Booking Holdings' best quarter of 2026 came with a $1 billion charge
Room nights rose 7% to 345 million, the fastest growth of 2026, but a $900 million revenue cut and a $100 million charge for an FTC case over a Priceline partner whose ads looked like hotels' own pushed reported revenue down 1%
by Markus Busch
Driving the news. On November 3, Booking Holdings reported its third quarter. Travelers booked 345 million room nights across its brands, up 7% on a year earlier. That beats the 6% of the first quarter and the 5% of the second. Gross bookings rose 10% to $54.5 billion.
Reported revenue still fell 1%, to $8.9 billion. Without one item it would have risen 9%, to $9.8 billion. That item is an FTC matter at Priceline, one of the group's five consumer brands. Booking Holdings cut revenue by $900 million and accrued a further $100 million loss for it.
The fourth quarter looks slower. Booking Holdings expects room nights to grow 1% to 3%, and blamed October on disruption to Middle East travel, higher airfares and unrest in some European cities.
What the FTC is after. According to Booking Holdings' quarterly filing, FTC staff told Priceline in July that they intended to recommend a complaint against Priceline and "a business-to-business affiliate partner" over "disclosures, fees, customer support, and billing practices." No settlement has been agreed. If one comes, the company expects it to include a payment to the FTC and restitution to certain US consumers.
How your rooms got there. The filing doesn't name the partner. Reuters, citing two people familiar with the matter, reported on October 7 that it is Guest Reservations. Its ads look like links to a hotel's own website and open a third-party site, where guests often pay more.
The rooms come from Priceline. A lawsuit filed by San Francisco says Priceline supplies them through Priceline Partner Solutions, its arm that sells hotel inventory to other companies. We covered that suit in July. More than 1,000 consumers have complained about Guest Reservations to the Better Business Bureau, many saying they thought they were booking with the hotel.
Where the money goes. To the FTC, and back to guests. Nothing in the filing mentions a payment to hotels. The ad carried the hotel's name. The guest who paid the extra fee still checked in at the hotel's front desk.
The catch. No complaint has been filed. The $1 billion is Booking Holdings' own estimate for its books, not a fine, and the filing warns the FTC may seek more, with similar claims possible elsewhere. The partner's name comes from Reuters' sources and the San Francisco suit, not from the filing. And nobody has said whether a settlement would change how Priceline supplies rooms to partners. The company's August filing said Priceline could agree to "commitments to change its business practices." It didn't say which.
What it means for hotels. Your room on Priceline may not stop at priceline.com. Outside the US, it likely got there through your Booking.com contract: Booking.com has long been Priceline's main source of European hotels. From Priceline, partner programs can carry it to sites you never picked, under ads that use your name.
This week, search your hotel's name on your phone the way a guest would. Screenshot every ad that sits above your own website. Click the ones that aren't yours. Note the web address, the room rate against your own, and what gets added at checkout. Then take the screenshots to your Booking.com account manager, or in the US to your Priceline market manager. Ask which partner sites receive your rates through Booking Holdings, and whether you can switch any of them off.
Read also: San Francisco sued the sites faking your hotel's page. Booking supplied them. · Booking.com just told investors how little AI actually books
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