Expedia.com has announced it is now accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for hotel purchases. Offering travelers another way to book online, customers can now shop from the inventory of a vast array of hotels available on Expedia.com, and for the first time ever beginning today, easily pay for their hotel accommodations using bitcoin.
“Expedia, Inc. is in a unique position, as one of the world’s leading online travel agencies, to solve travel planning and booking for our customers and partners alike by adopting the latest payment technologies,” said Michael Gulmann, Vice President, Expedia Global Product. “We’re continually looking at ways consumers want to pay for their travel; bitcoin is a great example of how Expedia is investing early in an array of payment options to give our customers and partners more choice in the ways they interact with us.”
Expedia partnered with Coinbase, a trusted third-party bitcoin payment processor, to integrate bitcoin payment support into the hotel booking experience on Expedia.com. Customers can intuitively find and select bitcoin as a payment option at check-out along with all other methods accepted on the site, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diners Club and PayPal. To purchase hotel reservations using the newly accepted currency, customers simply indicate bitcoin as their method of payment and then follow a few steps to safely and securely complete each transaction.
“We are pleased to partner with Expedia.com to welcome them into the growing community of forward-thinking companies that have opened their businesses to accept bitcoin payments,” said Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase. “By accepting bitcoin as a form of payment, Expedia is giving a wider community of users the opportunity to book hotels from their site’s inventory of properties all around the world quickly and easily.”
