National Joins Budget In Priceline.com's New Rental Car Program
30 November 1999
National Car Rental Joins Budget Rent A Car In Priceline.com's New Rental Car Program
STAMFORD, Conn.--Nov. 30, 1999--Now, priceline.com has another money-saving surprise for holiday travelers. The Company announced that National Car Rental has joined Budget Rent a Car Corporation in priceline.com's rental car program. Beginning tomorrow, the companies are making it possible for travelers who buy their airline tickets through priceline.com to also reserve a rental car.National announced its marketing agreement with priceline.com today. Budget had announced its intentions to join priceline.com's rental car service in September.
Starting tomorrow, customers whose purchase offers for airline tickets are accepted by priceline.com's participating airlines will receive an e-mail message asking if they'd also like a rental car from one of priceline.com's two participating rental car companies. The priceline.com program includes all types of vehicles, including compacts, mid-size, full-size, vans and sport utility vehicles.
"Our customers have been asking priceline.com to add a rental car service," said Daniel H. Schulman, president and COO of priceline.com. "We're particularly pleased to launch our rental car service during this holiday season when so many of our customers are traveling. Instead of making alternative arrangements for their ground transportation, our customers will now enjoy the convenience of having their own rental cars."
About National Car Rental System, Inc.
National Car Rental System, Inc., is one of the world's leading vehicle rental companies with nearly 3,000 locations serving 75 countries worldwide. National Car Rental can be found on the Internet at www.nationalcar.com. For more than 50 years, National's green logo has signified industry-leading service for customers. National has more than 14,000 employees and is a wholly owned subsidiary of ANC Rental Corporation, a holding company with combined revenue of more than $3.5 billion. Currently operated by AutoNation, Inc. , ANC Rental Corporation will be spun off to AutoNation shareholders as a tax-free share dividend in January 2000.
About Budget Rent a Car Corporation
Budget Rent a Car Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Budget Group, Inc. , is one of the world's top three car and truck rental systems. The Budget system, which operates under the same name worldwide, has more than 2,900 airport and local market locations in over 120 countries and territories.
Budget has nearly 1,000 corporate-owned and franchised locations in the United States. Budget's WorldClass Fleet is comprised of more than 30% specialty vehicles, ranging from sport utility vehicles, convertibles and luxury cars to minivans, pickups and environmentally friendly vehicles. Budget Rent a Car can be found on the Internet at www.budget.com.
About priceline.com
Priceline.com is the patented Internet pricing system that enables consumers to achieve significant savings by naming their own price for goods and services. Priceline.com takes consumer offers and then presents them to sellers who can fill as much of that guaranteed demand as they wish at price points determined by buyers.
Priceline.com's "virtual" business model allows for rapid scaling using the Internet. Because the Company electronically collects consumer demand, it can fill this demand directly with sellers or by using proprietary databases. Priceline.com does not maintain or warehouse inventories in any of its product lines. Priceline.com is currently selling multiple services to its sellers across three distinct product categories: a travel service that offers leisure airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars, a personal finance service that offers home mortgages, refinancing and home equity loans, and an automotive service that offers new cars in nine states. Recently, priceline.com announced that it would also offer a name-your-own-price service for long distance calling.
Priceline.com also licensed its business model to a privately owned company, Priceline WebHouse Club, which offers name-your-own-price retail goods, beginning with groceries in the New York metro and greater Philadelphia areas. In return for the WebHouse Club license, priceline.com has received warrants allowing it to purchase a majority equity stake in the WebHouse Club under certain contingent conditions. Prior to the exercise of this warrant, the results of WebHouse Club operations will not be included in priceline.com's financial statements.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Expressions of future goals and similar expressions including, without limitation, "may," "will," "believes," "should," "could," "hope," "expects," "expected," "does not currently expect," "anticipates," "predicts," "potential," and "forecast," reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies and other factors described in the Companies' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties. The Companies undertake no obligations to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.