Expedia now accepting bitcoin for hotel payments

Expedia.com has announced it is now accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for hotel purchases, offering travellers another way to book online.

Michael Gulmann, vice president, Expedia Global Product said: “We're continually looking at ways consumers want to pay for their travel; bitcoin is a great example of how Expedia is investing early in an array of payment options to give our customers and partners more choice in the ways they interact with us."

Expedia has partnered with Coinbase, a trusted third-party bitcoin payment processor, to integrate bitcoin payment support into the hotel booking experience on Expedia.com

To purchase hotel reservations using the newly accepted currency, customers simply indicate bitcoin as their method of payment and then follow a few steps to safely and securely complete each transaction.

Customers can find and select bitcoin as a payment option at check-out along with all other methods accepted on the site, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diners Club and PayPal.

Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase, commented: "By accepting bitcoin as a form of payment, Expedia is giving a wider community of users the opportunity to book hotels from their site's inventory of properties all around the world quickly and easily."

Coinbase is a bitcoin consumer wallet and merchant payment processing platform that, founded in June 2012, now powers 1.3 million consumer wallets and supports 32,000 merchants.