Chicago Tops Priceline's 2010 List of Top Memorial Day Destinations

NORWALK, Conn., May 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Over the eight years that priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) has published its annual survey of the 50 most popular destinations for Memorial Day, two cities – Las Vegas and Chicago – have consistently jockeyed for the top spot.  Las Vegas has won 4 times (including 2009), with Chicago winning 3 times.  New York City was tops only once.  This year, the most popular destination for Memorial Day 2010 is – Chicago's Millennium Park.  

Priceline.com's Memorial Day Top 50 list is based on over 30,000 hotel room booking requests made by priceline.com Name Your Own Price® hotel service customers for the upcoming May 29-31 long weekend.  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 holiday travel trends.  

Priceline has plenty of options for Memorial Day travelers.  To check the holiday bargains, visit http://travela.priceline.com/promo/deals/memorial_day/deals.html.  The special section includes hotel rooms, airline tickets and rental cars, often at significant discounts over other online travel reservation services.  For even deeper Memorial Day discounts, visit Priceline's PriceBreakers http://www.priceline.com/pricebreakers/.

"You can still see the economy reflected in Americans' travel plans for Memorial Day," said priceline.com's in-house travel expert Brian Ek, who also writes The Travel Ekspert travelblog http://www.priceline.com/travelblog/. "Higher international airfares have made overseas cities a bit less popular with American travelers this Memorial Day.  There are a number of smaller U.S. cities on the list this year, possibly indicating an uptick in driving trips for the long weekend."

Ek continued, "The big development this year is the large number of cities and towns that are making the list of the top 50 Memorial Day destinations for the first time.  This should be very encouraging news for local tourism industries."  Destinations making the list for the first time include Providence (RI), Ottawa (ON), Halifax (NS), Petaluma (CA), Madison (WI), Atlantic City/Cape May (NJ) and Princeton (NJ).

Here are some Memorial Day weekend deals available through PriceBreakers http://www.priceline.com/pricebreakers/

• Frontier Airlines flight sale. Fares from $39 one way.  Flights from Atlanta, Boston, Colorado Springs, Denver, Kansas City and Milwaukee.
• 4 star Name Your Own Price® Vancouver hotels, up to 49% off, from $97 a night.
• Memorial Day weekend Name Your Own Price® rental cars from $13 a day.
• 3-night Las Vegas vacation packages, from $463 per person.  Includes round trip airfare and accommodations at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino.
• 3-night New York City vacation packages, from $600 per person.  Includes round trip airfare and accommodations at the Ramada Plaza New Yorker.
• 3-night Washington, DC, vacation packages, from $312 per person.  Includes round trip airfare and accommodations at the Liaison Capitol Hill.
• 3.5 star Name Your Own Price® Atlanta hotel, up to 67% off, from $47 a night.  Located in the Galleria neighborhood with indoor and outdoor pool.  Priceline guests give this hotel a solid 8.0 satisfaction rating.
• 3.5 star Name Your Own Price® Tampa downtown area hotels from $57 a night.
• Memorial Day Big Deals In Small Places.  Up to 55% off Name Your Own Price® hotels in Flagstaff, AZ, Charlottesville, VA, Hampton, VA and more.

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 34 languages in over 94 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, Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service and TravelJigsaw, a multi-national car hire 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 81 countries in 31 languages and offers its customers access to approximately 86,000 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 Incorporated