Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings

[scarsbergholden]

I can't imagine but a relatively small team is involved with the bitcoin process (from Expedia). Don't they process through Bitpay or something?

[am]

This reminds me of how travel became the first real category (excluding media) where folks were willing to use the Internet to pay for something tangible. It could definitely have a positive effect on the adoption but then again, we will need to wait for others to follow suit before we can judge.

[NapoleonBonaparte]

I can't imagine but a relatively small team is involved with the bitcoin process (from Expedia). Don't they process through Bitpay or something?

Have to be either bitpay or coinbase.

[d2dtk]

If Expedia is smart and a tad risky they would hold those coins and profit from it later on down the road.

[scarsbergholden]

If Expedia is smart and a tad risky they would hold those coins and profit from it later on down the road.

No way is any company of scale going to keep 100%, and I'd be surprised at > 1%. BTC economy is tiny, and these companies have real fiat overhead to be concerned with. They are not investors, IMO.

[RodeoX]

I'm buying some tickets for the mid-east (Jordan) later this week, maybe I'll try these guys out and see what kind of price I can get?


QUOTE FROM BELOW:

I think it's hotels only for now.

Aww, that's the least useful part of their service. 

[gentlemand]

I think it's hotels only for now.

[skivrmt]

I'm buying some tickets for the mid-east (Jordan) later this week, maybe I'll try these guys out and see what kind of price I can get?


QUOTE FROM BELOW:

I think it's hotels only for now.

Aww, that's the least useful part of their service. 

It's basically the only part they make money on.  I think they -might- get $5 per plane ticket, some none.  Same with car rentals.  Hotels they have deals with the sites to get a nice spread on -some- of the hotels, some no spread whatsoever.  Thin margin business for sure.

[RodeoX]

I'm buying some tickets for the mid-east (Jordan) later this week, maybe I'll try these guys out and see what kind of price I can get?


QUOTE FROM BELOW:

I think it's hotels only for now.

Aww, that's the least useful part of their service. 

It's basically the only part they make money on.  I think they -might- get $5 per plane ticket, some none.  Same with car rentals.  Hotels they have deals with the sites to get a nice spread on -some- of the hotels, some no spread whatsoever.  Thin margin business for sure.

Ah, that makes sense. Frankly, since google flights I never use anything else for air tickets. I consistently find crazy low prices via google flights. 

[d2dtk]

I never heard of Google flights. They need to get on the ball like Expedia and accept my btc!

[RodeoX]

I never heard of Google flights. They need to get on the ball like Expedia and accept my btc!

You should check it out. It's amazing. However they do not sell tickets. They do what Google does best, they just show where the best price is.

https://www.google.com/flights/

[Argwai96]

I never heard of Google flights. They need to get on the ball like Expedia and accept my btc!

You should check it out. It's amazing. However they do not sell tickets. They do what Google does best, they just show where the best price is.

https://www.google.com/flights/

Wow, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing. This has a much better search and interface than any other similar service I have used. Thumbs up!

[DavidHume]

I never heard of Google flights. They need to get on the ball like Expedia and accept my btc!

You should check it out. It's amazing. However they do not sell tickets. They do what Google does best, they just show where the best price is.

https://www.google.com/flights/

Wow, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing. This has a much better search and interface than any other similar service I have used. Thumbs up!

That will kill off a lot of airline and travel agency.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

I never heard of Google flights. They need to get on the ball like Expedia and accept my btc!

You should check it out. It's amazing. However they do not sell tickets. They do what Google does best, they just show where the best price is.

https://www.google.com/flights/

Wow, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing. This has a much better search and interface than any other similar service I have used. Thumbs up!

That will kill off a lot of airline and travel agency.

I believe that these prices are if you were to buy directly from the airline. With a travel agency you buy from the agency who buys from the airline, and the airline may have special/different prices for travel agencies.

[Kluge]

I never heard of Google flights. They need to get on the ball like Expedia and accept my btc!

You should check it out. It's amazing. However they do not sell tickets. They do what Google does best, they just show where the best price is.

https://www.google.com/flights/

Wow, this is awesome. Thanks for sharing. This has a much better search and interface than any other similar service I have used. Thumbs up!

That will kill off a lot of airline and travel agency.

It's been around a good few years, but Google has an odd tendency to not advertise its services except on its own services (commitment to "eating your own dog food" dogma, I guess), so a good few people miss their sometimes goofy, sometimes "killer app" projects. When I was first introduced to GFlights by word-of-mouth, I believe I was told it's actually based on an older open-source project with a name I can't remember but which is almost as effective (still better than searching flights with "normal" third-party agencies). Of course, Google's the company which hides boat-loads of games and easter eggs in all their products (GMaps, GTranslate, new ones for each major update of Android, YT, and their primary web search engine all have a good few)... they just seem to like to hide things away and have it be kind of mysterious when consumers stumble over them.

[bryant.coleman]

It's basically the only part they make money on.  I think they -might- get $5 per plane ticket, some none.  Same with car rentals.  Hotels they have deals with the sites to get a nice spread on -some- of the hotels, some no spread whatsoever.  Thin margin business for sure.

But still they could increase their margin with Bitcoins. For example, Bitpay charges only 1% where Visa / Master charges 2.8%. So even for flight bookings they could make significant profits if they use Bitcoin.

[Harley997]

It's basically the only part they make money on.  I think they -might- get $5 per plane ticket, some none.  Same with car rentals.  Hotels they have deals with the sites to get a nice spread on -some- of the hotels, some no spread whatsoever.  Thin margin business for sure.

But still they could increase their margin with Bitcoins. For example, Bitpay charges only 1% where Visa / Master charges 2.8%. So even for flight bookings they could make significant profits if they use Bitcoin.

They would also no longer have to deal with fraud related issues with are almost certainly above 3%

[leezay]

Newegg is joining the bandwagon.

[DannyElfman]

It's basically the only part they make money on.  I think they -might- get $5 per plane ticket, some none.  Same with car rentals.  Hotels they have deals with the sites to get a nice spread on -some- of the hotels, some no spread whatsoever.  Thin margin business for sure.

But still they could increase their margin with Bitcoins. For example, Bitpay charges only 1% where Visa / Master charges 2.8%. So even for flight bookings they could make significant profits if they use Bitcoin.

They would also no longer have to deal with fraud related issues with are almost certainly above 3%

The fraud related issues would be costs in addition to the ~3% that credit card companies charge

[d2dtk]

Newegg is joining the bandwagon.

I believe Newegg had been on the Wagon for some time now. Expedia I'm sure has had enough with visa taking their profits and will soon flip the switch to allow all their services to be paid via bitcoin.