SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Priceline.com Inc. shares climbed to an an eight-year high on Friday before closing with a gain of 12% after the online travel site reported a first-quarter profit fueled by a rise in booking and international travel.

PCLN 138.63, +14.85, +12.0%) rose $14.85 a share to close at $138.63 and has more than doubled since this time last year and is now at its highest level since late 2000. Earlier in the session, the shares reached $143.70.

The move came after the company said late Thursday that it earned $18.2 million, or 37 cents a share, on revenue of $403.2 million. During the same period a year ago, Priceline lost $16.3 million, or 44 cents a share, on $301.4 million in revenue.
Excluding one-time items, Priceline would have earned 76 cents a share to beat the estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial, who forecast a profit of 60 cents a share on $377.2 million in revenue.
The company, best-known for its name-your-own price option for flights, has benefited from consumers searching for low-price flights at a time when many airlines are hampered by rising fuel costs.
Priceline said both its domestic and international businesses grew during the quarter. Domestic bookings rose 51% from a year ago, while international bookings doubled from the same period last year.
“The U.S. business was the big upside surprise this quarter,” Marianne Wolk of Susquehanna Financial Group said in a research note.
Wolk said that Priceline had earlier estimated its U.S. bookings would rise 35% from a year ago and that “the main driver of growth appears to be air ticketing growth” due to the company’s no-booking fee promotion that has been in place since June 2007.
For its second quarter, Priceline said it expect to report earnings of $1.25 to $1.40 a share before items, and full-year earnings of between $5.25 and $5.65 a share. Wall Street analysts had previously estimated Priceline would earn $1.29 a share for its second quarter and $5.11 a share for its entire fiscal year.
“Priceline is proving out as the most defensive ‘Net stock,” Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said in a research note. Mahaney raised his full-year earnings estimates on Priceline to $5.59 a share and lifted his target price on the company’s stock to $161 a share.

Priceline.com is an online booking company for flights, hotels and car rentals. Priceline is very similar to Expedia and provides comparisons for the cheapest in accommodations. Even though the recent hikes in oil prices have driven airlines to the brink of bankruptcy, it hasn’t slown down Priceline’s growth. The turnaround has been fueled by a strong US and International bookings. The last four earnings reports have exceeded expectations and raised guidelines. Even though I’ve had a poor experience with priceline when I showed up one day late and found my whole reservation cancelled, the stock looks to be a winner. Below is a chart.

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