Priceline & Agoda—Are They The Same Company?
Both Priceline and Agoda are great options when booking trips, but are they the same company? Here's how they're related and which you should choose for travel.
Published January 17, 2023.
If you're looking to book a hotel, flight, and other travel add-ons, you've likely come across Priceline and Agoda. Both will help you book all you need, but are they the same, and which should you use?
What Is Agoda?
Agoda is a Singapore-based online travel booking platform that specializes in booking stays, such as hotels, resorts, and homes, for travelers. The travel agency offers over 2 million properties in over 200 countries worldwide and has expanded into flight bookings as well as car rentals.
What Is Priceline?
Priceline is one of the biggest and oldest online travel agencies in the world, allowing users to find and book flights, hotels, rental cars, vacation packages, experiences, and cruises. The website benefits from its over 400 airlines and 300,000 hotel partners to find the best prices for its users.
How Are Priceline and Agoda Related?
Both Priceline and Agoda are subsidiaries of Booking Holdings Inc. However, Priceline was the original company formed in 1997 that eventually became Booking Holdings Inc. after acquiring many other companies and websites similar to Agoda. Booking Holdings Inc. acquired Agoda in 2007 to strengthen and diversify the company's portfolio of travel brands and expand its presence in the Asian market, helping both websites to better serve their customers.
Which Should You Use?
While both websites operate independently, they do share resources and technologies, so the choice is yours.
Agoda is strong in the Asian market and will likely have the best hotel deals there. It also operates a merchant model where you will pay them, and they then pay the companies you booked.
Priceline, on the other hand, operates an agency model where you end up paying the hotel, airline, or other services directly, and they take a commission, giving you more options while sometimes having higher prices than Agoda would be able to negotiate.