Priceline rates on Worldspan?

[zbenye]

Kodi's question on the car rental discount codes and whether anyone could use them regardless of actual affiliation, got me to think about something I read not long ago, where it was stated that hotels feed rates for Priceline into Worldspan, and Priceline books them from there.

If that is actually how things are done, what prevents any travel agent with access to Worldspan from booking these, or at least viewing them? (I obviously know nothing about how CRS work)

[thereuare]

I know nothing about Worldspan or CRS(??) either, but i would think that the hotels input various datapoints (prices) and then designates which users (Priceline, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotwire) are able to view each datapoint.

This would prevent anyone not using a "priceline log-in" from viewing the priceline rate. It woudl also explain how companies like Expedia and Orbitz sometimes have different prices from each other, access to different hotels, etc... all based upon the what information they're "entitled" to view.

This is all just a guess, but from a programming point of view, i don't think it would be too difficult to do.

[Taiko]

CRS - Computer reservation system. As in Sabre, Worldspan etc