Full Description

priceline.com Incorporated is a global online travel company that offers its customers a range of travel services, including hotel rooms, car rentals, airline tickets, vacation packages, cruises and destination services. Internationally, the Company offer its customers hotel room reservations in over 75 countries and 27 languages. In the United States, the Company offers its customers the ability to purchase travel services in a manner or the opportunity to use the Name Your Own Price service, which allows the customers to make offers for travel services at discounted prices. The Company is also engaged in offering financial services through Priceline Mortgage Company LLC.

Service offerings (International)

The Company offers retail, price-disclosed hotel service globally, primarily through the Booking.com and Agoda brands. It works with over 60,000 chain-owned and independently-owned hotels offering hotel reservations on various Websites and in 27 languages. Hotels participate in Booking.com, which operates under an agency model, and Agoda, which operates under a merchant model, by filing rates in the extranet. Hotels may also participate in Agoda, through the consolidator relationships.

Service offerings (United States)

The Company, through the Name Your Own Price hotel room reservation service, customers can make reservations at hotel properties in all the cities and metropolitan areas in the United States and Europe. Hotels participate by filing secure private discounted rates with related rules in a global distribution system database. These specific rates generally are not available to the general public or to consolidators and other discount distributors who sell to the public; however, hotel participants may make similar rates available to consolidators or other discount providers under other arrangements. The Company also operates a price-disclosed hotel service in the United States that enables the customers to select the exact hotel they want to book and the price of the reservation is disclosed prior to purchase.

The Company’s Name Your Own Price rental car service is available in substantially all the United States airport markets. Consumers can access the Website and select where and when they want to rent a car, what kind of car they want to rent and the price they want to pay per-day, excluding taxes, fees and surcharges.

The Company also offer a price-disclosed rental car service on www.priceline.com that enables the customers in the United States to choose between price-disclosed or Name Your Own Price rental cars. The price-disclosed rental car service operates under the agency model, under which the Company earns a commission upon rental car return, and accommodates one-way and off-airport reservations.

The Company offers its customers in the United States the ability to purchase retail airline tickets at disclosed prices and with disclosed itineraries. The airline sets the retail price paid by the consumer and is the merchant of record for the transaction. These airline tickets do not have the restrictions associated with the Name Your Own Price service.

The vacation package service allows consumers in the United States to purchase packages consisting of airfare, hotel, rental car and destination service components. Consumers can select the exact hotel or resort that they want to reserve, and then select either a retail airline ticket or an airline ticket for the air component of their package. Additionally, consumers can add destination related services, such as parking, tours, shuttles, and activities. Vacation packages are sold at disclosed prices, although consumers cannot determine the exact price of the individual components on the Website.

The Company offers customers in the United States the opportunity to purchase destination services such as parking, event tickets, ground transfers, tours and other services available at their travel destinations. This service is offered to consumers as part of the process of booking an air, hotel and vacation reservation, and also as a standalone service.

The Company offer price-disclosed cruise trips through World Travel Holdings, Inc., formerly known as National Leisure Group, Inc. (WTH), an agent representing the cruise lines. The cruise service allows consumers in the United States to search for and compare cruise pricing and availability information from 19 cruise lines, and to purchase cruises online or through a call center by selecting from the published offerings and prices.

The Company offers air, hotel, vacation package and rental car customers in the United States an optional travel insurance package that provides coverage for, among other things, trip cancellation, trip interruption, medical expenses, emergency evacuation, and loss of baggage, property and travel documents. The travel insurance is provided by member companies of American International Group, Inc. (AIG).

Financial Services

The Company offer financial services through Priceline Mortgage Company LLC. Pricelinemortgage.com is controlled by EverBank, a federally chartered savings association supervised by the Office of Thrift Supervision, and a wholly owned subsidiary of EverBank Financial Corp. Pricelinemortgage.com has access to the management resources and expertise of EverBank. EverBank Financial Corp. provides management services to pricelinemortgage.com, including the procurement of personnel and office space and assistance in obtaining regulatory approvals. Pricelinemortgage.com is operating in all 50 states.

The Company competes with Expedia, Orbitz Worldwide, Sabre Group, AOL, Yahoo!, Mobissimo.com, FareChase.com, Kayak.com, TripAdvisor, Travelzoo, Cheapflights.com, Galileo, Travelport and Amadeus.