dv8or

Till there is a way of connecting to my tv to play everything through it I wont be giving up the Sonos...

Just cancelled my prime membership... Netflix is much better IMHO

tmay said:

Oh dear...

Barry Diller also owns Expedia.com

"HOW DOES EXPEDIA MAKE MONEY?

Expedia makes its money in a few different ways. The largest of those ways is through hotel bookings, which the company is mainly known for allowing users to do. A whopping 70% of Expedia’s revenue is generated from hoteliers (people who own or manage hotels). The way that Expedia get’s here in the first place is through a simple supply and demand strategy. Expedia buys up a large number of rooms at a discounted cost and then advertises the bookings through their website as the cheapest you’ll find in the market.

An example would be Expedia pushing for a 7-night all-inclusive trip to a remote island in the Caribbean. Expedia reaches out to a hotel on the island and buys up a block of, say, 100 rooms at a discounted price (because everything is cheaper in bulk). Expedia than buys a large number of plane tickets going to that island, usually at little to no discount. Then Expedia offers the deal to 2 people at a price like $1,700, which is most likely going to be at least marginally cheaper than it would through other sites. People get a good deal and Expedia is able to fill more plane seats and hotel rooms. And Expedia has only paid a part of what they charge the people for the service, meaning they profit from every transaction.

Another way that Expedia makes money is through commission fees. Because Expedia always offers the lowest price (or at least a lower price than the hotel will offer), people will be far more willing to actually take a trip in the first place. So hoteliers are far more inclined to sell rooms to Expedia because some money is better than no money. The commission fees are usually between 20% and 25%.

An example of the way that this works is that if a hotel sells a room (in this example we will use just one room, but in reality, it would be far more) to Expedia for $100 and Expedia gets the room booked, then Expedia will collect that $100 and pay the hotel $75 (if the fee is 25%). They will say that that $25 goes towards customer service, marketing, and various other business functions.

HIDDEN FEES?

Expedia makes a little on the side through fees. These fees aren’t hidden, but they’re also not in your face. They can get away with this because they don’t charge users a fee to actually book the hotel, or whatever it is that they are booking, in the first place. These fees include:

• Cancellation fees when canceling a booking more than 24 hours after booking
• Fees on some airlines for overweight baggage
• Wi-Fi fees in some hotels
• Off resort excursion fees
• Fees for parking at particular venues
• Meal fees at hotels
• Fees at hotels for things like spas, gyms, and pools.

HOW DOES EXPEDIA GET ITS DATA?

Does Expedia have full-time employees whose sole responsibility is to troll the internet to find hotels that they can buy rooms from, and then contact those hotels and reach an agreement for those rooms? Definitely not. Expedia has a third party sourcing organization that does all that for them. This method is called “Merchant Inventory.” They have local contractors, essentially the ‘boots on the ground’ people that are collecting data about hotels in different areas as well.

I'm thinking that this guy needs to have his business model exposed...

Well said and succinctly put...was going to make the same point...