Priceline blasts Hotel Tonight on inflated savings claims

The tonight-only hotel sector is heating up and Priceline now claims that Hotel Tonight is too full of itself -- or exaggerating the depth of its discounts.

Both companies offer consumers hotel bargains on their free iOS and Android apps when booking specially negotiated rates for hotel stays starting that afternoon or evening.

Hotel Tonight promises customers discounts of up to 70% while Priceline's knock-off Tonight-Only deals pledges savings of up to a mere 35%.

And, the discrepancy in their competing claims is the flash point.

As it does against other competitors, Priceline in May compared Hotel Tonight's strikethrough price (the basis for its savings claims) at 2,024 randomly selected properties with the retail rate for the same dates on Priceline.com. The rate comparisons were made within five minutes of one another.

Priceline's internal study found that 46.9% of the time -- at 951 properties -- Hotel Tonight's strikethrough price was higher than the rate consumers could have readil