Booking Holdings runs online marketplaces that connect leisure and business travelers with places to stay, transport providers and experiences, alongside a platform for restaurant reservations. Its portfolio of consumer brands includes Booking.com for accommodations, Priceline for discount travel, Asia-focused Agoda, travel search engine KAYAK and dining platform OpenTable. Travelers use its websites and apps to compare options, reserve services and, on some bookings, pay through the platform. The group earns reservation commissions, payment fees and advertising revenue. Founded in 1997, Booking Holdings is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
Norwalk, Connecticut
Founded
1997
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Priceline owner to face FTC action over affiliate's hotel ads, sources say. Summary. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is weighing action against Booking Holdings over ads that appear to direct customers to hotel websites but instead send them to Guest Reservations, a third-party booking site; potential penalties could exceed $500 million. The agency is examining possible business impersonation and fee violations, amid more than 1,000 consumer complaints about surprise charges and confusing bookings. By Jody Godoy and Doyinsola Oladipo Oct 7 (Reuters) - The US Federal Trade Commission is gearing up to take action against owner Booking Holdings over online ads that appear to direct consumers to a hotel's site, but in reality send them to a third-party site where they are often charged extra, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The FTC has been looking into Booking's relationship with Guest Reservations, a third-party website that advertises stays at specific hotels, the sources said. The case could carry more than $500 million in potential penalties, one of the sources said. The sources requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The agency is considering whether Guest Reservations' websites, which often charge higher prices and fees for hotel rooms, violate a rule against impersonating other businesses, along with other potential violations regarding fees, the source said. The FTC has continued its focus on issues that drive up the cost of living for Americans, as President Donald Trump's approval rating remains at all time lows amid dissatisfaction with the US war on Iran which has driven up fuel costs. The agency has been investigating misleading ad practices, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said during an interview with Reuters in September, including ads that lead to sites that appear as if they are run by hotels. "For tens of millions of Americans, they don't notice until they've checked out and they've paid exorbitant fees," he said at the Reuters Momentum AI event in Austin. Booking Holdings disclosed in August that FTC was considering suing Priceline and an affiliate over disclosures, fees, customer support and billing practices, without naming the affiliate or describing the practices. The company said it was in talks with the FTC to resolve the matter. A Priceline spokesperson declined to comment. An FTC spokesperson confirmed the investigation but declined to comment further. Guest Reservations has been the subject of more than 1,000 consumers' complaints to the Better Business Bureau, many of whom said they believed they were booking directly with hotels. Consumers complained of surprise fees and unresponsive customer service representatives. Booking supplies hotel room inventory to Guest Reservations through Priceline Partner Solutions, according to an ongoing lawsuit against the companies filed by San Francisco. A spokesperson for Guest Reservations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company's site says that it uses hotel trademarks or information only to help customers book rooms. TRAVEL SITES DRIVE BUSINESS, COMPLAINTS Third-party booking sites that confuse consumers by misrepresenting their affiliations with hotels or advertising misleading rates and inventory have been a persistent problem for years, said a spokesperson for the American Hotel and Lodging Association, an industry trade group. Major hotel chains have for years sought to drive more customers to book directly, allowing hotels to avoid commissions and transaction fees associated with intermediaries. And yet aggregator sites like those run by Booking and Expedia Group are a major source of business for chains like Marriott International and Hilton. Hotel owners and employees are often the ones who have to deal with guest complaints when third-party bookings go wrong, said Laura Lee Blake, CEO of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. The association represents nearly 20,000 hotel owners in the US. Blake said that she has experienced first-hand making a booking on a third-party website believing that she was booking directly through the hotel. "If someone who works in the hotel industry can make that mistake, imagine how easily the average traveler can be confused," she said. Hilton, Marriott and InterContinental Hotels Group declined to comment. Hyatt did not respond to a request for comment. FTC FOCUSED ON CONSUMERS Ferguson has embraced the FTC's consumer protection powers as a way to remedy alleged harms by tech platforms, as the US grapples with how to regulate artificial intelligence without hampering innovation. Consumer protection cases bring quicker results than antitrust investigations, which can plod on for years while the markets change, Ferguson said at an event at Georgetown University in September. The FTC's investigations into misleading ads have prompted the agency to consider new rules on what online platforms must do to combat misleading ad practices. (Reporting by Jody Godoy and Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; editing by Chris Sanders and Nick Zieminski)
Kayak co-founders launch Lola - Booking Holdings' new AI assistant: exclusive. Today at 6:01 AM PDT Lola is not yet another AI feature inside Booking.com, but an AI assistant that acts more like an OTA itself - built to carry a traveler from an open-ended idea to a booked trip in one chat. Launching Tuesday, it is the brainchild of Kayak co-founders Steve Hafner and Paul English. The startup operates as a wholly owned by Booking Holdings, with Hafner reporting to CEO Glenn Fogel. The latter gave Hafner a "greenfield" mandate - a direction to build a new project from scratch - allowing Lola to start off with fresh code and branding. "At Kayak, we were trying to solve what's the best flight," said Hafner. "At Lola, we're trying to solve for what should I do this weekend." According to the co-founder, the team has been building Lola for five months and now has about 20 employees split across New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The structure gives Lola an unusual combination: startup-style freedom with assets most startu Adriana Lee is Skift's travel technology and AI reporter. She has been covering technology for nearly 20 years, from consumer to enterprise. For confidential tips or leads, reach her on Signal at adriana.133
Booking CEO: building the AI travel agent isn't the hard part. Today at 9:48 AM PDT Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel isn't sweating the newer breed of buzzworthy AI agents and their trip planning and booking powers. Take Instinct, for example. It's all the rage with the Silicon Valley crowd for making complex tasks - like arranging travel - as simple as sending a text. Fogel weighed the threat onstage at the Skift Global Forum in New York City on Tuesday. "If we want to do Instinct, how hard do you think that would be?" he said. "It wouldn't be that hard if that's all you had to do." But there's a lot more to travel than just handling the transaction. What matters more to him is establishing trust. When it comes to safeguarding credit card details and other sensitive info, travelers want to deal with real people, Fogel argues. Booking Holdings is moving forward with AI initiatives, like its ad deal with OpenAI and integration on Google's Adriana Lee is Skift's travel technology and AI reporter. She has been covering technology for nearly 20 years, from consumer to enterprise. For confidential tips or leads, reach her on Signal at adriana.133
California court case tests host agencies' liability for misleading booking. By Yuni Hartati September 18, 2026 A California court case may alter how travel agencies manage independent contractors (ICs) providing booking services. Traditionally, host agencies have avoided responsibility for misleading tactics by ICs because they function as independent entities. However, a lawsuit against Booking Holdings and two third-party booking platforms has introduced uncertainty about whether host agencies could now share legal accountability for deceptive consumer practices. Legal challenges to current practices. The San Francisco City Attorney filed the lawsuit against Booking Holdings, as well as the operators of guestreservations.com and bookonline.com, under California's Unfair Competition Law. The complaint asserts these sites mislead consumers by incorporating hotel names into their web addresses and purchasing search engine rankings ahead of official hotel booking pages. Booking Holdings' affiliate program, which supplies APIs and payment processing, operates under a structure comparable to how many host agencies collaborate with ICs. The city's argument claims Booking Holdings was aware of these deceptive practices through consumer complaints and public reports but allowed them to continue by granting access to real-time hotel inventory. If the court upholds this "aiding and abetting" standard, it could create a newly recognized legal duty for host agencies to review ICs' websites to make sure that they are not replicating a supplier's booking portal or otherwise selling in a deceptive way, especially in cases where the host is aware of client complaints. This potential legal change would break from the established principle that host agencies are not responsible for IC actions. The case hinges on whether merely providing technical support, such as APIs or payment systems, qualifies as involvement in fraud. If the ruling stands, agencies may face new requirements to monitor contractors' marketing approaches. Recommended actions for agencies. While the case remains unresolved-potentially taking months or years to conclude-agencies should take immediate measures. One effective step is incorporating audit clauses into IC agreements, enabling hosts to review contractors' online promotional materials. Booking Holdings has not acknowledged liability, and the case may still be settled. However, the legal argument, linking a host's awareness of deceptive practices to its continued support, could push agencies to rethink their partnerships with independent contractors. The outcome of this case could have significant consequences for the entire travel industry's approach to third-party bookings.
Booking Holdings expands presence in Bengaluru with 111,525 sq ft office lease, etrealty. MUMBAI: Reserving(dot)com, the worldwide on-line journey and lodging platform, has picked up over 111,525 sq ft of workplace area at RMZ Ecoworld in Bengaluru via a long-term lease, increasing its footprint in India. The corporate's Indian subsidiary, Booking Holdings India, has leased the workplace area from the mission's developer RMZ Inns immediately via a contemporary lease. The lease commenced on July 3, and maintain a complete tenure of 5 years. The transaction covers the eighth ground of RMZ Ecoworld Collection 30, Campus 30, with a rechargeable space of 111,525 sq ft, confirmed the registration paperwork accessed via Propstack, realty information analytics platform. The corporate can pay a month-to-month lease of Rs 1.33 crore, translating right into a rental fee of Rs 119.6 per sq ft per thirty days. The lease carries a safety deposit of Rs 8 crore. The settlement offers for a 15% escalation in leases each three years. With the newest transaction, Reserving Holdings' whole workplace footprint at this business tower has elevated to about 2.65 lakh sq ft, in keeping with the property information. Reserving Holdings can also be occupying the seventh and eighth flooring at Campus 31 inside RMZ Ecoworld, giving the corporate a sizeable presence throughout the event. ET's e mail queries to Reserving(dot)com and RMZ remained unanswered till the time of going to press. The newest lease comes amid continued demand for giant workplace areas in Bengaluru from international firms, notably expertise corporations and international functionality centres (GCCs). Massive-format workplace transactions have remained an vital part of Bengaluru's business actual property market as multinational firms broaden their operations and consolidate their workplace necessities. The southern metropolis stays one in all India's largest workplace markets, supported by its focus of world expertise, monetary companies, consulting and different multinational firms. Reserving Holdings is the guardian firm of Reserving(dot)com and operates a portfolio of on-line journey and lodging platforms globally. Its Indian operations embody expertise and different company features supporting the group's international companies. RMZ Ecoworld is a big business growth in Bengaluru's japanese workplace hall and homes workplaces of a number of multinational and home firms. * Printed On Sep 13, 2026 at 06:17 PM IST