Online travel agency alleges hotel collusion

• In the hotels case, TravelPass says that starting in 2014, the chains worked together to block it and other online agencies from bidding on the internet search keywords that underlie the room booking business.

How it's supposed to work: When you type words into your search engine — like, say, Hilton and Bahamas — an invisible bidding war takes place among hotels and agencies to fill your desire. Ads appear above and alongside your search.

• But Austin Lowe, a lawyer for TravelPass, tells Axios that the alleged scheme resulted in its ads not appearing. As a result, its $165 million valuation cratered to $25 million, the lawsuit says.

In the hearing today, the hotels asked a judge to dismiss the suit, or to move it to another jurisdiction. Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott all declined to comment.