Bitcoin has had a rough go of it over the past six months or so but that's doing little to curb interest from big-name brands. Travel booking specialist Expedia on Wednesday announced it will now accept the cryptocurrency as a form of payment to book hotel stays according to a press release on the matter.
To make a purchase with Bitcoin, customers simply need to select it as a payment option at check-out then follow a few additional steps to complete the transaction.
With the move, the company becomes the first major travel agency to accept the digital currency. Michael Gulmann, vice president of global product for Expedia, noted that if Bitcoin payments start to attract new types of customers or result in higher usage, they may accept the currency in their car and flight units as well.
He added that they wouldn't be jumping into something they didn't think had legs. Bitcoin, Gulmann said, seems like a very viable currency.
Expedia is partnering with popular third-party payment processor Coinbase on the venture. If you recall, Coinbase is also the payment processor for Overstock and Dish Network, both of which started accepting the virtual currency earlier this year.
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. The company raised $25 million in a Series B round of funding led by Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz late last year.