Orbitz, Priceline Head to the Android Market to Battle for Online Booking Supremacy
A pair of app launches sees the traveler in everyone getting excited. First up, Prceline.com is bringing their Hotel Negotiator application out that allows you to bid on hotel rooms and allows you to book rooms on the same day right for your phone, a perfect feature for someone who would be using this on the go and would need to get a room situated in a jiffy. Here are some of the features you can expect upon downloading:
- Winning Bids recommendations. Choose a city and Hotel Negotiator displays multiple recent winning bids made by other priceline.com customers for hotels in different parts of the city at different star levels.
- Shake-Down geo-locator-triggered hotel search. Shaking the device establishes your location using location-based features and then performs a Winning Bids search for hotels in the surrounding areas.
- Instant Bid Results. You’ll know instantly whether your bid is accepted. If it is, you’ll immediately receive all the details on your hotel and its location.
- Two booking options. If you’re using priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price® hotel service, you can enter your bid using your Android. For published-price hotel rooms, you can book the room with your device or by calling Priceline’s hotel booking specialists.
Not to be left out, Orbitz also brings their Android app to the market, but you’ll get the whole shebang, here, instead of just the hotel booking. Need a flight? Book it. Need a plane? It can do that too. Hotels? Pssh.
- Make reservations: Book flights, hotels and rental cars quickly – even for last minute, same-day reservations. Just like our Orbitz.com website, access a broad selection of thousands of hotels, airlines, and car rental options.
- View your trips: Access itineraries anytime, anywhere.
- Stay in the know, on the go: Check flight status, gate and baggage claim details or search via your app for available hotels near your current location automatically.
It might actually be more accurate to say that Orbitz is competing with Kayak more than they’re competing with Priceline. We can’t imagine Priceline will leave their other booking services off of the Android market for too long, but for now, they’re currently on the lower end of the totem pole. Who will you use?