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Bottleneck Capital

Long/Short Investor, Technology, Media & Telecom

15 Sep, 11:35Latest

AI agents may be turning deflationary, which could disrupt Booking, Expedia and other businesses with undifferentiated supply and low switching costs as agents drive industry-wide GMV deflation through price discovery. Per @JosephDevoy, Meta's Muse found and bought an auto policy saving $3,500 a year in minutes. Agents let anyone compare all inventory and book instantly, so friction is falling fast. Per HOTREC, most European hotels already have booking engines that agents could reach directly. x.com x.com x.com

EXPE

BKNG

9 Sep, 22:43

AI agents threaten the Booking Holdings and Expedia arbitrage of paying Google for clicks and keeping hotels' 15-18% commission. Agents skip sponsored links, and ones linked to hotel catalogs or airline NDC feeds cut the commission. As agents' rails, OTAs pay a cut and lose customer data; Booking's CFO already talks of joining OpenAI's PPC test group, a second landlord. Otherwise they become costly comparison sites. Booking, mid-60s% direct, fares better there; neither multiple likes the other. x.com x.com

EXPE

BKNG

Broken Moats

Family-Office Long/Short Research, Variant Perception

22 Sep

EXPE

Personal AI agents such as Muse and Grokbot look set to make Expedia the next big loser as consumer and business engagement moves to new channels. Intermediary stocks such as EverQuote sold off and Expedia came under some pressure earlier in the day, but the next level appears to be Expedia, some insurance brokers and then phone communication systems such as RingCentral and Five9, which seem at the top of the losers. x.com

TechStockFundamentals

Technology Investor with ~25 Years of Experience, Former Hedge Fund Manager for 10 Years

22 Sep

BKNG

Booking Holdings faces a valid long-term bear case as AI agents could take a share of the 13-18% online travel take rate. Testing Meta's Muse and Instinct for a hotel search showed them drawing on Booking and Expedia inventory for now, but agents could eventually build direct ties with long-tail hotels, better reviews and pre- and post-booking service at lower fees. OTAs' own agents look mediocre and lack users' context. At 13x 2027 EPS it tempts as a contrarian long, but looks too tough. x.com … Show more

Waterworld Capital

Public Markets Commentary

21 May

BKNG

Booking Holdings' valuation is quite clearly attractive, though AI agents may roam around and book hotels directly for people. Google I/O raised concerns about most internet names, leaving it unclear whether agentic AI will really hurt Booking. x.com x.com

Deep Value Investing

Value Investor, Long-Term Compounding

4 Oct

BKNG

Booking Holdings faces a big risk from Meta's Muse and other AI agents that will find bookings without a middleman. x.com

Say No To Trading

Public Markets Investor, Opportunistic Buying & Cost-Basis Management

25 Sep

EXPE

Expedia is unattractive from both an investment and a user perspective, with offerings less proprietary than Booking Holdings'. x.com

Value Investigator

Quality-Growth Investor, Fundamental Research & Portfolio Strategy

27 Apr

BKNG

AI price-comparison risk to Booking Holdings is a big nothing burger, since Google and Google Maps have offered comparisons for ages. Personal checks find Google showing no better price than Booking about two-thirds of the time, and saving a few euros is not worth another spam account or the lost time. Having all bookings in one app is also far more convenient than digging through a messy Gmail inbox. x.com x.com

Burak Finance

Head of Analytics, Growth Investor, PLTR/NBIS/RKLB

29 Sep

BKNG

AI agents threaten Booking Holdings' margins. That view could change if the company adapts, pivots and proves otherwise. x.com

Masa’s Son

Non-Consensus Long/Short Technology Investor

18 Sep

EXPE

BKNG

Booking Holdings and Expedia look like a secular short with capped upside as their take rates come under pressure, though probably not within the next 60 days. As with Salesforce, the argument that they could simply run headless will be raised, and the market knows it from SaaS. Take rates should compress first where barriers to bringing inventory online are lowest; the platforms would then respond with aggressive marketing and margin dilution, extending their growth runway somewhat. x.com

Oguz Erkan

Investor, Founder of Capitalist Letters

11 Aug

BKNG

Booking dominates Europe's online travel market with 71% share versus 15% for its closest rival Expedia, yet it still trades at just 17x forward earnings. x.com

Dan

Small-Fund Manager

8 Sep

Booking Holdings, Tripadvisor, Expedia and Trip.com are in AI's crosshairs as AI apps make booking travel easy without them. In quick testing, booking a flight on Meta's new app was very easy, working through Duffel or the carrier's own website. x.com

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