BASIS OF PRESENTATION	6 Months Ended
Jun. 30, 2016
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]
BASIS OF PRESENTATION	BASIS OF PRESENTATION Management of The Priceline Group Inc. (the "Company") is responsible for the Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements included in this document. The Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP") and include all normal and recurring adjustments that management of the Company considers necessary for a fair presentation of its financial position and operating results. The Company prepared the Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements following the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission for interim reporting. As permitted under those rules, the Company condensed or omitted certain footnotes or other financial information that are normally required by GAAP for annual financial statements. These statements should be read in combination with the Consolidated Financial Statements in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015. The Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including its primary brands of Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable. All inter-company accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. The functional currency of the Company's foreign subsidiaries is generally the respective local currency. Assets and liabilities are translated into U.S. Dollars at the rate of exchange existing at the balance sheet date. Income statement amounts are translated at the average exchange rates for the period. Translation gains and losses are included as a component of "Accumulated other comprehensive income" in the accompanying Unaudited Consolidated Balance Sheets. Foreign currency transaction gains and losses are included in "Foreign currency transactions and other" in the Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Operations. Revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities can vary during each quarter of the year. Therefore, the results and trends in these interim financial statements may not be the same as those for the full year. Change in Presentation In the first quarter of 2016, the Company changed the presentation of advertising expenses from "Advertising - Online" and "Advertising - Offline" to "Performance advertising" and "Brand advertising" in the Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Operations. As a result, brand advertising in online channels is now recorded in "Brand advertising" rather than "Advertising - Online". For the three and six months ended June 30, 2015, this change in presentation, which had no impact on total advertising expenses, operating income or net income, amounted to $12.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively. The Company believes its new presentation is helpful because it separates performance advertising that is typically managed on a return on investment basis from brand advertising that is generally spent to build brand awareness and managed to a targeted spending level. The descriptions of these new lines are as follows: Performance advertising - Advertising expenses classified as performance advertising are generally managed by the Company by monitoring return on investment. These expenses primarily consist of: (1) search engine keyword purchases; (2) referrals from meta-search and travel research websites; (3) affiliate programs; and (4) other performance-based advertisements. Performance advertising expense is recognized as incurred. Brand advertising - Advertising expenses classified as brand advertising are generally managed by the Company to a targeted spending level to drive brand awareness. This includes both online and offline activities such as online videos (for example, on YouTube and Facebook), television advertising, billboards and subway and bus advertisements. Brand advertising expense is generally recognized as incurred with the exception of advertising production costs, which are expensed the first time the advertisement is displayed or broadcast. Recent Accounting Pronouncements In June 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued new accounting guidance on the measurement of credit losses for financial assets measured at amortized cost, which includes accounts receivable, and available-for-sale debt securities. For financial assets measured at amortized cost, this new guidance requires an entity to (1) estimate its lifetime expected credit losses upon recognition of the financial assets and establish an allowance to present the net amount expected to be collected, (2) recognize this allowance and changes in the allowance during subsequent periods through net income and (3) consider relevant information about past events, current conditions and reasonable and supportable forecasts in assessing the lifetime expected credit losses. For available-for-sale debt securities, this new guidance made several targeted amendments to the existing other-than-temporary impairment model, including (1) requiring disclosure of the allowance for credit losses, (2) allowing reversals of the previously recognized credit losses until the entity has the intent to sell, is more-likely-than-not required to sell the securities or the maturity of the securities, (3) limiting impairment to the difference between the amortized cost basis and fair value and (4) not allowing entities to consider the length of time that fair value has been less than amortized cost as a factor in evaluating whether a credit loss exists. This update is effective for public business entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption is permitted for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance. In April 2016, the FASB issued new guidance to improve the accounting for certain aspects of share-based payment transactions as part of its simplification initiative. The key provisions of this accounting update are: (1) recognizing current excess tax benefits in the income statement in the period the benefits are deducted on the income tax return as opposed to an adjustment to additional paid-in capital in the period the benefits are realized by reducing a current income tax liability; (2) allowing an entity-wide election to account for forfeitures related to service conditions as occurred instead of estimating the total number of awards that will be forfeited because the requisite service period will not be rendered; (3) allowing the net settlement of an equity award for statutory tax withholding purposes to not exceed the maximum statutory tax rate by relevant tax jurisdiction instead of withholding taxes for each employee based on a minimum statutory withholding tax rate; and (4) requiring the presentation of excess tax benefits as operating cash flow and cash payments for employee withholding taxes related to vested stock awards as financing cash flow in the consolidated statement of cash flows. For public business entities, this update is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016, including interim periods within those annual reporting periods. Early adoption is permitted in any interim or annual period for which financial statements have not been issued but all of the guidance must be adopted in that same period. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance. In February 2016, the FASB issued a new accounting standard intended to improve the financial reporting of lease transactions. The new accounting standard requires lessees to recognize an asset and a liability on the balance sheet for the right and obligation created by entering into a lease transaction. However, the accounting update allows an entity to make an accounting policy election so that short-term leases are not recognized on the balance sheet and the related lease expense is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term. The new standard significantly expands qualitative and quantitative disclosures for lessees. The new standard retains the dual-model concept by requiring companies to determine if a lease is an operating or financing lease and the current "bright line" percentages could be used as guidance in applying the new standard. The lessor accounting model remains largely unchanged. The update is effective for public business entities for fiscal years, and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2018. Early adoption is allowed. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance. In January 2016, the FASB issued a new accounting update which amends the guidance on the classification and measurement of financial instruments. Although the accounting update retains many current requirements, it significantly revises accounting related to (1) the classification and measurement of investments in equity securities and (2) the presentation of certain fair value changes for financial liabilities measured at fair value. The accounting update also amends certain fair value disclosures of financial instruments and clarifies that an entity should evaluate the need for a valuation allowance on a deferred tax asset related to available-for-sale debt securities in combination with the entity’s evaluation of their other deferred tax assets. The update requires entities to carry all investments in equity securities, including other ownership interests such as partnerships, unincorporated joint ventures and limited liability companies at fair value, with fair value changes recognized through net income. This requirement does not apply to investments that qualify for equity method accounting, investments that result in consolidation of the investee or investments in which the entity has elected the practicability exception to fair value measurement. Under current U.S. GAAP, the Company's available-for-sale investments in equity securities with readily identifiable market value are remeasured to fair value each reporting period with changes in fair value recognized in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss). However, under the new accounting literature, fair value adjustments will be recognized through net income and could vary significantly quarter to quarter. For the investments currently accounted for under the cost method, an entity can elect to measure its investments, which do not have a readily determinable fair value, at cost less impairment, if any, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes in orderly transactions for the identical or a similar investment of the same issuer. The Company intends to continue to use the cost method of accounting for investments without a readily determinable fair value. Additionally, this accounting update will simplify the impairment assessment of equity investments without readily determinable fair values by requiring a qualitative assessment to identify impairment. When a qualitative assessment indicates that impairment exists, an entity is required to measure the investment at fair value. In addition, this accounting update eliminates the requirement for public business entities to disclose the methods and significant assumptions used to estimate the fair value that is currently required to be disclosed for financial instruments measured at amortized cost in the balance sheet. This update is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption, although allowed in certain circumstances, is not applicable to the Company. In May 2014, the FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board issued a new accounting standard on the recognition of revenue from contracts with customers that is designed to create greater comparability for financial statement users across industries and jurisdictions. The core principle of the standard is that an "entity recognizes revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the entity expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services." Additionally, the new guidance specified the accounting for some costs to obtain or fulfill a contract with a customer. The new standard will also require enhanced disclosures. In March 2016, the FASB issued an amendment to this standard, which provides guidance on assessing whether an entity is a principal or an agent in a revenue transaction. The conclusion determines whether an entity reports revenue on a gross or net basis. The amendment focuses on who controls the good or service in an arrangement before it is transferred to a customer and further clarifies the unit of account and indicators of when an entity is the principal. In April 2016, the FASB further amended this standard by clarifying (1) how an entity should evaluate the nature of its promise in granting a license of intellectual property, which will determine whether it recognizes revenue over time or at a point in time and (2) when a promised good or service is separately identifiable (i.e., distinct within the context of the contract) and allowing entities to disregard items that are immaterial in the context of a contract. In May 2016, the FASB issued additional amendments related to (1) the assessment of collectibility, (2) the definition of completed contracts at transition, (3) the measurement of the fair value of non-cash consideration at contract inception, (4) the presentation of taxes collected from customers and (5) the accounting for contract modifications at transition. The accounting standard was initially effective for public business entities for annual and interim periods beginning after December 15, 2016. In July 2015, the FASB agreed to defer the effective date of the new revenue standard to annual periods beginning after December 15, 2017 with early adoption permitted as of the original effective date. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance.

BASIS OF PRESENTATION

Management of The Priceline Group Inc. (the "Company") is responsible for the Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements included in this document. The Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP") and include all normal and recurring adjustments that management of the Company considers necessary for a fair presentation of its financial position and operating results. The Company prepared the Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements following the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission for interim reporting. As permitted under those rules, the Company condensed or omitted certain footnotes or other financial information that are normally required by GAAP for annual financial statements. These statements should be read in combination with the Consolidated Financial Statements in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015.

The Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements include the accounts of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including its primary brands of Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, agoda.com, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable. All inter-company accounts and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. The functional currency of the Company's foreign subsidiaries is generally the respective local currency. Assets and liabilities are translated into U.S. Dollars at the rate of exchange existing at the balance sheet date. Income statement amounts are translated at the average exchange rates for the period. Translation gains and losses are included as a component of "Accumulated other comprehensive income" in the accompanying Unaudited Consolidated Balance Sheets. Foreign currency transaction gains and losses are included in "Foreign currency transactions and other" in the Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Operations.

Revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities can vary during each quarter of the year. Therefore, the results and trends in these interim financial statements may not be the same as those for the full year.

Change in Presentation

In the first quarter of 2016, the Company changed the presentation of advertising expenses from "Advertising - Online" and "Advertising - Offline" to "Performance advertising" and "Brand advertising" in the Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Operations. As a result, brand advertising in online channels is now recorded in "Brand advertising" rather than "Advertising - Online". For the three and six months ended June 30, 2015, this change in presentation, which had no impact on total advertising expenses, operating income or net income, amounted to $12.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively. The Company believes its new presentation is helpful because it separates performance advertising that is typically managed on a return on investment basis from brand advertising that is generally spent to build brand awareness and managed to a targeted spending level. The descriptions of these new lines are as follows:

Performance advertising - Advertising expenses classified as performance advertising are generally managed by the Company by monitoring return on investment. These expenses primarily consist of: (1) search engine keyword purchases; (2) referrals from meta-search and travel research websites; (3) affiliate programs; and (4) other performance-based advertisements. Performance advertising expense is recognized as incurred.

Brand advertising - Advertising expenses classified as brand advertising are generally managed by the Company to a targeted spending level to drive brand awareness. This includes both online and offline activities such as online videos (for example, on YouTube and Facebook), television advertising, billboards and subway and bus advertisements. Brand advertising expense is generally recognized as incurred with the exception of advertising production costs, which are expensed the first time the advertisement is displayed or broadcast.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

In June 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued new accounting guidance on the measurement of credit losses for financial assets measured at amortized cost, which includes accounts receivable, and available-for-sale debt securities. For financial assets measured at amortized cost, this new guidance requires an entity to (1) estimate its lifetime expected credit losses upon recognition of the financial assets and establish an allowance to present the net amount expected to be collected, (2) recognize this allowance and changes in the allowance during subsequent periods through net income and (3) consider relevant information about past events, current conditions and reasonable and supportable forecasts in assessing the lifetime expected credit losses. For available-for-sale debt securities, this new guidance made several targeted amendments to the existing other-than-temporary impairment model, including (1) requiring disclosure of the allowance for credit losses, (2) allowing reversals of the previously recognized credit losses until the entity has the intent to sell, is more-likely-than-not required to sell the securities or the maturity of the securities, (3) limiting impairment to the difference between the amortized cost basis and fair value and (4) not allowing entities to consider the length of time that fair value has been less than amortized cost as a factor in evaluating whether a credit loss exists. This update is effective for public business entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption is permitted for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance.

In April 2016, the FASB issued new guidance to improve the accounting for certain aspects of share-based payment transactions as part of its simplification initiative. The key provisions of this accounting update are: (1) recognizing current excess tax benefits in the income statement in the period the benefits are deducted on the income tax return as opposed to an adjustment to additional paid-in capital in the period the benefits are realized by reducing a current income tax liability; (2) allowing an entity-wide election to account for forfeitures related to service conditions as occurred instead of estimating the total number of awards that will be forfeited because the requisite service period will not be rendered; (3) allowing the net settlement of an equity award for statutory tax withholding purposes to not exceed the maximum statutory tax rate by relevant tax jurisdiction instead of withholding taxes for each employee based on a minimum statutory withholding tax rate; and (4) requiring the presentation of excess tax benefits as operating cash flow and cash payments for employee withholding taxes related to vested stock awards as financing cash flow in the consolidated statement of cash flows. For public business entities, this update is effective for annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2016, including interim periods within those annual reporting periods. Early adoption is permitted in any interim or annual period for which financial statements have not been issued but all of the guidance must be adopted in that same period. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance.

In February 2016, the FASB issued a new accounting standard intended to improve the financial reporting of lease transactions. The new accounting standard requires lessees to recognize an asset and a liability on the balance sheet for the right and obligation created by entering into a lease transaction. However, the accounting update allows an entity to make an accounting policy election so that short-term leases are not recognized on the balance sheet and the related lease expense is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term. The new standard significantly expands qualitative and quantitative disclosures for lessees. The new standard retains the dual-model concept by requiring companies to determine if a lease is an operating or financing lease and the current "bright line" percentages could be used as guidance in applying the new standard. The lessor accounting model remains largely unchanged. The update is effective for public business entities for fiscal years, and interim periods within those fiscal years, beginning after December 15, 2018. Early adoption is allowed. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance.

In January 2016, the FASB issued a new accounting update which amends the guidance on the classification and measurement of financial instruments. Although the accounting update retains many current requirements, it significantly revises accounting related to (1) the classification and measurement of investments in equity securities and (2) the presentation of certain fair value changes for financial liabilities measured at fair value. The accounting update also amends certain fair value disclosures of financial instruments and clarifies that an entity should evaluate the need for a valuation allowance on a deferred tax asset related to available-for-sale debt securities in combination with the entity’s evaluation of their other deferred tax assets. The update requires entities to carry all investments in equity securities, including other ownership interests such as partnerships, unincorporated joint ventures and limited liability companies at fair value, with fair value changes recognized through net income. This requirement does not apply to investments that qualify for equity method accounting, investments that result in consolidation of the investee or investments in which the entity has elected the practicability exception to fair value measurement. Under current U.S. GAAP, the Company's available-for-sale investments in equity securities with readily identifiable market value are remeasured to fair value each reporting period with changes in fair value recognized in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss). However, under the new accounting literature, fair value adjustments will be recognized through net income and could vary significantly quarter to quarter. For the investments currently accounted for under the cost method, an entity can elect to measure its investments, which do not have a readily determinable fair value, at cost less impairment, if any, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes in orderly transactions for the identical or a similar investment of the same issuer. The Company intends to continue to use the cost method of accounting for investments without a readily determinable fair value. Additionally, this accounting update will simplify the impairment assessment of equity investments without readily determinable fair values by requiring a qualitative assessment to identify impairment. When a qualitative assessment indicates that impairment exists, an entity is required to measure the investment at fair value. In addition, this accounting update eliminates the requirement for public business entities to disclose the methods and significant assumptions used to estimate the fair value that is currently required to be disclosed for financial instruments measured at amortized cost in the balance sheet. This update is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, including interim periods within those fiscal years. Early adoption, although allowed in certain circumstances, is not applicable to the Company.

In May 2014, the FASB and the International Accounting Standards Board issued a new accounting standard on the recognition of revenue from contracts with customers that is designed to create greater comparability for financial statement users across industries and jurisdictions. The core principle of the standard is that an "entity recognizes revenue to depict the transfer of promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the entity expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services." Additionally, the new guidance specified the accounting for some costs to obtain or fulfill a contract with a customer. The new standard will also require enhanced disclosures. In March 2016, the FASB issued an amendment to this standard, which provides guidance on assessing whether an entity is a principal or an agent in a revenue transaction. The conclusion determines whether an entity reports revenue on a gross or net basis. The amendment focuses on who controls the good or service in an arrangement before it is transferred to a customer and further clarifies the unit of account and indicators of when an entity is the principal. In April 2016, the FASB further amended this standard by clarifying (1) how an entity should evaluate the nature of its promise in granting a license of intellectual property, which will determine whether it recognizes revenue over time or at a point in time and (2) when a promised good or service is separately identifiable (i.e., distinct within the context of the contract) and allowing entities to disregard items that are immaterial in the context of a contract. In May 2016, the FASB issued additional amendments related to (1) the assessment of collectibility, (2) the definition of completed contracts at transition, (3) the measurement of the fair value of non-cash consideration at contract inception, (4) the presentation of taxes collected from customers and (5) the accounting for contract modifications at transition. The accounting standard was initially effective for public business entities for annual and interim periods beginning after December 15, 2016. In July 2015, the FASB agreed to defer the effective date of the new revenue standard to annual periods beginning after December 15, 2017 with early adoption permitted as of the original effective date. The Company is currently evaluating the impact to its Consolidated Financial Statements of adopting this new guidance.