Priceline 2011 Annual Report Download - page 5

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4
Service Offerings — International
Retail Hotels. We offer a retail, price-disclosed hotel service worldwide, primarily through our Booking.com and
Agoda brands. Booking.com works with over 185,000 hotels and accommodations in over 160 countries offering hotel
reservations on various websites and in 41 languages. Hotels participate in Booking.com, which operates under an agency
model, and Agoda, which operates primarily under a merchant model, by filing rates in our proprietary extranet.
Retail Rental Cars. In May 2010, we acquired the rentalcars.com business, a United Kingdom-based international
rental car reservation service formerly known as TravelJigsaw. Rentalcars.com offers its car hire services in more than 4,000
locations throughout the world, with customer support provided in 38 languages. Customers using rentalcars.com can book a
full range of vehicles online through one of rentalcars.com’s branded websites, or they can reserve their cars by phone.
Rentalcars.com primarily offers its services under a semi-opaque merchant model that allows customers to see the price,
vehicle type and rental location, but not the identity of the supplier until the reservation is made.
Service Offerings — United States
Name Your Own Price® Hotels. Through our Name Your Own Price® hotel room reservation service, customers can
make reservations at hotel properties in substantially all major cities and metropolitan areas in the United States and Europe.
Most significant national hotel chains as well as several independent property owners participate in our Name Your Own
Price® service. Hotels participate by filing secure private discounted rates with related rules accessible through 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, hotels may make similar rates available to consolidators or other
discount providers under other arrangements.
To make an offer, a customer specifies: (1) the city and neighborhood in which the customer wants to stay, (2) the
dates on which the customer wishes to check in and check out, (3) the "class" of service (1, 2, 2½, 3, 3½, 4, 5-star or "resort"),
(4) the price the customer is willing to pay, and (5) the customer’s valid credit card to guarantee the offer. When making an
offer, consumers must agree to stay at any one of our participating hotel partners and accept a reservation that cannot be
refunded or changed. The target market for our Name Your Own Price® hotel room reservation service is the leisure travel
market.
Retail Hotels. We also operate a price-disclosed hotel service in the United States which enables our customers to
select the exact hotel they want to book and the price of the reservation is disclosed prior to booking. We offer such
reservations through a merchant model, as well as through an agency model for hotel room night reservations sourced through
the Booking.com extranet.
Name Your Own Price® Rental Cars. Our Name Your Own Price® rental car service is currently available in
substantially all major United States airport markets. The top five brand name airport rental car companies in the United States
are seller participants in our rental car program. Consumers can access our website and select where and when they want to
rent a car, what kind of car they want to rent (e.g., economy, compact, mid-size, SUV, etc.) and the price they want to pay per-
day, excluding taxes, fees and surcharges. When we receive an offer, we determine whether to fulfill the offer based upon the
available rates and rules. If a customer’s offer is accepted, it cannot be refunded or changed, and we will immediately reserve
the rental car, charge the customer’s credit card and notify the customer of the rental car company and location providing the
rental car.
Retail Rental Cars. We also offer a price-disclosed rental car service on www.priceline.com and other websites
which enables our customers in the United States to choose between price-disclosed or Name Your Own Price® rental cars. Our
price-disclosed rental car service operates under the "agency" model, under which we earn a commission upon rental car return,
and accommodates one-way and off-airport reservations. As with our retail airline ticket and hotel reservation services, rental
car reservations booked in a retail manner do not have the restrictions associated with our Name Your Own Price® service.
Customers can select the exact rental car brand they want to book and the price of the reservation is disclosed prior to purchase.