Is there a Hotwire - IC Hotels agreement

[lwitchel]

I recall when I first started using PRICELINE a lot in '03 that Marriott and Priceline had some sort of preferred arrangement.

It's highly unscientific, but my recent experience has been that a majority of my recent wins on PRICELINE have been at Hiltons and at HOTWIRE for Holiday Inns. I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences to report.

[Peter Pan]

I think I might have an answer to this. I too have noticed a lot of winning Hiltons in certain areas over other hotels that previously were reported in the same areas with similar bids months before.

I think this has more to do with the numbers of these hotels and their willingness to be more competetive though, just look at these numbers:

Starwood: 860+ hotels worldwide

Marriott: 2800+ hotels worldwide

Hilton: 2700+ hotels worldwide

Hyatt: 470+ hotels worldwide

IC hotels: 3800+ hotels worldwide

This could explain some of the reasons why more of X brand comes up at certain times. Also I think hotels fine tune their rates and offers based on load factors. Of course with Priceline this is more tricky as previsouly discussed on this board I believe they allow a certain hotel in every star category for a certain price range to be the "winning" property.