Expedia owns the following brands
- Expedia, of course
- Orbitz
- Travelocity (which in turns own UK company Sabre)
- Hotwire
- VRBO
- Hotels.com
- Carrentals.com
- Homeway
- Wotif (Australia)
- Trivago
Priceline Group renamed itself as Booking Holdings and has the following brands:
- Booking.com
- Priceline
- Agoda
- Rentacars.com
- Kayak.com
As you can see, Expedia and Priceline (Booking) dominate the global online travel space. If you have a bad experience, as I recently did with Priceline, it is tempting to picking on of the other brands (there are more than those listed above). For example, if I switched to Booking.com instead, I’m still doing business with Priceline.
Regardless of what brand you choose, you are basically dealing with either Expedia or Booking Holdings.
When possible it is usually best to book directly with airlines, hotels and car rentals. But sometimes, particularly among small independent hotels, your only online option is to book through one of the above brands.
For what its worth, we have – so far – had very good service from Expedia. Former colleagues of mine in the 1990s founded Expedia and one is, today, an executive VP there, and a former manager had been a senior VP for travel products there (since retired). If I had wanted to join that startup, I could have, but my expertise lay elsewhere. I did okay with my other options, fortunately.