NORWALK, Conn., Dec. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) today released its 6th annual list of top 50 destinations for ringing in the New Year. For the 5th year in a row, Las Vegas is the #1 destination for New Year's revelers.

Priceline.com also reported today that the average published rate for a 3-star or higher hotel in the U.S. for New Year's 2009 is $129, which is slightly less than last year's average published rate of $132. "With room rates in many cities still under pressure, a New Year's getaway is an exceptional value," said priceline.com's in-house travel expert Brian Ek.

For those in search of even deeper savings, there's priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® hotel service that can save up to 50% over published hotel prices. With Priceline's Name Your Own Price® hotel service, customers pick the dates, part of town, hotel star level and price they want to pay for their room. If that price is accepted by a priceline.com partner hotel, the booking is completed and customers receive their hotel details.

Priceline.com's Top 50 Destinations list is the definitive guide for those who want to find the crowds - or stay away from them on the New Year. To compile the list, priceline.com looked at a sampling of more than 30,000 Name Your Own Price® hotel room booking requests made by priceline.com customers for the New Year's holiday. Because the survey is based on actual booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, priceline.com believes its annual survey is one of the more accurate predictors of New Year's travel trends. Also, by focusing on hotels instead of airline tickets, the priceline.com survey is able to include the travel intentions of consumers who will drive to their destination.

"This year, a handful of cities and destinations were the big winners in the sweepstakes for New Year's revelers," said Ek. "The Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area captured 7 spots on the list, while New York City and Los Angeles/Orange County each took 6 spots, and Las Vegas was named 4 times. The growing strength of New Orleans as a tourist destination was also evident by being named to the #5 and #8 spots on the list."

Priceline.com's Top 50 New Year's Destinations

1. Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity South
2. New York City, Chelsea Area
3. New York City, Times Square/Theater District
4. Miami, South Beach/Ocean Drive
5. New Orleans, Downtown
6. New York City, Empire State Building Area
7. Atlanta, Downtown
8. New Orleans, French Quarter
9. Orlando, Sea World/International Drive/Convention Center
10. Fort Lauderdale, Beach Area
11. Las Vegas, Strip Vicinity North
12. Orlando, Disney Maingate
13. Key West
14. Orlando, Lake Buena Vista/Downtown Disney
15. Maui, Wailea/Makena
16. Oahu, Waikiki Beach
17. San Francisco, Union Square West/Nob Hill
18. New York City, Madison Square Garden/Convention Area
19. Fort Lauderdale, Downtown
20. Puerto Rico, San Juan
21. Chicago, Millennium Park/Loop/Grant Park Area
22. Las Vegas, Near Las Vegas Strip East
23. Chicago, North Michigan Ave./River North Area
24. Oahu, Waikiki Marina Area
25. San Antonio, Riverwalk Area
26. Fort Lauderdale, Ft. Lauderdale/Airport North
27. Miami, South Beach/Collins Ave. Oceanfront
28. Toronto, Downtown Toronto South
29. Newark, Meadowlands/Jersey City
30. Sydney, City Centre
31. Boston, Harbor Front/Aquarium
32. New York City, Midtown East
33. Los Angeles, Central L.A./Hollywood
34. Atlanta, Midtown
35. Miami, Miami Beach
36. Los Angeles, Central L.A./Beverly Hills/West Hollywood
37. San Diego, Downtown & Harbor Island
38. Paris, Eiffel Tower/Port de Versailles/Montparnasse
39. Seattle, Downtown/Pike Place
40. Rome, Central City
41. Los Angeles, San Gabriel Valley/Pasadena
42. Boston, Copley Square/Theater District
43. New York City, Downtown/SoHo/Financial District
44. Las Vegas, Convention Center
45. Miami, Coral Gables/Coconut Grove
46. Los Angeles, Central L.A./Airport
47. Amsterdam, City Centre & Museum Quarter
48. Miami, Downtown
49. Orange County, Disneyland/Orange/Garden Grove
50. Orange County, Disneyland/Anaheim

Priceline.com said it has hotel rooms www.priceline.com/hotels/, vacation packages www.priceline.com/vacationpackages/, cruises www.pricelinecruiseoutlet.com, airline tickets www.priceline.com/flights/, and rental cars www.priceline.com/rentalcars/ available for those wishing to celebrate the New Year in a special place. Several last-minute New Year's deals are available at priceline.com's last-minute deals service www.priceline.com/pricebreakers.

In addition to its broad selection of published-price travel products, priceline.com enables customers to save even more by using its Name Your Own Price® services for airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars. Hotel customers can view Winning Bids http://www.priceline.com/promo/nyop_hotels.asp a new feature that shows recently successful Name Your Own Price hotel bids for hotels in different star levels in cities around the country. Winning Bids suggestions are available for rental cars http://www.priceline.com/promo/rc_nyop_splash.asp. And air travelers can check out priceline.com's Inside Track feature, which offers bidding tips, best days to fly recommendations and more http://travela.priceline.com/insideTrack/flights/.

And, for those New Year's partygoers who find themselves stuck in town without a hotel room, there's always Hotel Negotiator, the new iPhone app from priceline.com. Need a room fast? Shake the phone and the app will go find all the hotels in the immediate proximity. Need bidding help? Shake it again and it retrieves winning bids for hotels in the area. Bidding can be done right through the iPhone. Booking published-price hotel rooms can be done online or by calling priceline.com on the iPhone. To see the demo, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhn5N7xcFOw.

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 29 languages in 78 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Included in the priceline.com family of companies is Booking.com, a leading international online hotel reservation service, priceline.com, a leading U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers, and Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service. Priceline.com believes that Booking.com is Europe's largest and fastest growing hotel reservation service, with a network of affiliated Web sites. Booking.com operates in over 70 countries in 24 languages and offers its customers access to over 73,000 participating hotels worldwide.

In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises than any other Internet travel service. In addition to getting great published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using priceline.com's TripFilter advanced search technology, customize their search activity through priceline.com's Inside Track features, create packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available. Priceline.com operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com. Priceline.com also licenses its business model to independent licensees.

SOURCE Priceline.com

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