FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - What $$ fee EXACTLY does Priceline charge on each hotel booking these days?
Old Sep 21, 2005, 3:04 pm
  #14  
fti
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Originally Posted by CalItalian
Priceline nor any of the other 3rd party providers will prevail in a California court and will have to disclose the ACTUAL room tax paid by the consumer once again.
Actually if PL does not prevail in court, they will have to pay tax on the bid amount, but any lawsuit settlement might not require PL to separate taxes and their fee on bidders' confirmation pages. That seems to be a totally separate issue.

IMHO, the main reason PL bunded taxes and fees was not so much to mask what PL paid to the hotels (what small percentage of PL users really figured this out? - only those reading FT, BFT and BB), but to give PL some leverage in what they knew was coming - lawsuits from state and local governments regarding the tax issue. By not explicitly showing the tax amount publicly, it could theoretically strengthen their case.
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