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Related Party Transactions
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2011
Related Party Transactions [Abstract]  
Related Party Transactions

NOTE 17 — Related Party Transactions

TripAdvisor, Inc. In connection with the spin-off, we entered into various agreements with TripAdvisor, a related party due to common ownership, including, among others, a separation agreement, a tax sharing agreement, an employee matters agreement and a transition services agreement. In addition, we will continue to work with TripAdvisor pursuant to various commercial agreements between subsidiaries of Expedia, on the one hand, and subsidiaries of TripAdvisor, on the other hand. The various commercial agreements, including click-based advertising agreements, content sharing agreements and display-based and other advertising agreements, have terms of up to one year. We expensed $4 million related to these various agreements with TripAdvisor from December 21, 2011 to December 31, 2011. In addition, we reclassified sales and marketing expense related to amounts we paid to TripAdvisor prior to the spin-off, which were previously eliminated in consolidation, to third party expenses for all periods presented. Amounts payable to TripAdvisor at December 31, 2011 were $14 million and were included in accounts payable, other on the consolidated balance sheet.

IAC/InterActiveCorp. In connection with and following the IAC spin-off in August 2005, we entered into various commercial agreements with IAC, a related party due to common ownership. On August 20, 2008, IAC completed its plan to separate into five publicly traded companies. With this separation, our related party transactions with the newly constituted IAC have been immaterial and we expect this trend to continue on a go-forward basis.

In addition, in conjunction with the IAC spin-off, we entered into a joint ownership and cost sharing agreement with IAC, under which IAC transferred to us 50% ownership in an airplane, which is available for use by both companies. We share equally in capital costs; operating costs are pro-rated based on actual usage. In May 2006, the airplane was placed in service and is being depreciated over 10 years. As of December 31, 2011and 2010, the net basis in our ownership interest was $16 million and $17 million recorded in long-term investments and other assets. In 2011 and 2010, operating and maintenance costs paid directly to the jointly-owned subsidiary for the airplane were nominal.