Booking Holdings’ $1B FTC Hit Proves OTAs Are Riskier Than Ever and Why Consumers Will Always Need Advisors

File it under yet another reason travel advisors are going to become more important during the advent of the age of A.I.

Booking Holdings-the parent company behind Priceline and other major OTAs-took a $1 billion cumulative accounting hit this week linked to an ongoing Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation into deceptive hotel ads.

The company drew the ire of regulators due to its backend relationship with Guest Reservations, a third-party intermediary site. According to more than 1,000 consumer complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau, the site used misleading search ads to mimic official hotel websites, convincing travelers they were booking directly with properties. Instead, consumers faced steep markups, surprise fees, and unresponsive customer service. Priceline was acting as the supplier, feeding hotel room inventory to the operation through Priceline Partner Solutions.

Scams and situations like these, including another one that hit cruise guests this week, aren’t going away as A.I. gets more incorporated into everyone’s lives.

They’re multiplying. According to FTC data, annual losses from travel and vacation fraud have nearly tripled in recent years, reaching nearly $300 million.

This isn’t just a theoretical argument; the market is already shifting. According to MMGY’s Portrait of American Travelers, 66% of surveyed Americans now anticipate using a travel advisor, a sharp rise from 49% in 2024. Meanwhile, Internova data reveals that 60% of travelers actively want an advisor, citing crisis management and protection against booking pitfalls as primary drivers. As the digital landscape gets noisier and algorithms get riskier, consumer trust is returning to the human expert.