Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings

[d2dtk]

I think the news will pick this up and thus will bring more users seeking to use/understand bitcoin and jump on the train before it leaves the station. Maybe by the end of the month btc will be in the 700's

[cosmicapex]

Expedia, the big online travel site, announced on Wednesday it will begin accepting bitcoin for hotel bookings through its website.

Thus it is becoming the first major travel-agency to take the digital currency.

If the reception is good, the company said it expects to bring bitcoin to its other service lines as well.

Expedia is the latest big-name retailer to embrace bitcoin. Overstock.com started accepting it in January, and the Chicago Sun-Times began accepting it in April. Dish Network announced in May that it would start accepting bitcoin. There are other travel-related services out there that take bitcoin, some smaller individual travel agencies and 9Flats, an online apartment rental site. CheapAir.com began accepting it in November. But none have the size or exposure of Expedia, which bills itself as the world’s largest full-service travel site.

Don't tell me this isn't great news!      

Unfortunately, it isn't.
Walk-in rates at hotels and direct airline and vehicle bookings are almost always cheaper than booking through sites like Expedia.
Frequent travelers rarely use Expedia. In fact, first-time users are usually crestfallen once they see the prices when checking in at hotels.
There is a reason why Expedia, Orbitz, Agoda, etc are all struggling - they do not have the volume to negotiate larger deals within the very fragmented travel and tourism industries.

This is against my pre-conceived notion, so I'll give it a try. I have a particular hotel in the middle of nowhere I'm interested in. It's $90/night (after taxes/fees) online booking a bit over a month in advance. There's nothing I know of going on there on the date I've planned, so I'll try getting a room later at night on the day we go there to see what kind of deal they can do. If I can come in at <$75 for the room, I'll become a true walk-in believer.

There's a good bit of irony here since I would've booked through Expedia before reading this.

I'd be interested in your findings. I believe hotels have a special "rack rate" for walk ins. And it's higher than pre-booking.

I did find that a local travel agent (small business) consistently gets me rates equal to or lower than expedia and agoda.

Third party booking sites are almost always cheaper.

Frequent flyers don't use them because they don't get you elite status and it doesn't earn miles.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

I definitely don't think this will have any specific effect on BTC price changing. However though, more and more big name companies are starting to accept Bitcoin payments every single day it seems. And this is great news overall. So by itself no huge price jump, but as a smaller part of the big picture snowball effect, it will help in the long-run.

This is why it is so great that companies in various industries are starting to accept bitcoin.

When overstock (a discount retailer) accepts bitcoin, priceline (a discount travel site) is not going to pay attention as to how successful it is. However when expedia accepts bitcoin, priceline will notice how much they get in sales and how their market share will (likely) increase, giving them an incentive to accept bitcoin as well.

The more industries that accept bitcoin the more widely it will become accepted.

[negafen]

Seem like bitcoin still have other negative news which cancel out positive news.

[kerafym]

Buy on every dip.

This tactic has work every time for the last 5 years.

[CEG5952]

In regards to the poll, it seems we've dropped below even the lowest estimate. Goes to show you the unrealistic expectations piled onto this kind of news.

[hodap]

In regards to the poll, it seems we've dropped below even the lowest estimate. Goes to show you the unrealistic expectations piled onto this kind of news.

Exactly. People holding bitcoin is gambling right now.

[d2dtk]

I definitely don't think this will have any specific effect on BTC price changing. However though, more and more big name companies are starting to accept Bitcoin payments every single day it seems. And this is great news overall. So by itself no huge price jump, but as a smaller part of the big picture snowball effect, it will help in the long-run.

Yes it will definitely help in the long run. However short term I think the price could still rise by the end of the month becuase of more users seeking out bitcoin either to get on board, info, etc. So possibly more people will be investing in BTC thus driving the price up a little for the month of June.

In regards to the poll, it seems we've dropped below even the lowest estimate. Goes to show you the unrealistic expectations piled onto this kind of news.

Exactly. People holding bitcoin is gambling right now.

Bitcoin itself is a gamble just as stocks in the US are a gamble but stocks have a tad more predictability.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

In regards to the poll, it seems we've dropped below even the lowest estimate. Goes to show you the unrealistic expectations piled onto this kind of news.

Exactly. People holding bitcoin is gambling right now.

The price of bitcoin often can have very wild swings.

This is still a very short time period to be looking at the price of bitcoin.

The poll is really geared towards the longer term price.

[d2dtk]

We need more good news to have more business adopt and consumers to get more interested

[leezay]

In regards to the poll, it seems we've dropped below even the lowest estimate. Goes to show you the unrealistic expectations piled onto this kind of news.

Exactly. People holding bitcoin is gambling right now.

The price of bitcoin often can have very wild swings.

This is still a very short time period to be looking at the price of bitcoin.

The poll is really geared towards the longer term price.

No one can tell what happen tomorrow let alone long term trend of bitcoin.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

In regards to the poll, it seems we've dropped below even the lowest estimate. Goes to show you the unrealistic expectations piled onto this kind of news.

Exactly. People holding bitcoin is gambling right now.

The price of bitcoin often can have very wild swings.

This is still a very short time period to be looking at the price of bitcoin.

The poll is really geared towards the longer term price.

No one can tell what happen tomorrow let alone long term trend of bitcoin.

This is true but you can look at the current situation to help get a good idea

[transient858]

Just a matter of time before more merchant accepting bitcoin.

[logger]

Yet another big company accepting Bitcoin. This is looking good.

[Nerazzura]

good choice expedia, i'm sure i book hotel room using bitcoin with them
since i don't use credit card, bitcoin is really good solution
by the way, which bitcoin exchange prices do they referred?

I think the news will pick this up and thus will bring more users seeking to use/understand bitcoin and jump on the train before it leaves the station. Maybe by the end of the month btc will be in the 700's

yeah i hope so, $700 is good price for bitcoin

[DannyElfman]

Seems to not have boosted the price. I hope not too many people start booking vacations on Expedia and it starts suppressing the price...

[skivrmt]

Seems to not have boosted the price. I hope not too many people start booking vacations on Expedia and it starts suppressing the price...

As a few others have pointed out, its not about this news will or will not effect the short term price of Bitcoin, its about Bitcoin, albeit slowly, getting more and more mainstream companies to accept it as payment.  Overstock was a good start because they are $350MM publicly traded stock.  Dish was another nice announcement (especially if AT&T buys them).  Now Expedia is another major publicly traded stock valued at nearly $10 Billion that will start accepting Bitcoin.  Wider acceptance is what we want Bitcoin to do right now.  Price increase will follow, not immediately, but eventually.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Seems to not have boosted the price. I hope not too many people start booking vacations on Expedia and it starts suppressing the price...

When companies accept bitcoin they will often sell the bitcoin in exchange for fiat as they must pay most of their bill in fiat.

Expedia must hire (or use existing) employees to manage the bitcoin process, monitoring sales, selling the bitcoin to pay it's fiat bills, explaining how the process works to customers, ect.

These employees will see how well bitcoin works in general and would possible become adapters of bitcoin themselves.

[d2dtk]

Seems to not have boosted the price. I hope not too many people start booking vacations on Expedia and it starts suppressing the price...

When companies accept bitcoin they will often sell the bitcoin in exchange for fiat as they must pay most of their bill in fiat.

Expedia must hire (or use existing) employees to manage the bitcoin process, monitoring sales, selling the bitcoin to pay it's fiat bills, explaining how the process works to customers, ect.

These employees will see how well bitcoin works in general and would possible become adapters of bitcoin themselves.

I didn't even think about the individuals within the company that would could potentially be new players just because of their companies choice to accept BTC. Nice pointing that out 

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

Seems to not have boosted the price. I hope not too many people start booking vacations on Expedia and it starts suppressing the price...

When companies accept bitcoin they will often sell the bitcoin in exchange for fiat as they must pay most of their bill in fiat.

Expedia must hire (or use existing) employees to manage the bitcoin process, monitoring sales, selling the bitcoin to pay it's fiat bills, explaining how the process works to customers, ect.

These employees will see how well bitcoin works in general and would possible become adapters of bitcoin themselves.

I didn't even think about the individuals within the company that would could potentially be new players just because of their companies choice to accept BTC. Nice pointing that out 

Why thank you. Although this would be a relatively small number of people, I would think that anyone at the company that deals with the bitcoin side of things would almost certainly be at the very least get interested in Bitcoin