Expedia Accepts Bitcoin

[maurya78]

This is good news, just a shame that I rarely find the best offers on expedia

[knight22]

Hopefully they will expend this to ticket booking quickly!

[Skele]

Amazing ! Not just because it will affect the prices and some will lose and others will win money, as every innovation or new tech, Bitcoin

help us to improve quality of life and make a lot of things more comfortable; in this case travel-booking.

[Ron~Popeil]

I just booked 2 nights for the drive to and from my vacation in August. I sent a corresponding purchase through coinbase to replenish my bit coin of course.

[beetcoin]

I just booked 2 nights for the drive to and from my vacation in August. I sent a corresponding purchase through coinbase to replenish my bit coin of course.

that's nice and all, but it probably costs more having to exchange your fiat into btc to get your room.

[Nathonas]

Some interesting facts about Expedia to put this into perspective:

2013 revenues: $4.7 billion; Market cap: $9.7 billion; 2013 gross bookings: $39 billion. This is a big company. I think the floodgates are starting to open, gentlemen.

[bryant.coleman]

2013 revenues: $4.7 billion; Market cap: $9.7 billion; 2013 gross bookings: $39 billion. This is a big company. I think the floodgates are starting to open, gentlemen.

Wow! Even if 1% of the booking is done using BTC, that corresponds to $390 million. More than $1 million per day! But I am a bit skeptical as well. Overstock guys are saying that their daily Bitcoin volumes are just around $8,000.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/06/11/expedia-wants-you-to-book-your-next-hotel-stay-with-bitcoin/

I am booking a holiday to the moon as I type this

Oops already posted I cannot delete

It would be more correct to say that you are booking a hotel on the moon.

They are only accepting bitcoin for hotels (at least at first) and not for flights.

Regardless this is very good news for bitcoin and should increase the number of people aware of bitcoin and the number of people that use bitcoin.

[Swordsoffreedom]

2013 revenues: $4.7 billion; Market cap: $9.7 billion; 2013 gross bookings: $39 billion. This is a big company. I think the floodgates are starting to open, gentlemen.

Wow! Even if 1% of the booking is done using BTC, that corresponds to $390 million. More than $1 million per day! But I am a bit skeptical as well. Overstock guys are saying that their daily Bitcoin volumes are just around $8,000.

Well to scale I would say it would average around 80,000 a day
That said this is just a speculation on how much volume they will get it will probably remain higher for a while before leveling off
That said 8000 a day is 2 million nine hundred twenty thousand dollars a year
2,920,000

That's a pretty good sum of revenue for an additional option

[ljudotina]

...maybe the mindset is changing that these companies need Bitcoin not Bitcoin needing these companies.

Well this is darn truth and it has nothing to do with "mindset" but with pure mathematics and economy / profit. Yes, they need BTC and that's why BTC will conquare world sooner or later if bankers do not change their ways.

[3elks]

Even though i didnt plan to travel anywhere this makes me wanna BOOK SOMETHING.

[Bizmark13]

It's awesome how with every passing day, Bitcoin is becoming increasingly recognized as a valid means of payment by businesses. I remember back in the days when they were supposed to be only good for buying drugs off Silk Road. We've come a long way since then. Now we have big companies like Overstock, Dish, TigerDirect, and Expedia on our side that finally recognize the value of cryptocurrency.

[bryant.coleman]

Well to scale I would say it would average around 80,000 a day
That said this is just a speculation on how much volume they will get it will probably remain higher for a while before leveling off
That said 8000 a day is 2 million nine hundred twenty thousand dollars a year
2,920,000

That's a pretty good sum of revenue for an additional option

Lets calculate how much they saved.

Costs if they had used Visa / Master (Normally they charge 2.8% fee, since Overstock is a very large company, we could assume the charges at around 2%) - $2,920,000*0.02 ==> $58,400.

Profit from using Bitpay (2% - 0.99%) ==> $29,492

Not bad at all. 

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Well to scale I would say it would average around 80,000 a day
That said this is just a speculation on how much volume they will get it will probably remain higher for a while before leveling off
That said 8000 a day is 2 million nine hundred twenty thousand dollars a year
2,920,000

That's a pretty good sum of revenue for an additional option

Lets calculate how much they saved.

Costs if they had used Visa / Master (Normally they charge 2.8% fee, since Overstock is a very large company, we could assume the charges at around 2%) - $2,920,000*0.02 ==> $58,400.

Profit from using Bitpay (2% - 0.99%) ==> $29,492

Not bad at all. 

It is not only that but they would likely generate additional revenue because they accept bitcoin.

Much if not most of the sales that the "early" big companies that accept bitcoin will like have sales that they would not otherwise have.

[bryant.coleman]

It is not only that but they would likely generate additional revenue because they accept bitcoin.
Much if not most of the sales that the "early" big companies that accept bitcoin will like have sales that they would not otherwise have.

Yes. That is also true. Bitcoiners are more likely to prefer Expedia now, than the other travel sites. This will result in an increase not only in the Bitcoin revenues, but also in the fiat revenues as well.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Well to scale I would say it would average around 80,000 a day
That said this is just a speculation on how much volume they will get it will probably remain higher for a while before leveling off
That said 8000 a day is 2 million nine hundred twenty thousand dollars a year
2,920,000

That's a pretty good sum of revenue for an additional option

Lets calculate how much they saved.

Costs if they had used Visa / Master (Normally they charge 2.8% fee, since Overstock is a very large company, we could assume the charges at around 2%) - $2,920,000*0.02 ==> $58,400.

Profit from using Bitpay (2% - 0.99%) ==> $29,492

Not bad at all.  

It is not only that but they would likely generate additional revenue because they accept bitcoin.

Much if not most of the sales that the "early" big companies that accept bitcoin will like have sales that they would not otherwise have.

Yep that is a pretty good savings right there not including that it is additional revenue from lower fees so it goes to their bottom line but also adding the fact that some of those sales would not have occurred otherwise.

Anyways good news and more merchants will help to grow that segment of the business it's not even a year old with overstock so it has a lot of marketing potential and user adoption to gain market-share and maintain it as the bitcoin user base grows

Expedia has a near monopoly status now for Hotel Bookings with bitcoin
Not saying complete because there may be other services that count such as renting in a hostel using Bitcoin etc.

[delhi]

a very good move by expedia.

But how they handle refunds etc wrt price change

[Nathonas]

a very good move by expedia.

But how they handle refunds etc wrt price change

Like every other merchant that currently accepts BTC. If the item you bought is eligible for a refund, then you will get your full BTC back.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Well to scale I would say it would average around 80,000 a day
That said this is just a speculation on how much volume they will get it will probably remain higher for a while before leveling off
That said 8000 a day is 2 million nine hundred twenty thousand dollars a year
2,920,000

That's a pretty good sum of revenue for an additional option

Lets calculate how much they saved.

Costs if they had used Visa / Master (Normally they charge 2.8% fee, since Overstock is a very large company, we could assume the charges at around 2%) - $2,920,000*0.02 ==> $58,400.

Profit from using Bitpay (2% - 0.99%) ==> $29,492

Not bad at all.  

It is not only that but they would likely generate additional revenue because they accept bitcoin.

Much if not most of the sales that the "early" big companies that accept bitcoin will like have sales that they would not otherwise have.

Yep that is a pretty good savings right there not including that it is additional revenue from lower fees so it goes to their bottom line but also adding the fact that some of those sales would not have occurred otherwise.

Anyways good news and more merchants will help to grow that segment of the business it's not even a year old with overstock so it has a lot of marketing potential and user adoption to gain market-share and maintain it as the bitcoin user base grows

Expedia has a near monopoly status now for Hotel Bookings with bitcoin
Not saying complete because there may be other services that count such as renting in a hostel using Bitcoin etc.

This will be good for the community because when it becomes known how much expedia has made off of bitcoin sales, their competitors will take note and add bitcoin to their list of payment options.

[TheTruth4]

Too bad Expedia is a terrible service overall, and you're usually better off just booking a hotel directly.