Priceline.com Launches Tonight-Only Deals Service for iPhone & iPod Touch Users for Same-Day Hotel Bookings

NORWALK, Conn., Sept. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) today launched a new Tonight-Only Deals(SM) hotel reservations service that is being bundled into its free Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new service enables last-minute travelers to choose the exact hotels they want for stays the same night and still get priceline.com's famous deep discounts.    

Current Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app for iPhone users will need to download this newest version of the app in order to get the Tonight-Only Deals service.  The app, including the new service, is now available for free from the iTunes App Store www.itunes.com/appstore/. Tonight-Only Deals is not yet available for Android™.

Tonight-Only Deals is priceline.com's brand-new way to serve up deep discounts on top-quality hotel rooms around the country.  Travelers who download the free app with the new Tonight-Only Deals service will have access to an exclusive inventory of 3-star and 4-star hotel room in 34 cities that can be booked for check-in that same night, with a maximum 4-night stay, at discounts of up to 35% off published prices found elsewhere. Tonight-Only Deals will be posted on the service at 11:00 a.m. local time.  Room reservations can be instantly booked up until 11:00 p.m. local time, or until they sell out.

The new service will show the names of all the available Tonight-Only Deals hotels with descriptions, maps and photos, along with the rates and the percentage discounts.  Tonight-Only Deals also will display each hotel's customer satisfaction score and reviews generated by priceline.com guests who have stayed there.  

Cities where Tonight-Only Deals can be found include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Ft. Lauderdale, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Washington, DC.  More cities will be added in the future.

"Usage trends show that approximately 70% of priceline.com's mobile customers are booking hotels for same-day check-in, so there's a clear market need for the Tonight-Only Deals service," said John Caine, priceline.com's Senior Vice President, Marketing.  

Here's how the Tonight-Only Deals service works as part of the Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app: When a traveler searches the app's published-price hotel listings for a same-night stay, the app will also look for Tonight-Only Deals and alert the traveler if specially discounted deals are available.  The traveler will then see a list of up to three available hotel room reservations per city and will see which hotels have reservations available.  Travelers can choose to see the Tonight-Only Deals or continue with their hotel search.  In either case, room reservations can be immediately booked through the Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator easy check-out feature.  

The Tonight-Only Deals service is the latest among priceline.com's mobile offerings.  Priceline.com recently launched its first hotel app for the iPad, with real-time map scrolling and native within-the-app booking functionality. Priceline.com also offers a Hotel Negotiator app for Android™.  All of these apps are available for free at the iTunes App Store and Android™ Marketplace.

iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and iTunes are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Android is a registered trademark of Google, Inc.

About The Priceline Group

The Priceline Group (Nasdaq: PCLN) is a leader in global online hotel reservations, with over 190,000 participating hotels worldwide.  The Group is composed of four primary brands – Booking.com, priceline.com, Agoda.com and TravelJigsaw – and several ancillary brands. The Priceline Group provides online travel services in over 110 countries in Europe, North America, South America, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa.

Booking.com is the number one online hotel reservation service in the world, offering over 165,000 hotels, and is available in 43 languages.  Priceline.com gives leisure travelers multiple ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting compelling published prices, travelers can take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available.  Agoda.com is an Asia-based online hotel reservation service that is available in 37 languages.  TravelJigsaw is a multinational car hire service, offering its reservation services in over 4,000 locations.  Customer support is provided in 29 languages.

SOURCE Priceline.com