Expedia lures with best price pledge

The world's largest online travel company Expedia launched its Hong Kong site this month with a best price guarantee: should a customer find a better price online for the exact same trip within 30 days, Expedia will match the lower rate and also hand out a HK$500 voucher.

The company is also celebrating by offering a 99 per cent discount promotion for this month.

For the month of July, one person will be chosen each week for the month of July among Expedia newsletter subscribers to get the discount on their next booking.

For now, the website is only selling hotel rooms. The flights booking function will be ready next month, the company announced. Full packages including car rental and cruises will be available.

"The prices that you see are real-time prices," says Kathleen Tan, Expedia Asia's chief executive. "Sometimes you see an advertisement for a flight fare and you call but they say they don't have that anymore because it's not real time."

Tan says travellers want control over their itinerary.

"If you book a package through an agent, sometimes you don't even know which hotel you're staying at," she says. "They'll tell you it's a four-star hotel but they won't commit.