Who Dat? New Orleans Tops Priceline.com's Annual List Of Top 50 Destinations For The Valentine's Day/Presidents' Day Long Weekend

NORWALK, Conn., Feb. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- With Mardi Gras (February 16) coming right on the heels of Valentine's Day (February 14) and Presidents' Day (February 15), it was no surprise to see New Orleans move to the top of priceline.com's (Nasdaq: PCLN) Top 50 Destinations list for the upcoming long weekend.  In addition to being more popular this year than Las Vegas, which was last year's winner, this was the highest ranking that New Orleans has received in a post-Katrina priceline.com Top 50 survey.

To compile its Top 50 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 long weekend.  Since the priceline.com study is based on actual booking requests, and not on consumer preference polls or votes, priceline.com believes the study is one of the more accurate predictors of future travel trends.

"The convenient juxtaposition of Sunday's Valentine's Day and Monday's national holiday makes an excellent excuse to get away for a few days," said Brian Ek, editor of The Travel Ekspert www.priceline.com/travelblog, priceline.com's travel blog.  

Ek offered some tips for bargain-hunting Valentine's Day/Presidents' Day travelers.  "Lower-priced airfares for Saturday morning and Friday evening are selling fast, but there are still great fares available earlier in the day on Friday.  Travelers who take the whole week off may find cheaper airfares than going away for the long weekend.  This might be the trip to spoil yourself with a 4- or even 5-star hotel.  We're seeing plenty of availability and Name Your Own Price® customers are succeeding with bids up to 50% below the published prices, even in the big cities."

Here are some holiday deals currently posted on priceline.com:

Vacation Packages

• New Orleans, from $113/night per person.  Includes round trip airfare and three nights accommodations at the Intercontinental New Orleans http://bit.ly/d0QDli.
• New York City, from $114/night per person.  Includes round trip airfare and three nights accommodations at the Roosevelt Hotel New York http://bit.ly/c3RHfh.
• Las Vegas, from $165/night per person.  Includes round trip airfare and three nights accommodations at the 5-star Venetian Resort & Casino http://bit.ly/c5pmh9.

Airline Tickets

Airfares shown below are roundtrip and include all taxes and fees.  Fares are actual published-price airline tickets purchased on priceline.com between January 24-26, 2010 for departures February 11-13, 2010 and returns February 15-17, 2010.  Airfares and availability are subject to change at any time.

For even deeper discounts, try priceline.com's Name Your Own Price® airline ticketing service.  To check and book published-price fares, or to make a Name Your Own Price offer, visit http://www.priceline.com/flights.

• St. Louis to New York City, $169.
• San Antonio to Miami, $200.
• Denver to Tampa, $212.
• San Francisco to Las Vegas, $216.
• Chicago to New Orleans, $229.
• Washington, DC, to Los Angeles, $229.
• Seattle to San Diego, $254.

Hotels

The examples below are Name Your Own Price® offers that are either available as of today through PriceBreakers, or are successful offers that were made by priceline.com customers between January 16 – February 1 for check in between February 12-14, 2010.  There is no guarantee that bids will be successful and availability and pricing can change at any time.

PriceBreakers http://www.priceline.com/pricebreakers is offering these special Name Your Own Price hotel deals:

• Washington, DC, 4 star hotels, Convention Center/Capitol Hill Area, $67 a night. http://bit.ly/aXqNSr.
• San Francisco, 4 star hotels, Union Square West/Nob Hill, $89 a night.  http://bit.ly/d6LEIG.

Customers booking for the holidays are also having success using priceline.com's hotel service http://www.priceline.com/hotels and making the following Name Your Own Price® offers:

• Miami, 3.5 star, $65 a night.
• San Diego, 4 star, $100 a night.
• Boston, 3 star, $75 a night.
• Orlando, 3 star, $50 a night.

Rental Cars

The examples shown below are successful Name Your Own Price bids made by priceline.com customers between January 1-28, 2010, for pickup between February 11-17, 2010, and do not include taxes and fees.  Prices and availability are subject to change at any time.  To check and book published-price rental cars, or to make a Name Your Own Price offer, visit http://www.priceline.com/rentalcars.

• Las Vegas, economy, $12/day.
• San Francisco, economy, $12/day.
• San Diego, compact, $13/day.
• Palm Springs, mid-size, $13/day.
• Atlanta, mid-size, $15/day.
• Honolulu, full-size, $17/day.

Priceline's Valentine's Day/Presidents' Day Top 50 Destinations

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 29 languages in over 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 71,000 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 also operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com.  Priceline.com also licenses its business model to certain independent and international licensees.

SOURCE Priceline.com