American Airlines Exclusive “Opaque” Airline Ticket Agreement with Priceline

American Airlines, Inc. (NYSE: AMR), the world’s largest airline, and priceline.com® (Nasdaq: PCLN) today announced an agreement where American will make priceline.com its exclusive distribution partner for opaque airline tickets. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“Opaque” refers to a type of purchase, such as priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price®, where a customer buys an airline ticket and is provided with the name of the airline and the itinerary information after the purchase is completed. By being flexible with their travel plans, priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price® customers can save up to 40% compared to published prices found on other major online travel reservation sites. . American also sells its tickets through priceline.com’s Published-Price airline ticketing service.

“Consumers recognize the quality, service and reliability of American Airlines, and we are pleased to be named as the exclusive opaque ticket distributor for American,” said Mark Koehler, Senior Vice President, Air for priceline.com. “We believe our customers will appreciate the added savings that this partnership will deliver.”

“Priceline.com has worked hard to refine its Name Your Own Price® service into what we believe to be the most supplier-friendly opaque sales environment on the Internet today,” said David Cush, Senior Vice President – Global Sales for American Airlines. “In recognition of that effort, American Airlines has decided to deepen our business relationship.” American Airlines has signed a new drug deal with Priceline to make the broker the exclusive distribution partner for the airline’s opaque airline tickets. I’m sure you’re wondering what I was wondering… What the heck is an opaque ticket. Well, according to the press release,

“Opaque” refers to a type of purchase, such as priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price®, where a customer buys an airline ticket and is provided with the name of the airline and the itinerary information after the purchase is completed. By being flexible with their travel plans, priceline.com’s Name Your Own Price® customers can save up to 40% compared to published prices found on other major online travel reservation sites. American also sells its tickets through priceline.com’s Published-Price airline ticketing service.

That sounds like a bunch of marketing bling, but I guess they’re referring to flexible fares. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed, so maybe it is just marketing hype. I’ll be on the lookout for more information.