Travel booking site Priceline seems to be hungry, and it it seems it’s found exactly what it wants to nosh on — restaurant reservation site OpenTable, which books tables for users in their cities. Priceline is forking over $2.6 billion in cold, hard cash to buy the company. [More]
Court Throws Out Online Price-Fixing Lawsuit Against Major Hotel Chains, Booking Sites
By 2.19.14
For years, some have accused America’s largest hotel chains of colluding with travel booking sites like Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, and Priceline to make sure that the room rates offered to consumers on these sites are the same. This practice, claimed plaintiffs in various lawsuits, effectively allowed the hotel chains to determine their own prices and kept the booking sites from competing against each other; meaning consumers could be paying more than they should. But a U.S. District Court judge feels differently. [More]
Priceline Slams Customers With Hundreds Of Duplicate E-Mails
By 2.27.13
UPDATE: Priceline has released a statement regarding this afternoon’s e-mail oopsy. [More]
Priceline Books Me In 3.5 Star Roach Motel, And There’s No Refunds
By 1.22.13
The problem with Priceline’s “Name Your Own Price” feature is that you don’t get to name your own hotel. That’s the point, of course. When Chris used it to book a 3.5 star hotel for his vacation, though, he looked up reviews for the place and saw that other customers’ experiences ranged from “no heat” to “dog poop in the closet” to “bedbugs.” That was not promising. So he tried to cancel, only to learn that Priceline has a strict policy against that. No matter how terrible the hotel you end up with might be. [More]
Hotel Claims Overzealous Employee Posted Sign Offering To Pay For Nice Online Reviews
By 12.14.12
Earlier today, we told you about the Texas hotel that offered guests up to $5 if they posted positive reviews on any number of popular travel sites. A rep for the hotel has since responded to say that this was a case of an overzealous employee acting on their own. [More]
Dallas Hotel Blatantly Offers To Pay Guests For Positive Online Reviews
By 12.14.12
——-
Here’s a tip to hotel managers around the world — Paying for reviews is bad enough. Advertising that you’re willing to pay for positive feedback is only going to communicate to your guests that you run a bad hotel and that you expect them to not have anything nice to say about your establishment. [More]
Priceline Convinces Kayak To Elope By Paying It $1.8 Billion In Cash & Stock
By 11.9.12
Who knew these two crazy kids would end up together? Travel site Priceline announced it’s going to pay its fellow travel search company Kayak $1.8 billion in both stock and cash. With this kind of speedy relationship, it makes you wonder if anyone bothered with a pre-nup. [More]
Expedia Books Me Into 4 Hotels I Can’t Stay In
By 11.2.12
Like many New Yorkers in low-lying areas, Consumerist reader Jacob’s home was evacuated. Without a place to stay, he used his phone to book a room at a Manhattan hotel. Little did he know that he wouldn’t be staying at that hotel, or the one after that, or the one after that. [More]
Making A Booking Mistake On Priceline.com Not As Disastrous As I Expected
By 10.15.12
Is booking your travel through third-party sites always a complicated nightmare that precludes refunds and makes your life difficult? No! Not always. Sometimes it saves you money and isn’t the headache you imagine it to be. Tony learned that the making an error on Priceline wasn’t as bad as it could have been. [More]
Lawsuit Alleges Price-Fixing By Major Hotel Chains And Online Booking Sites
By 8.21.12
A class-action lawsuit filed yesterday in a U.S. District Court in California alleges that the biggest names in online travel — Priceline, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotels.com — and some of the world’s largest hotel chains — Hilton, Starwood, Marriott, Intercontinental, among others — conspired together so that the “best price guarantee” you often see when booking a room online is in actuality just a number set by the hotel operators. [More]
I Would Like To Name My Own Price & Not Get Trip Insurance Automatically, Priceline
By 4.2.12
Alli says she’s stumbled upon something she thinks is new on Priceline — when she named her own price for a , $25 worth of trip insurance was included with no opting out screen. Of course, Priceline doesn’t announce clearly that this is going to happen, instead just hiding it in the Terms of Service agreement. [More]
Bus Group Doesn't Mind If Priceline Kills Off William Shatner As Long As It's Not With One Of Their Vehicles
By 1.24.12
Priceline is reportedly offing their spokesman William Shatner in an ad, which is just fine with the American Bus Association — but they’d prefer it if his means of death is something other than a fiery bus explosion as seen in a new commercial. They’re asking the travel booking site to pull the ad, which they feel is in poor taste. [More]
Priceline Upgrades You To Reportedly Bedbug-Infested Hotel
By 12.7.11
Ordinarily, it would be a good thing if Priceline upgraded your bid for a 3.5-star hotel to a 4-star bid. This sometimes happens when a classier hotel accepts your bid. It wasn’t much of a bonus for Lissa, though. She wanted to avoid a certain 4-star hotel because user reviews in various places complained of bedbug infestations, so she bid only on 3.5-star establishments. Of course, this bid landed her at the allegedly infested hotel. It took her several hours of customer service hell to get out of the situation, which is still better than being chomped on by bedbugs. [More]
