Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, August 8, 2025, is below. For several weeks now, we’ve all seen and read the many headlines regarding American Airlines planned use of AI for rate setting. This week’s Update features several stories on the controversy, including a report into the art and science of rate setting. Enjoy.
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- Expedia Reports Strong Second Quarter. Buoyed by its B2B, advertising and international lines of business, Expedia this past week reported strong second quarter performance and increased its guidance on gross bookings and revenue for the full 2025 calendar year. Like other hospitality companies that reported this past week on weakening U.S. demand, Expedia experienced some of the same slow down but managed to offset the weakness through its other businesses. Of the three primary Expedia Group companies (Expedia, Hotels.com and VRBO), Expedia faired the best as the remaining two continue to experience platform transition challenges. Expedia continues to work with AI platforms – namely OpenAI and Google – to drive traffic to its websites, which according to Expedia CEO, Ariane Gorin, converts “well.”
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- Southwest Tickets Now Available on Booking Holdings’ Websites. Southwest Airlines announced last week that its tickets are now available on Agoda, Booking.com and Priceline (among other BH websites). This latest announcement further evidences Southwest’s complete transition from being an exclusively direct channel retailer to embracing a wide variety of third party intermediaries.
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- Booking.com Launches Co-Branded Credit Card in U.S. After months of rumors and speculation, Booking.com finally revealed its first U.S. co-branded credit card, the Booking.com Genius Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card. Cardholders will receive travel credits (each worth $1.00) in varying amounts for purchases – up to 6% for hotels and short term rentals booked on the Booking.com app. Cardholders will also be immediately enrolled in the third (highest) tier of Booking.com’s Genius loyalty program. Hoteliers must keep a close eye on the card and any future cardholder promotions to ensure the card doesn’t undermine pricing on the Booking.com platforms.
Our next Update will be for the week ending Friday, August 29.