Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Priceline receipts?

Ever since scoring a room at the Marriott Montparnasse on Priceline became as predictable as sunrise and sunset, I've been using Priceline to book my business stays in Paris. Never let it be said I'm wasting my firm's money. ;)

Now that it's time to submit my expenses, I wonder if it's possible to get any sort of receipt for my Priceline stays beyond the booking confirmation screen -- eg, a proper invoice showing Priceline's name and address, method of payment, etc. Ideally, it would be a VAT receipt.

I've been having a look around their website and haven't had any luck. Can anyone help?

You have not paid the hotel, so they do not provide a receipt. Your only receipt is your online or email confirmation with PL. This is SOP for PL. I've never had a problem submitting those for reimbursement, and I doubt you will either.

Priceline confirmation screens have always passed muster with our auditors.

Not sure if any European members can weigh in here...

Presumably, when I book a hotel in France, I am charged VAT on the hotel room. In order to reclaim the VAT, I need a VAT receipt listing Priceline's name and VAT registration number. I don't get this from the booking confirmation screen.

I realise that this isn't really applicable for bookings made over priceline.com (where I wouldn't expect to get a VAT receipt), but what about priceline.co.uk, who are presumably VAT-registered?

Moving this thread to the Online booking and bidding agencies forum. Thanks for your understanding.

Jouy31
TravelBuzz moderator.

Have you tried logging back into your account and printing a receipt? It's been a while now since I've done a Priceline, actually, but there was always a receipt that was slightly different from the booking confirmation screen.

Now, I've never really seen them put the details on it, though. Priceline is coy about the tax paid because they don't want you to know what the real price of the hotel room was vs what Priceline charged you for it, and they don't want you to know how much of the "taxes and fees" was their fee vs how much was actually the tax. There was some kind of controversy over this a while back, but I'm not sure it resulted in any significant changes.

There was a discussion about VAT fees over at Biddingfortravel on December 24 which might be of some interest. If you go to BFT and select "Forum Suggestions", then the topic "Europe hotel bidding - Does accepted bid include VAT fees?", and scroll to the last post ,you will see a portion of Priceline's Terms & Conditions which seem to say that PL does not collect the VAT fees from the sucessful bidder - rather, that the bidder pays such fees directly to the hotel. Has anyone actually paid a hotel VAT fees? Hoping to help.

There was a discussion about VAT fees over at Biddingfortravel on December 24 which might be of some interest. If you go to BFT and select "Forum Suggestions", then the topic "Europe hotel bidding - Does accepted bid include VAT fees?", and scroll to the last post ,you will see a portion of Priceline's Terms & Conditions which seem to say that PL does not collect the VAT fees from the sucessful bidder - rather, that the bidder pays such fees directly to the hotel. Has anyone actually paid a hotel VAT fees? Hoping to help.

The VAT (Value-Added Tax) is included in the total Priceline price. What Priceline, at least the US one, does not do is help people get any rebates they might otherwise qualify for, either for the VAT in European countries or the GST in Canada. The merged taxes and fees charge prevents the user from figuring out the actual amount that is tax. This is for opaque purchases. Where the purchase is not opaque, perhaps Priceline or the hotel will help.

Have you tried logging back into your account and printing a receipt? It's been a while now since I've done a Priceline, actually, but there was always a receipt that was slightly different from the booking confirmation screen.

How do I do this? I looked for a way to print another receipt, but couldn't find it.

How do I do this? I looked for a way to print another receipt, but couldn't find it.

Sorry, turns out it's of no help. I was just going by memory before, but I just checked. The printout when I log in and look at my past bids is not of any use. Just has the combined tax/fees number, and it's just a differently formatted printout of the bid win, not anything special.

The mention above of VAT paid directly to the hotel sounds off. PL may say it does not collect VAT from the bidder, which may be technically correct. But VAT is collected somewhere somehow, in the price that PL is paying to the hotel for example. They had some trouble a while back with this kind of thing, and I don't know how it was resolved. PL wants to claim it is not collecting taxes like a retailer, whereas some taxing authorities were looking at the idea that they may be collecting too much or too little and not all of it getting to the taxing authority. Something like that.

But last I remember, when I bid for a European hotel room, the price you put in for bid excludes the VAT. The final cost will include it, though. I notice that on the US site it tells me they can't facilitate getting a refund of Canadian GST (which is normally possible for US visitors to Canada for hotel rooms). My guess is that's the stance they are taking with VAT as well. I don't think you're going to get such a receipt.

Priceline UK's reference to VAT receipts coming from the hotel is in the context of when they are operating as a reservation service, not the opaque 'name your own price' product.

It isn't clear at all from the priceline.co.uk website as to what company is being dealt with, but the ultimate contact address is the USA. 'Priceline.com Europe' appears on the face of it to be two separate companies, one incorporated in the USA and one in UK. (Not to mention Priceline.com Europe Holdings in the Netherlands.)