Expedia buying Orbitz for $1.6B at $12 per share, will acquire all of Orbitz's brands
BREAKING: Expedia Buying Orbitz for $1.6 Billion — Barney Harford, the CEO of Orbitz. Orbitz Worldwide — Skift Take: It's just Priceline Vs. Expedia now in the U.S., at least for now. — Dennis Schaal
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a fast sequence: Orbitz put itself up for sale on January 21 after drawing private equity and internet-company interest (exploring a sale), and within three weeks Expedia — which had just paid $280M for Travelocity (its Travelocity purchase) — agreed to pay $12 per share, taking every Orbitz brand off the board.
Skift's framing is the point: the U.S. online travel agency market collapses to a head-to-head between Priceline and Expedia. Notably, when the Justice Department finished its six-month antitrust review months later, it approved the deal at a reduced $1.3 billion valuation (DOJ clearance at a lower price) — the consolidation cleared regulators, just cheaper.
First-order effects
- Priceline now competes against a single consolidated Expedia holding Orbitz's full brand portfolio, ending any realistic bidding war among Orbitz's suitors.
- Orbitz shareholders receive $12 per share under Barney Harford, while Expedia absorbs the brands and booking volume directly.
Second-order effects
- Hotels and airlines lose negotiating counterparts: with Travelocity already inside Expedia, suppliers face one dominant intermediary alongside Priceline, shifting rate and commission leverage toward the two survivors.
- The DOJ's extended review signals that future OTA roll-ups will face antitrust scrutiny, raising the diligence bar for any remaining mid-size targets.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, U.S. online travel structurally consolidates around a Priceline-Expedia duopoly, with independent OTAs either acquired or squeezed out of supplier negotiations.
- Concentration also concentrates financial exposure: five years later Expedia was still the second-largest booking company but needed a $3.2 billion capital raise from Silver Lake and Apollo during the travel collapse (the Silver Lake and Apollo talks), showing how scale amplifies both pricing power and balance-sheet risk.
The trend: U.S. online travel is consolidating through rapid brand acquisitions into a two-player market where Expedia and Priceline set the terms for suppliers and travelers alike.