Priceline is this a scam? Review and Customers Reviews

Priceline – that booking service and buying travel services, which is absolutely sure to help you find a reservation at the lowest price. The company was founded in 1997, after one of the founders of the companies, being on a plane noticed that the cabin was half-empty. Then he thought that the closer the reservation was to the departure date or the trip, the lower the prices hotels and airlines were willing to offer. That’s how Priceline’s auction service came about. The company is part of Booking Holdings, the world leader in online travel and related services. It began its development path back in 1997 and today it has a wide range of options for booking and purchasing tickets. The brand’s history begins with the most common problem of many air travelers – low cabin occupancy and half-empty flights. Therefore, one of the founders of this service had the idea that many would be willing to offer a lower price for a flight as the departure date approached. This move is economically beneficial not only for the airlines, but also for the customers, because by purchasing a ticket at a reduced price, you can save a significant portion of your money.

By taking advantage of this service, you can not only book accommodation at the lowest price, but also buy airline tickets, book a car, buy cruise tickets and tours. The company has even issued its own plastic card, paying with which you get additional bonuses. Today Priceline is a great online service for booking trips, paying for cruises, renting cars, booking flights to many countries around the world. Here you can find the hotel or hotel room you want. It is also possible to arrange entire travel packages that include all of the above services. In this review, we will analyze in detail the specifics of Priceline, examine its features and functionality, check the legal information and read the reviews. Based on this, we will determine whether it is worth booking tickets on this site and whether Priceline is a scam?

 

Why Priceline?

Priceline is, as we have already written, not just a booking service. Despite the fact that it will be most profitable to book hotels in the U.S., the service works all over the world. The range of countries and regions covered on Priceline service is extremely large, which makes the company not only popular, but also multifunctional, because in addition to the standard hotel room booking, the company offers a car rental at the destination or book a cruise, and the entire procedure can be carried out in a cell phone thanks to the app. Most of the services provided on Priceline can be found across the United States, but the organization also works in many European countries, partnering with many car and lodging companies.

In addition, on the site of the service you can find interesting cruises, for example, to the places where famous movies were shot or important historical events took place. Priceline is part of the world-renowned holding company Booking, which also includes such popular services as Rentalcars, KAYAK, OpenTable and others. On the site you can find more than 80,000 hotel offers from around the world, as well as the opportunity to rent vehicles from one of the 20 companies in Asia, Europe, Canada, North and South America. The closer the reservation, the more bargains hotel offers, and you can get a room higher category than you expect at a very favorable price;

• You can book not only a hotel, but also entire tours, assembled from the most budget proposals;
• with the help of the service you can book a trip to unusual places, such as the places where famous movies were filmed;
• the company has launched its own bank card, which can be used to accumulate bonus points to receive additional discounts;
• 24-hour support service;
• a wide range of accommodation options;
• The availability of a mobile application on both platforms;
• regular discounts and bonus offers;
• the opportunity to book a special cruise to interesting places;
• availability of free cancellation;
• openness to cooperation with the company;
• quick booking confirmation and convenient method of payment.

Using the service can really bring benefits. According to the information on the site, you will not find a lower price for booking on the selected options. But you should keep in mind that you do not choose the object of accommodation, you specify only its parameters, and it may turn out that you bought a “cat in a poke”. And this cat can be both better and worse than what you imagine.

 

How do I register at book.priceline.com?

In order to make a reservation for an accommodation facility or service on Priceline.com you need to register and create your personal account. Registered members will be able to receive additional special offers from the service and participate in company promotions. You can register through Facebook or Google or use your email address to confirm. Registration does not take long.

The registration process book.priceline.com is not necessary if the user only wants to book a ticket or rent a car. Looking through all possible offers on the website book.priceline.com, the customer will not find any window or tab with the registration, it can be done only on the main page by the link priceline.com, or in the mobile application. In order to correctly fill out the registration form, the following information must be entered:

• first and last name;
• current email address;
• password.

After successful registration, the system will automatically authorize the user on the site and a page of personal account will open, where you can manage your account. Please note that you must enter all the necessary information only in English, because the site does not support data entry in Cyrillic.

Private office of the Priceline service

Personal account will allow you to store the history of all your bookings, personal data and other information, so that when logging in to your account, you do not have to enter all the data again. The personal account on the Priceline website does not provide a large number of additional services, but only simplifies in some aspects the client’s interaction with the service. In the personal profile you can edit the old and add new contact information, control the subscription to the newsletter and the latest offers from companies, as well as add another travel participant. The latter makes it possible to purchase multiple tickets at once without having to re-enter the information already provided. Another thing that the personal account provides is the addition of payment facilities, where the customer can add his card to pay for the booking faster.

Mobile application

Mobile application Priceline.com. is available in the App Store and Google Play, you can also download it from the company’s website. The application allows you to view hotel reviews, select rooms, make hotel reservations and many other operations that can make any trip as comfortable as possible. In addition, you will be able to take advantage of exclusive offers from the company. Many of these offers are only available in the application. You can download it by clicking on the appropriate links, which are located at the bottom of the site page, or by searching in the application store on your device.

The functionality and features of the mobile app are not inferior to the computer version of the site – the user can also view all available offers for hotel room rentals, cars, all current cruises, as well as control the processes of booking and cancelling tickets. It is also worth noting the presence of additional bonus offers, which are not available directly on the site. The application, as well as the official site, does not have the ability to set the Russian language, so the entire interface of the program is initially in English.

 

How to book a hotel at priceline.com?

At first glance, the site reservation system book.priceline.com looks exactly the same as on other hotel booking sites. You choose where you want to go, when and the number of rooms. The difference is that you can also choose a classic booking or, the hotel will choose the service for you, and you will get a room at a maximum discount. On the main page of the site a small form is available to the user, which prompts you to select the desired service and specify the primary parameters (location, time, number of rooms and the number of people checking in). After entering the necessary data, the system will automatically search and give all the results that match the request.

How to book a hotel?

You can use the service’s special program for express booking: these are rooms that are suddenly available or put up by hotels for booking during the non-tourist season with big discounts. All you need to do after registering on the service is to choose a place, dates of booking, number of rooms and see the best price. After filling out the start form, the site takes you to the search results page, which displays all the currently available results in the form of a list.

Here the user will be able to use additional filters on the left side of the page. These filters will help you to sort hotel rooms in more detail, for example, you can select the number of stars, additional amenities included in the price (swimming pool, internet, free breakfast, etc.) and set the price range. Just above is a map on which you can see the location of the hotels. Clicking the “Book Now” button, the user is presented with detailed information about the hotel, additional photos, ratings and reviews. Then it is necessary to select the room by clicking on the appropriate button, after which the system will automatically redirect the buyer to the checkout page.

Confirmation of reservation

You will receive a confirmation of your booking by email and it will be saved in your mobile app. This confirmation can also be used for visa support, as your booking will be prepaid in any case. All contact information and payment method information must be entered correctly in order to book your ticket. The following information must be entered in order to successfully book your ticket:

• first and last name;
• current residential address;
• zip code;
• country, region, city;
• current email address;
• cell phone number.

Priceline service fees

Service fees vary depending on the conditions of the accommodations and airlines. Priceline charges no additional commission for the services provided. The total cost includes the room rental itself, taxes and resort fees. Please note that the amount quoted upon payment may vary, and resort fees are not a mandatory payment, as they usually cover the costs of accommodation (electricity charges, safe deposit box, etc.).

Additional features of Priceline

In addition to booking accommodation through the site you can also:

• Book a car.
• Select and book airline tickets and receive discounts of up to 50% on flights.
• Choose and compose your own trip by booking a flight + hotel package.

In addition to renting hotel rooms and hotels, as well as booking cruises and tours to many places around the world, Priceline offers a number of other, no less useful features that help simplify the process of preparing for travel and give the opportunity not only to take care of all the moments of the trip, but also to save time and money to a large extent. To understand exactly how you can take advantage of additional features of the service, we should understand them in more detail.

Car reservation

On the site book.priceline.com you can rent a car for a trip or for business purposes. To do this, it is enough to select the appropriate tab “Cars” on the main page of the site and select the location and term of the rental. The system will automatically search the rental companies with which it cooperates. The results display looks similar as with the available hotels.

Express Deals

Priceline service provides the opportunity to rent a hotel room at a special price, which decreases as the selected rental period approaches. To be precise, the closer the rental date with the date of booking the room, the lower will be its price. Thus, companies try to fill their apartments as much as possible to avoid losing money for empty rooms. To find an express deal, simply click on the “Hotel Express Deals” tab at the bottom of the website page and fill out the start form.

Price breakers

New feature on the site book.priceline.comThe option allows you to save up to 50% when booking a room. The essence of this feature is that the user is given a choice of three hotels and he has to confirm the choice of one of the groups, paying a lower price than the established. After booking a room, the client can find out which of the hotels he chose, as the choice is made automatically and is determined by the system at random. For example, if the average daily rate of three hotels is $80, then the client will pay $49, while Priceline itself decides which hotel of these three will be booked room.

Rent an apartment

Not so long ago, Priceline launched a service for searching and renting houses and apartments, thanks to which anyone can rent an apartment in any part of the city where they are staying. One of the advantages is the lower cost than in some luxury hotels, and also this approach is more client-oriented, since some people prefer not to stay in hotels. It should be noted that on the website book.priceline.com you can find a special section “Careers”, which publishes current vacancies for various positions. At the moment, the employment process takes place only in the United States.

 

Pay for your reservation at book.priceline.com

All services purchased on the site can only be paid for online using a bank card. The payment process takes place after selecting the desired number and filling out contact information, if it was not entered during the account registration process.

How to pay for hotels online?

You can pay for your booking with a bank card linked to your personal account on the service portal or in the mobile app. Also, you can pay for your booking with a card issued by the company and get extra bonuses. You can pay for the hotel through the website and through the official mobile app. After entering the contact information, the second stage of booking opens, which contains a special form for filling in the card details. If the client has already been registered and entered the card before, the system will automatically enter them for the user. The whole payment process takes place directly from the site book.priceline.com, which has the appropriate security certificates.

If the client has decided to pay for the reservation using the mobile app, it is only necessary to link the card and fill in the contact information, after which the payment process is automatically confirmed. At the moment it is possible to pay for the hotel by VISA, Mastercard and AMEX cards, as well as by Priceline service card, with the possibility of getting certain bonuses.

 

Priceline bonuses

Priceline has additional bonuses and an affiliate program for loyal customers that will make your reservations even more profitable. Priceline’s website often offers discounts on hotel reservations, car rentals, and popular cruises. Any themed promotions and bonus offers are rare, as the company does not provide services, but only serves as an intermediary between organizations that deal directly with renting accommodation and cars. Priceline also offers personal discounts in the mobile app for registered users, which are not displayed on the website.

Registration Bonus

As an added bonus at check-in, you can receive a 10% discount on your next reservation. The discount coupon will be sent to the customer’s email once their reservation has been paid for and made.

Additional Benefits

For its regular customers, the company has developed its own bank card, which will not only receive bonuses when you pay with the card, but also to participate in the company’s seasonal bonus promotions. After receiving the bank card and making purchases for the first $1,000, you get $10,000 in bonuses. The card is serviced free of charge. The card is a full-fledged bank card with a chip, protection and other features of a bank card. Plus, you’ll get 10% cashback for every purchase on Priceline.

Loyalty Program

We would like to mention the service’s loyalty program, thanks to which the user will be able to receive and accumulate points when booking hotels and renting cars. At the bottom of the site page there is a special tab called “Priceline Rewards™Visa® Card”, which describes in detail the procedure of getting bonuses for certain actions on the site. This program gives the opportunity to issue a special card, which is used to pay for services on the service. It has the same features as an ordinary credit card, but is directly linked to Priceline and provides additional bonuses. For example, the client can get 10% cashback when paying for services on the service, as well as receive 1 point per dollar spent wherever this card is accepted. In the future, these reward points can be used as payment on Priceline.

Invite a Friend” promotion

The company has a well-developed partnership program, based on a system of referral links.

Affiliate Program

Priceline.com offers to become a partner of the company and receive additional income for each transfer and booking on the service through your website. By becoming a partner in the referral program you will get additional discounts, continuous technical support and support from the project manager, as well as the opportunity to use the company’s cloud service for data storage and other additional benefits from the company.

At book.priceline.com you can find a special tab “Partner with Priceline”, which describes all types of possible cooperation with the company. Any willing webmaster can connect his website or application to the service system via API and receive a percentage of each conversion and purchase of any services on Priceline.

The company also offers cooperation directly through adding your hotel or rental organization to the lists of the service, thanks to which you can get a wide coverage of the audience and increase recognition. Many businesses operate on this principle, allowing book.priceline.com to post their available offers. According to the company, the average number of visitors per month reaches more than 20,000,000, and the percentage of people who consider offers on Priceline during travel planning is 74%. In addition, rewards are available from Spa Networksso CityAds offers the following remuneration: for the sale of a ticket – 2.25 USD, a completed hotel stay – 6.00%, for car rentals – 4.50%.

 

Complaints about Priceline

The service book.priceline.com has been in operation for a very long time, but there are not many reviews of its work in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. We studied what we were able to find in Russian and other languages. Negative reviews are due only to the fact that not all customers were not happy with the reservation, they have received in the end, mostly complaints were about the hotels. In case there is a hitch with the booking, customer service responds quickly, tries to help and provides discounts on the next booking.

For the most part, the service is popular in the West, as many cruises and partner companies are Western organizations. However, you can find reviews of this service online in both Russian and English. But there are many more positive reviews. Customers praised the fact that booking through the Priceline.com service is very convenient. The prices are really low compared to other booking services, and the tours they were able to order through the portal of the service were interesting. Based on the analyzed reviews, we can conclude that Priceline has a good reputation and many customers choose it as a convenient and reliable service for travel.

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Supervisory authorities

Each branch of the company has its own certificate from the Department of Finance. The central branch is registered with the Connecticut Department of Treasury. Since Priceline is a foreign company, all legal information is placed in the registries of the country in which it was registered. Based on the data in the public record, we can see that the company has several authorized offices, the numbers of which are posted in the Miscellaneous and Registrations tab. Priceline was incorporated in May 2014, obtaining TIN 0041905. All existing certificate numbers and documents can be viewed at the bottom of the website page, under the “Terms and Conditions” tab. Priceline is currently registered in the following states: California Registration No. CST 2040530-50, Florida Registration No. ST-32150, Washington Registration No. 602.257.258, Alaska Registration No. 280316, Iowa Registration No. 624, Hawaii Registration No. TAR 5946.

Book.priceline.com User Agreement

The company’s user agreement is available in many languages, except for Russian, let’s choose the most common in the tourist environment – English. The document is quite extensive, it concerns not only hotel reservations, but also all the services the service provides: car rentals, airline tickets, cruises, and more. The service warns that any of your actions on the site means consent to the processing and storage of personal data.

All required documentation can be found at book.priceline.com at the bottom of the site, under “About Priceline”. The user agreement is referred to as “Terms and Conditions” and is written entirely in English. This document describes in detail the regulation of the interaction between the service, the companies that provide services and the end user. The text of the document is quite voluminous, as it contains all the necessary points in accordance with current U.S. law.

Since you pay for all services by card online, it is worth paying attention to the paragraphs, which spelled out in which cases, when paying by bank card is not refundable.

Of importance is the “Change/Discontinue Use” clause, which states that the service has the full right to remove, change, or add new information to the site, including services and certain terms of use. From this it follows that the client should use the service more carefully and check it regularly for any innovations.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the point concerning the regulation of conflict situations. It states that if a certain issue cannot be resolved through the support service, then the company is obliged to resolve it through the US arbitration court. Payments are not refundable in cases where:

• You cannot use a paid service for a reason beyond the company’s control.
• If your card has fallen into the hands of third parties and they have made a payment without your knowledge (if the court has not proved fraud).
• If the vendor could not provide the service paid for through the service, etc.

In general, the contract is legally standard, but there is another interesting point worth paying attention to. If you buy a tour, then this service is considered as a whole, as a tour package and the company can not say exactly what, how much it costs separately or sell the service in parts (for example, only the flight or only hotel reservations from this tour).

Site security

All payments that go through the site are protected by technical means and your personal data is protected by law. The security certificate of the site allows you to save data, and payments are protected by bank certificates. During the booking payment process the user can see a special mark confirming the reliability of the connection with the server.

Customer Service

The company’s support service is available 24 hours a day, every day. The most convenient way to contact it is either by e-mail or through the feedback form on the website. Also, you can take a look at the FAQ section, where answers to most of the most frequently asked questions are already available. Questions will be better to ask in English, and Russian is not among the languages. You can contact the support team in the following ways:

• at 1-877-477-7441 (USA);
• by e-mail: [email protected];
• feedback form.

 

Is Priceline a scam?

Priceline – one of the oldest booking services, a partner of well-known portals Booking.com, Agoda and others. It has been working since 1997 and helped its clients to save more than a billion dollars. You set the price bar, the number of stars, time and place, and he picks you the best booking. It is a long-established service for providing hotel, hotel, car rental and airfare reservations. The company also sells tours and cruises to interesting places in the United States. For the whole way of its development, since 1997, the service has given customers the opportunity to save a significant part of their money for planning and organizing their trips. In addition, Priceline offers regular discounts and various bonus offers, while partnering with many well-known rental companies and hotels.

In this review, we have analyzed in detail the specifics of Priceline, its pricing, search and booking capabilities, checked legal information and site security. We have studied how Priceline.com online booking auction company works, its offers, bonus programs, prices, reviews from customers and how the technical side of the service works, and we can say that Priceline.com booking service is not a scam. Service has been working for a long time and is quite successful, is constantly developing, has issued an official bank card service, with the help of Priceline.com portal you can order airline tickets, buy tours and tickets for cruises and more, paying for reservations by card.

But it should be noted that if you register your card in the personal office, to pay for the reservation service does not read most Russian cards, because its database is very few Russian addresses. But, as customers write, the service, in order to be able to use the card, you can try to specify in the box with the address, not the home, and the address of the hotel.

 

Conclusion

If you travel often, looking for budget and interesting accommodation, travel options or travel packages, the service Priceline can be a pleasant surprise, but keep in mind that it can work in the opposite direction – you can not say exactly what will be the hotel that you book through this service. You can book lodging options or flights through its portal in many countries around the world, but the main specialization of this service, still booking travel services in the United States. Booking through this service is really profitable, and you can find very interesting accommodation and travel options.

Priceline service will be a great helper for those who want to book a good hotel, rent a car or book a cruise at an affordable price and not worry about their money. The company has been on the market for a long time and works with many well-known rental organizations and hotels. The user-friendly website and free app will help you make a choice in a couple of clicks, and regular bonuses and promotions will allow you to save as much as possible on the purchase of services. If you have already had an experience with Priceline, you can write us about it below in the “Testimonials” column.