Priceline.com Launches Its First iPad App for Hotel Reservations, Featuring Real-Time Hotel Mapping and In-App Booking Functionality

NORWALK, Conn., Sept. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) today launched its first iPad app for making hotel room reservations, and this app is squarely targeted at travelers who place high value on location when they book their hotel rooms.

The new iPad app is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/priceline-hotel-car-negotiator/id336381998

Here's how the app works.  After picking a destination, travelers can scroll and see hotels appear on the map in real time.  There are four different ways the map can be scrolled:

• Price View.  Price points are highlighted on the map and color-coded from red (the highest rate) to blue (the lowest rate).  Tap on a rate and full hotel details are shown.
• Star Level View.  This view shows all the different hotel star levels and where they're located on the map.  Tap on a star and full hotel details are shown.
• Guest Satisfaction Score View.  This view displays the actual average satisfaction scores, from 1-10, posted by priceline.com guests for each hotel.  Tap on a score to see the full hotel details.
• Name Your Own Price® View.  This view will display all the zones in a city where priceline.com has Name Your Own Price® hotel partners.  Tap on a zone and the app will retrieve actual winning bids made by other customers for different star level hotels in the selected zone.

All of the views can be zoomed in or out.  Once app users have selected the hotel, or zone and star level they want, they can use the quick booking feature to get their room, all without leaving the app.

Priceline.com and its sister hotel reservation service, Booking.com, are the only two major online travel agencies to offer pannable real-time hotel mapping and to allow hotel bookings to be made within the iPad app.  "Our new iPad app is designed to be an extremely convenient, simple and fast hotel searching and booking tool for a traveler on the go who wants to stay in a particular part of town," said John Caine, priceline.com's Senior Vice President, Marketing.

Priceline also has a popular Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, available for free at the iTunes App Store www.itunes.com/appstore/, and a Hotel Negotiator app for Android, available for free at the marketplace https://market.android.com/details?id=com.priceline.android.negotiator.

About The Priceline Group

The Priceline Group (Nasdaq: PCLN) is a leader in global online hotel reservations, with over 190,000 participating hotels worldwide.  The Group is composed of four primary brands – Booking.com, priceline.com, Agoda.com and TravelJigsaw – and several ancillary brands. The Priceline Group provides online travel services in over 110 countries in Europe, North America, South America, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Africa.

Booking.com is the number one online hotel reservation service in the world, offering over 155,000 hotels, and is available in 43 languages.  Priceline.com gives leisure travelers multiple ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. In addition to getting compelling published prices, travelers can take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available.  Agoda.com is an Asia-based online hotel reservation service that is available in 37 languages.  TravelJigsaw is a multinational car hire service, offering its reservation services in over 4,000 locations.  Customer support is provided in 29 languages.

SOURCE Priceline.com