Mr. Ek also noted that Priceline alerts travelers to the possibility of fees — resort and otherwise — during the “name your own price” buying process. Which is true. In a heads-up that appears before you type in your credit card data, customers are alerted about “additional hotel specific service fees or incidental charges or fees that may be charged by the hotel to the customer at checkout.”

Clearly, Mr. Youngerman and many others don’t notice this warning. But it’s there, and in that previously mentioned class-action case, a judge determined that the alert was prominent enough to pass legal muster. Dismissing the lawsuit in 2010, Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl of the Superior Court of California, Los Angeles. described Priceline’s fee disclosure as “appropriately clear and conspicuous.”.