Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN), a web-based booking business that fights it out with Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE), was red-hot during yesterday's session. Shares closed higher by 14%. Volume rocked. The Q2 numbers were strong, and the market rewarded the results without hesitation.

Revenues increased 17%. According to TheStreet.com, adjusted profit of $2.02 per share walloped estimates. Wall Street was only booked for $1.79 per share. The analysts really missed this one. It's understandable, though. Whether we're close to the end of a recession or not is debatable, and I'm sure they wanted to be conservative with the models.

Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN), an online booking concern that competes with Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE), reported Q1 earnings on Monday. The stats were all right, I have to say.

Revenues increased over 14%. According to this article, earnings on an adjusted basis came to $1.09 per share. Analysts were looking for 93 cents per share. Year-ago adjusted income was 76 cents per share, according to the press release. Priceline not only expanded its bottom-line income, but it increased its net cash from operations. That figure went up by a nice 71%. Gross travel bookings as a whole jumped by over 10%. They did even better in the U.S. market.

Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) did not have a good week. The online travel site, which competes with Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) for attention, reported abysmal earnings for the fourth quarter this past Thursday. The company suffered a huge loss of $9.60 per share. That's right, $9.60 per share! Kind of rocks your world, doesn't it? And not in a good way. I mean, Expedia's share price closed at $7.74 on Friday.

As you can imagine, there was an accounting issue going on (not that it should make shareholders feel any better, mind you). Expedia took a huge goodwill write-down related to the significant drop in the market capitalization of the business. We're talking $3 billion. Wow. Of course, management adjusted the earnings to represent what Expedia would have made without the charge. That would be $0.22 per share. Unfortunately, that missed expectations by two pennies.