Priceline Ends 'Name Your Own Price' for Rental Car Bookings
Starting Monday, Priceline will no longer offer the "Name Your Own Price (NYOP)" tool for car rentals and will offer express deals to take place of the NYOP feature.
With the NYOP model, Priceline allowed customers to make a suggested price and land a good deal for airfares, rental cars and hotels. For car rentals specifically, customers could choose a price, location and car type, and Priceline would find a quality rental car based on the suggestion.
The online travel agency will now offer express deals that will provide up to 40% savings, and the new process will be easier and faster, Bill Jose, senior vice president of rental cars at Priceline.com told USA Today.
"With rental cars, we have seen the consumers prefer Express Deals, and as a result we chose to make this switch," Jose said. "The main benefit to consumers with this switch to Express Deals is with speed. Name Your Own Price for rental cars required consumers to bid and wait. With Express Deals, those steps are eliminated."
In 2016, Priceline ended its "Name Your Own Price" for flight tickets. Priceline will continue to offer the NYOP tool for biding on hotel rooms.
"Priceline.com does not have plans to move away from Name Your Own Price for hotels," Jose says. "Travelers see value in that offering and continue to book millions of deals at prices that are not available elsewhere."
H/T USA Today