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Priceline.com is an online travel agency (OTA) known for its discount rates on travel purchases including hotels, airfare, rental cars and cruises — oh, and maybe those William Shatner ads.
Priceline claims that it saves customers more than $1 billion every year through its many deal campaigns, which include Express Deals, Bundle + Save packages and Tonight Only Deals. Priceline VIP loyalty members can get even more discounts.
But have Priceline deals really gone where no man (or online travel agency) has gone before? Here’s what you need to know about booking with and saving money through Priceline.
How does Priceline work?
Priceline is a part of the world’s largest travel company, Booking Holdings, which also operates other big travel players including Kayak, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable.
Accessible through Priceline.com or its mobile app, Priceline delivers exclusive recommendations for travelers, including nontraditional accommodations like private homes, boats and yurts. Travelers can bundle lodging, flights and rental cars together in one transaction — and often for a deal.
» Learn more: Pros and cons of booking hotels with Priceline
Enter your dates and destination, and Priceline lists flights, hotels and rental cars that can get you there. As an OTA, Priceline facilitates the booking. Meanwhile, the actual travel services are provided by someone else — whether it’s a massive hotel chain or a small, family-owned bed and breakfast.
Priceline offers robust booking tools, especially for travelers who like to book all their trip components — flight, hotel and rental car — in one go, rather than separately.
Priceline’s Bundle + Save platform lets users bundle those purchases into one transaction while unlocking prenegotiated rates that are otherwise unavailable.
And the tool is fairly flexible. Bundling features on other websites can be limiting. Sometimes, they force you to book a flight (even if you would have preferred a road trip), or don’t allow for stopovers in multiple cities.
In contrast, Priceline accounts for individual travel circumstances and removes restrictions found elsewhere. Your trip can include a mix of stays between private homes and hotels. You can also bundle a trip that doesn’t involve a flight.
» Learn more: Plan your next redemption with our airline points tool
Priceline deals
Most of Priceline’s deals are for hotel stays, although there are plenty of other promotions available.
By signing up, you will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Express Deals
Express Deals claims that you can save up to 60% on your hotel stay. But you don’t know the name of the hotel or airline when you book.
Before booking hotels through Express Deals, you get some information, such as star rating, customer rating, the neighborhood and the amenities. The actual hotel is revealed only once you make the booking.
With the flight version of the Express Deals function, you won’t receive your exact departure and arrival times until after you purchase tickets. Instead, you’re given only an approximate arrival or departure time, such as in the early morning.
» Learn more: The quick-start guide to points and miles travel
Tonight Only Deals
Available only through its app, the Tonight Only Deals promotion offers last-minute hotel deals in most major cities including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and San Francisco.
With Tonight Only Deals, Priceline’s app displays 3-star and 4-star hotel rooms that can be booked for check-in that same night with discounts. Room reservations can be instantly booked up until 11 p.m. local time, or until they sell out.
Recurring annual sales
Like many travel booking sites, Priceline also runs periodic sales during certain times of year. Cyber Monday and Black Friday are big deal-nabbing opportunities on Priceline.
Priceline VIP loyalty program
All those deals aren’t the only way you can save when booking with Priceline. Priceline VIP is the OTA’s loyalty program that includes access to extra discounts, coupons, premium customer service and more.
There are four tiers of elite status in the Priceline VIP program: Member, Blue, Gold and Platinum. Joining the program is free — you just have to create an account with Priceline.
Here’s how to earn Priceline elite status, and what each tier entails:
| Member | Blue | Gold | Platinum | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How to earn | Sign up. | Complete two trips with Priceline. | Complete five trips with Priceline (also automatically granted to Priceline Rewards Visa Card holders). | Complete 20 trips with Priceline. |
| VIP rental car discounts | Up to 10%. | Up to 15%. | Up to 20%. | Up to 20%. |
| Hotel savings | Up to 10%. | Up to 50% on over 15,000 hotels. | Up to 50% on over 30,000 hotels. | Up to 50% on over 45,000 hotels. |
| Insider coupons | 5% Express Deal coupon after every trip. | 5% Express Deal coupon after every trip. | 8% Express Deal coupon after every trip. | 10% Express Deal coupon after every trip. |
| Premium customer service | N/A. | N/A. | Priority. | First Priority. |
All levels come with a price guarantee and add-on deals of up to 50% on hotels and 20% on rental cars when added to an existing trip.
Unlike other elite status programs, there are no seat upgrades or free goodies like champagne in your hotel room with Priceline VIP. But for no-frills travelers who value saving money over amenities, the discounts might be the most valuable perk anyway. Properties eligible for VIP discounts are designated by a Priceline VIP logo in the search results.
Something that sets Priceline VIP apart from other loyalty programs is that your Priceline elite status does not expire. Instead, you keep your same tier level from year to year until you advance.
To reach the next level, though, you’ll have to have completed new qualifying trips after Jan. 1 of that year (so trips completed in previous years do not count toward earning elite status).
The best credit cards for Priceline bookings
You can earn bonus points and perks when booking with certain travel credit cards that pair well with online travel agencies, like Expedia, Hotels.com or Priceline. Here are the best cards specifically for Priceline users:
Priceline VIP Rewards™ Visa® Card
While not necessarily the best credit card to use for general everyday spending, the Priceline VIP Rewards™ Visa® Card is one of the best cards to use for purchases on Priceline itself. It earns 5 points for every dollar spent on purchases, bookings and reservations made on Priceline. It also earns 2 points on restaurant and gas purchases, and 1 point for everything else.
Priceline points are worth 1 cent, so you’re looking at a 5% return for all your Priceline purchases on this card. What’s also nice is that you can redeem your rewards as statement credits, so you’re not necessarily suckered into earning points in a loyalty program you might not regularly use.
Other benefits of card ownership include automatic Priceline VIP Gold status. And if you spend $10,000 on the card within each card membership year, you’re eligible to receive a statement credit of up to $120 toward your Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fee.
Considering the Priceline VIP Rewards™ Visa® Card has a $0 annual fee, it’s hard to be too harsh on this card. Plus, the extra benefits can be quite a money-saver.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
This card is convenient not just for spending on Priceline, but all sorts of travel purchases.
For all your non-Priceline bookings, use this card to earn 5 points per dollar on travel booked through Chase's travel portal. You’ll also earn 3 points per dollar on dining at restaurants, streaming services and online grocery purchases; 2 points per dollar on other travel spending (including online travel websites like Priceline and Expedia); and 1 point per dollar spent on everything else.
The card, which has an annual fee of $95, also features an introductory offer: Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
» Learn more: Review of the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Canceling travel booked on Priceline
Priceline has an abundance of deals, particularly for travelers who are flexible about where they stay and when they travel. But for all the delights of booking on Priceline, there are pitfalls too — and cancellations rank among the biggest.
Many of the deepest discounts cannot be changed or canceled, period. That includes Express Deals (the deals where the full itinerary is revealed only after you book), which are non-changeable and nonrefundable.
For other bookings outside of Priceline’s mystery deals, change and cancellation policies vary. Often, whether your travel can be refunded is up to the provider’s policy, not Priceline’s. A basic economy flight might not qualify for a refund, but an upgraded ticket might.
And in some cases, you might be able to change your reservation but you have to pay a fee to do so. Again, fees vary by provider, and they can be reviewed within your online itinerary.
How to cancel a Priceline booking
If your reservation is eligible for cancellation, you can use Priceline’s self-service cancellation tool. From a logged-in Priceline account, click the My Trips button and select View/Cancel Itinerary next to the reservation you want to cancel.
Be sure to read the individual policy for each cancellation, as they can vary in terms of how much money you’ll get back.
You can also cancel flights by calling Priceline’s Customer Care number at 800-774-2354.
How to contact Priceline
Use the Priceline Help Center for help with situations like changing and canceling your trip, getting a refund or filing a complaint. If you’re unable to get help from Priceline’s self-service tools, there are a couple of other ways to get in touch with support:
- Launch Priceline’s chatbot on the Help Center.
- Call and speak to a human. Priceline’s general contact number is 877-477-5807.
How to maximize your rewards
You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are some of the best travel credit cards of 2026:
- Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
- No annual fee: Wells Fargo Autograph® Card
- Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
- Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®
- Luxury perks: American Express Platinum Card®
- Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
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