Priceline.com Extends 'Big Deal' Hotel Promotion Until April 15

NORWALK, Conn., March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Here's something fun to do with your tax refund.  Hop onto priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) and get a "Big Deal" on a Name Your Own Price® hotel room.  Priceline.com announced today that, because of the positive response from its customers, it will extend its Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee promotion another two weeks, until April 15, 2010.

"Every priceline.com hotel customer receives a post-stay satisfaction survey and, on average, approximately 85% of our customers say they would be likely to recommend priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® hotel service to a friend," said priceline.com's Chief Marketing Officer Brett Keller.  "Given that high level of satisfaction, we felt that the Big Deal promotion would strike a chord with new and existing customers - and it has.  We're pleased to extend the promotion for two more weeks."

Here's how Priceline's Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee works: If you book a Name Your Own Price® hotel room and find a better price up until the day before check-in, priceline.com will match that price and give you $25 back.  In addition, customers with U.S. billing addresses will receive a $50 coupon good toward a future priceline.com vacation package.  For full details on the Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee, visit http://travela.priceline.com/promo/big_deal_days.html.

To help customers get their own big deal, Priceline has dramatically expanded its Winning Bids content area for the duration of its Big Deal promotion.  Winning Bids allow visitors to see representative successful Name Your Own Price® hotel bids recently made by other priceline.com customers.  During the Big Deal promotion, priceline.com visitors can type in virtually any U.S. city they choose and see thousands of winning bids in hundreds of cities around the country.

In a recent internal study, priceline.com looked at Name Your Own Price® hotel bookings for January 2010 in all star levels, and then compared those booked prices with the published rates available on Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz for the same hotels and check-in and check-out dates, shopped on the same day.  The survey found that over 40% of the priceline.com customers saved at least 50% over competitors' published nightly rates.  All rates and prices used in the comparison excluded taxes and fees.

Here are some examples of successful Winning Bids that have been made so far during the Big Deal promotion. Winning Bids do not include taxes and fees.  Actual prices and availability are not guaranteed and can change at any time.  Savings percentages are also not guaranteed.

• New York City, 3-star hotel, Times Square/Theater District, $100 a night, 70% savings.
• Washington, DC, 4-star hotel, Convention Center/Capitol Hill Area, $99 a night, 52% savings.
• Boston, 3.5-star hotel, Cambridge, $70 a night, 61% savings.
• Chicago, 3-star hotel, Millennium Park, Loop & Grant Park Area, $60 a night, 60% savings.
• Miami, 4-star hotel, Miami Beach area, $225 a night, 51% savings.
• San Diego, 4-star hotel, Downtown & Harbor Island, $77 a night, 61% savings.
• San Francisco, 3.5-star hotel, Union Square East, $80 a night, 58% savings.

To see the Big Deal Winning Bids section, visit http://travela.priceline.com/promo/big_deal_days.html.

Priceline.com's Big Deal Guarantee complements the company's current TV, print and online marketing campaign that has William Shatner (aka The Priceline Negotiator) teaming up with "Big Deal," a 520-pound sidekick who explains to hotel managers why accepting priceline.com customers' Name Your Own Price® bids is a smart business decision.

Priceline.com is an industry leader in increasing savings for traveling consumers.  In November 2007, priceline.com became the first major online travel agency to eliminate booking fees for all domestic and international airline tickets.  Then, in July 2008, priceline.com became the first major online travel agency to slash booking fees on its published-price hotel rooms.  Priceline.com also is known for being the only major online travel agency to offer a sunshine guarantee for its vacation packages in 2008 and is the only major online travel agency to offer hotel rooms, airline tickets and rental cars with the  Name Your Own Price® service.

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 32 languages in over 90 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Included in the priceline.com family of companies is Booking.com, a leading international online hotel reservation service, priceline.com, a leading U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers, and Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service. 

Priceline.com believes that Booking.com is Europe's largest and fastest growing hotel reservation service, with a network of affiliated Web sites. Booking.com operates in over 76 countries in 25 languages and offers its customers access to approximately 78,000 participating hotels worldwide.

In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises than any other Internet travel service. In addition to getting great published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using priceline.com's TripFilter advanced search technology, customize their search activity through priceline.com's Inside Track features, create packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available.  Priceline.com operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com also licenses its business model to independent licensees.

SOURCE Priceline.com