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https://coinreport.net/expedia-says-bitcoin-usage-exceeded-expectation/

Expedia says Bitcoin usage has exceeded expectation
Posted On 03 Jul 2014By : Andre Infante

We reported last month that Expedia had just begun offering hotel bookings for Bitcoin. Today, in an interview with CoinDesk, Expedia said that they have been seeing greater-than-expected revenue from the project already.

During the interview, Expedia’s vice president of global product, Michael Gulmann, reported that the total income from Bitcoin sales had exceeded early projections. These projections were based upon information about the Bitcoin trade done by Overstock.com.

As of now, Expedia only accepts Bitcoin for its hotel reservations. Gulmann took the opportunity to reassure the Bitcoin community that their support for Bitcoin wasn’t just an experiment. He said that hotel sales were a logical place to start a large-scale Bitcoin rollout, as hotel bookings represent the lion’s share of the site’s revenue.

“Certainly, there are people who want to book airline tickets with Expedia, but it made sense from a technology standpoint, from a business standpoint and from a customer demand standpoint to jump out with hotels first,” said Gulmann.

This is very exciting, because it serves as an indication to other companies considering Bitcoin support that Bitcoin isn’t just an ideological stance to take, or a way of attracting the attention of the press, but it’s a business move of legitimate value.

All these places now accepting BTC use some typa 3rd party yeah ?
I can't remember the name of the popular one thats been around a while, bitpay maybe ??

Prooving people and analyst are wrong is something bitcoin is doing the best.
Just wait until polititians start to exploit annonymous donations in large scales for their campaigns, it will be a turning factor, well atleast for the insanely corrupt USA.

I'm also actually surprised at how much business some of these companies are doing, but then again I'm always surprised people actually want to spend their coins  :D. I hope this encourages expedia to start accepting them for hotel bookings and also encourages other businesses to take the plunge.


Yep, bitpay http://coinbrief.net/expedia-accepting-bitcoin/

true, this is a good start for bitcoin. we hope other companies will follow this expedia. so that they know that bitcoin is legal payment
 and worth

I'd MUCH rather spend my bitcoins than U.S. dollars.  I get a lot more value for my money that way.

Co opting the corruption would be an awesome strategy for bit coiners. If there is one thing our politicians line up for it is handouts.   

It is encouraging to see businesses are getting positive results from adopting bitcoins. I hope this trend continues, cos I believe some part of the sales comes from the novelty effect. Bitcoin users want to try new ways of spending their coins, and that is what they are doing. As more businesses accept bitcoin, this novelty effect may start to weaken, until it is not worth the effort anymore.

How so? Unless you got your BTC for free..ish like mining or woteva service etc

And isn't expedia really expensive compared to juat booking via the airline/commision free search site.

Happy to use my AUD if the cost is significantly cheaper (which it was when I used expedia last time)

Im just talking abput flights tho...dam mobile /train

It totally depends on the location. For US, expedia have the best deals overall.

Booking directly with the airline has always been more expensive but its benefits is for airline group's membership.

In short, Expedia is best for avg ppl who travel for vacation once or more a year. For business travels, the airline group's membership is better.

As an example, use the crappy U.S. dollars to buy bitcoins a week ago (the exchange rate was about $570 per bitcoin).

Then spend the bitcoins to purchase something today (the exchange rate is about $640 per bitcoin).

For every $100 worth of bitcoins spent today, you're only spending $89.0625 of last weeks cash (leaving you with an extra $10.9375 worth of spending power).

Furthermore, if you're not in a hurry to acquire the bitcoins, you can advertise (on localbitcoins.com and here at bitcointalk in the "Currency Exchange" sub-forum) to buy bitcoins at somewhere between 1% and 10% below current market value and wait for someone that's in a hurry to convert their bitcoins to cash (so they can spend U.S. dollars instead of bitcoins?).  This gives you an additonal $1 to $10 in spending power for each $100 converted to bitcoins.

It isn't so much that people are spending their existing coins it is that people are buying bitcoin for the purpose of spending it.

I'm glad that this has been stated. Once more and more businessess realise this we'll see that mass adoption(which already started if you ask me).

I suddenly got a gloomy feeling about the future of fiat currency...anyone else? ;D ;)

I got that gloomy feeling back in 1971.

This looks like good news for people to look forward to booking airplanes with expedia
Keep it up (although I rarely use it myself since I haven't booked a trip in a while)
When I do though will consider using it if it includes airplane tickets ^^

A reasonable chunk of coins need to be spent or the BTC economy stagnates and collapses...

Topher, Can you explain what happened with the '71 feeling you had? Was it the oil crisis in the US?

I would argue that the opposite is true. I would say that merchants need to accept bitcoin as payment in order for the bitcoin economy to flourish.

I booked a weeks worth of hotel days thru expedia the day they announced it. I then resupplied my bitcoin thru coinbase. I think that will be what I do all the time. Use bitcoin when I can and then replace it right after I use it. that way I help the btc grow and still keep my coins.

I'm glad to hear that. It indicates Bitcoin was accepted and used by more and more real-world users.

I think this is a great way for bitcoin enthusiasts to show companies that accepting bitcoin is a good way to increase their sales and their bottom line (profits)

That's when Nixon took the US off the gold standard opening the door to rampant overspending of USD.

Add in the higher profit with no tx fees and it is a no brainer. I do the same when I am planning a trip now.

I didn't even realize Expedia was accepting btc, that makes me really excited.  Hopefully other companies see this, I'm tired of banks, much easier to use btc.  I hope they add the airline side soon, I'm ready for a trip :)

I'm relatively sure that the people whose baseline for profit projections that they used (overstock.com) where quite surprised when they first implemented bitcoin as a payment option as well.  Pretty soon accepting bitcoin as a payment option will no longer be a competitive advantage but rather a necessity!

With consumer funded tx fees and no usurious fees from credit card processors it just makes good sense to accept bit coin. That and the constant trickle of new people into bit coin make it inevitable.

Consumers ultimately pay the credit card fees via higher prices. The concept of having the sender pay fees is much more transparent.

We also pay a premium to offset fraud and chargebacks. Once business owners get over their fear of the new it will be an easy choice. 

This is also true. I think one major thing that is holding businesses back from accepting bitcoin is the fact that it is a new unit of measure

Expedia is hit and miss.   I have scooped up some deals there...and sometimes it is more expensive to use them.   It is a good starting point though when you are trying to make travel plans (if you are on a budget that you are trying to stick to)...

"The constant trickle of new people into Bitcoin" is quickly turning into a flood.
2014 started out really bad for BTC, but the tide has turned and the second half of this year is setting up to be unforgettable.  :)

True when I talk to people about Bitcoin the tinge of Mtgox and the exchange crash is still fresh in their memories
But the fact it is not Bitcoin is becoming more common
Also when I used the term Virtual currency people were confused but when I said Digital Currency and payment systems people went AH that is fascinating instead so it's all about trying to determine the proper way to explain it to people.
Starting to see more people wanting to support it.