Priceline.com Offers Ground-Breaking Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee

NORWALK, Conn., May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) announced today the launch of a ground-breaking Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee for its Name Your Own Price® hotel service.  With the launch of its Big Deal Guarantee, priceline.com is the first major online hotel reservation service to offer a $25 bounty to hotel customers who can find a lower price than what they paid for their reservations on priceline.com.

Here's how the Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee works:  If a customer books a Priceline Name Your Own Price® hotel room and finds a better price any time up until the day before check-in, priceline.com will match that price, pay a $25 bounty and give the customer a $50 Priceline Vacation Package coupon.*

For full details on the Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee, visit http://travela.priceline.com/promo/big_deal_guarantee.html.

"We believe that travelers want a hotel price guarantee with teeth," said priceline.com's Chief Marketing Officer, Brett Keller.  "Priceline's Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee doesn't just guarantee the lowest price.  It guarantees that you'll get a great deal, and we're backing that guarantee all the way up to the day before check-in."

So why is priceline.com so confident of its hotel Big Deal prowess?  In a recent internal study, priceline.com looked at Name Your Own Price® hotel bookings for April 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 dates.  The survey found that over 50% 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.                  

In addition to its Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee for Name Your Own Price® hotel rooms, priceline.com offers its standard best price guarantee for published-price hotel rooms.  If a customer books a published-price hotel room through priceline.com and finds a better price online within 24 hours, priceline.com will refund the difference and give the customer a $50 Priceline Vacation Package coupon.

Here are some examples of Name Your Own Price® winning hotel bids recently made by priceline.com customers for major cities around the country.  These winning bids were shown on priceline.com on May 26, 2010.  Actual prices and availability are not guaranteed and can change at any time.

• Miami, 4 stars, Miami Beach, from $160/night (51% savings).
• Chicago, 4 stars, North Michigan Ave., from $100/night (50% savings).
• Las Vegas, 3.5 stars, Las Vegas Strip vicinity South, from $55/night (52% savings).
• Washington, DC, 3.5 stars, Convention Center/Capitol Hill, from $90/night (67% savings).

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.

*Priceline's Big Deal Hotel Price Guarantee covers hotels of at least two stars or higher.  The $50 Vacation Package coupon is being offered to customers with a valid U.S. billing address.  The $25 bounty will be paid as a refund to the customer's credit card.  For full details and restrictions, visit http://travela.priceline.com/promo/big_deal_guarantee.html.

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 34 languages in over 94 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, Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service and TravelJigsaw, a multi-national car hire 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 81 countries in 31 languages and offers its customers access to approximately 86,000 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