Budget Rent a Car to Join Priceline.com for Name-Your-Price Car Rental
27 September 1999
Budget Rent a Car to Join Priceline.com for Name-Your-Price Car Rental LISLE, Ill., Sept. 27 -- Budget Rent a Car Corporation, the
world's third largest car and truck rental company and a wholly owned
subsidiary of Budget Group, Inc. , today announced it signed an
agreement to join priceline.com to offer customers
name-your-price car rental. Priceline.com expects to introduce the car rental
service in the fourth quarter with several major car rental companies.
Budget, which launched the car rental industry's first online bidding
program -- BidBudget -- in June, is joining forces with priceline.com in an
effort to gain share of the online market. Similar to BidBudget, customers
will be able to name their own price for car rental on the priceline.com site.
In addition, whenever customers buy leisure airline tickets on priceline.com,
they will also be able to add car rentals at very attractive rates.
Budget will make a significant financial investment with priceline.com
over the next 3 years to acquire a license for its patented business method
and to develop the name-your-price vehicle rental services. Initially the
services will include car rental with plans to add truck rental in the near
future. As a return on its investment, Budget will be a preferred car rental
partner for the name-your-price car rental services.
"Budget is a strong leader in Ecommerce, and partnering with priceline.com
is a strategic move for Budget," said Sandy Miller, chairman and CEO of Budget
Group, Inc. "Based on our successful experience with BidBudget, we know that
a growing percentage of consumers are interested in naming their own price for
car rental."
Budget plans to quickly scale the online portion of its business, and
joining priceline.com's rapidly growing network is one of the most effective
methods. "Priceline.com has the brand and reach to help us increase our
online business, and we'll benefit from the tens of millions of advertising
dollars it commits to market its name-your-own-price services," Miller added.
"Once the priceline.com car rental service is up and running, BidBudget will
be phased out. Our ultimate goal is to set the standard in the online car
rental market."
"We're thrilled to be working with Budget," said Dan Schulman, president &
chief operating officer of priceline.com. "Our customers have been pushing
priceline.com to add a name-your-price rental car service. These customers
are incremental leisure travelers who would have driven their own cars to
their destinations but are flying instead thanks to priceline.com. When they
arrive, they are going to need rental cars and now we'll have them."
About Budget Rent a Car
Budget Rent a Car Corporation, 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. Visit
our Web site at: http://www.drivebudget.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 customers
across three distinct product categories: a travel service that offers
leisure airline tickets and hotel rooms and soon-to-be car rentals, a personal
finance service that offers home mortgages, refinancing and home equity loans,
and an automotive service unit.
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
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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' filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. The actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking
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obligations to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to
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