Priceline drops name-your-own airfare feature

Priceline.com is no longer letting travelers name their own price for airline tickets, a feature that kicked off the online travel pioneer’s business but had lost traction with customers. Priceline Group Inc. on Sept. 1 quietly removed the online auction option for airfares from its namesake website. The company still lets customers make an offer for hotel rooms and car rentals, though such transactions are fewer and fewer. “We’ve removed the need for the consumer to bid,” said Brigit Zimmerman, Priceline.com’s senior vice president of air and vacation packages. ”It’s a heck of a lot easier." The feature’s demise shows how much online travel has changed since the late 1990s, when the website introduced a new business model that promised steep discounts to bargain-hunters and an easy way for airlines to fill unsold seats. The company allowed customers to bid on everything from plane tickets to rental cars and took a small spread based on the difference between what it paid and the customer’s offer. Its early success spurred executives to try the feature on other markets from groceries to gasoline.<br/>