Competitors gain as Expedia terminates payment in Bitcoin.

BTC Wires: Since the year 2014, Expedia’s generosity of accepting bitcoin as mode of payment has been well-known. Users could book hotel and flight tickets by paying in cryptocurrency. However, the company has slyly ceased to accept bitcoin. While apologising for the inconvenience, a spokesperson at Expedia has confirmed that they will no longer accept payment in bitcoin and are looking for alternative methods for their users.

It has been pointed out that the reason for Expedia’s dismissal of crypto payment stems for a number of problems, like payment process timing out, cumbersome refund process, and the problem of customers needing to pay via credit cards even after having paid in bitcoin. No officials have been available for further comments dawning clarity on the subject.

Among numerous speculations, the most likely presumption is that Expedia stopped to accept payment in bitcoin since its crypto payment processor Coinbase underwent a change in its custodial merchant service on having due to the introduction of a new merchant tool. A similar case arose at Reddit back in late March, this year. Reddit similarly discontinued accepting payment in crypto for its premium membership and the reason for this as well branched from certain issues with Coinbase’s bitcoin payment options.

Competitors of Expedia and a user of Coinbase’s payment option, Cheapair.com has shifted to BitPay ever since the surfacing of the aforementioned new changes. However, Cheapair’s CEO Jeff Klee confirmed that Coinbase did inform the travel service about their custodial solutions being no longer available, as early as April 30.

Dmitriy

Having majored in Social Psychology and Economics, I worked as a team lead of a tech and fundamental analysis lab in the Applied System Analysis Research Institute. I write financial articles for various international media. I also hold the position of a Chief Analyst at RoboForex.