Microsoft launched their online travel agency in October 1996, as a place to go on the Web to easily plan travel, purchase tickets, and make hotel and car reservations. Today, Expedia is the Web's leading online travel agency, with weekly travel sales currently exceeding $11 million. Recently, the editors of PC Magazine, MacWorld and Brill's Content ranked Expedia as one of the leading online travel sites. They all cited that Expedia's booking process, trip planning and destination resources features that separate it from the competition.
Once you arrive at the site, all you need do is follow the links to the service your looking for - airline tickets, hotel or car reservations. Then just submit the easy-to-use form, which requires a date, time and other relevant information. Within a few minutes, you will receive a list of the tickets or reservations available and their individual prices. Once you decide, you just hit your choice to proceed with the purchase or reservation.
Priceline.com works a little differently then Expedia. What makes this site unique, is that the customer sets the price for tickets or reservations, then Priceline attempts to find the seller.
Users simply log on to the site to fill out a form which will request the dates you want to travel, the price you want to pay for each ticket and your credit card information. Once you submit your request, Priceline tries to find tickets at your price on the dates you want to travel. You'll have an answer in just one hour.
Once you submit your ticket request, it cannot be cancelled. All tickets issued by priceline.com are non-refundable and non-exchangeable. Currently, tickets can be purchased for round-trip travel only.
When you use Priceline, you cannot select a specific airline and they cannot provide you with a list of participating airlines as they are constantly changing, based on inventory and other factors.
In My Opinion
I prefer to use Expedia, simply because I prefer to have the choice of the specific airline and departure time. Of course, this probably means I will be paying more for the ticket, but I can't seem to give up that issue of choice.
I know that both services are thriving from their online business. Priceline has extended from airline tickets to hotel reservations, and now they are delving into personal finances. At the same time, Expedia is branching into booking vacation packages and cruises.
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