With Priceline.com Inc. (PCLN) – the name-your-own-price travel-services player – it’s time to either beam up or buy in.

Priceline – the online airfare and hotel-booking firm known for its kitschy TV ad campaign that stars “Star Trek” star William Shatner as “The Negotiator” – is an interesting possible profit play, thanks to its strong balance sheet and market muscle in the bargain-hunting end of the travel-services sector, the financial weekly Barron’s says.

The stock market has already factored in the challenges facing the travel and retail sectors into Priceline’s stock price, Reuters and Barron’s both reported.

According to Barron’s, as the current financial crisis deepens, consumers are going to devote an increasing amount of time to their personal and household spending budgets – a point that Money Morning has repeatedly made as part of its ongoing “Credit Crisis Safety Plays” series. As those consumer concerns about spending and household budgets increase, Priceline’s name-your-own-price business will become a bigger draw, Barron’s, the popular investing weekly, said in its most recent edition.

Barron’s also said Priceline has little debt and plenty of cash on its balance sheet, including $282 million in free cash flow this year. At Friday’s closing price of $54.57, Priceline was trading at 8.8 times projected profits for 2009. That’s well below the average Price/Earnings (P/E) ratio of 21 for Internet retailers, and 9.0-plus for the travel and leisure sectors, Barron’s reported.

Priceline also has a tendency to report upside earnings surprises. In each of the past four quarters, the Norwalk, Conn.-based Priceline has beaten analyst estimates by amounts that range from 9.9% to as much as 27% (Please see accompanying chart).

Strategy Shift a Major Plus

According to noted travel writer Arthur Frommer, Priceline.com was largely once just “a rather exotic service meant only for the gamblers among us – the folks willing to accept the risk of a 6 a.m. flight or an out-of-the-center hotel.