Expedia.com Expedia.com Helps Travelers Build The Ultimate Itinerary With Enhancements To Air, Car and Lodging Services

Bellevue, WA, November 14, 2000—Whether looking for flights, lodging, car rentals or any combination of the three, travelers will now have more choices and increased savings on their travel with Expedia.com®.

Through the expanded use of its revolutionary Best Fare Search technology, Expedia® has increased the number of priced itineraries in its flight searches. For example, a flight search from the home page yields approximately 30 roundtrip itineraries, while one more click to the Build Your Own Trip service generates anywhere from 150 to 1,200 itineraries. In lodging, Expedia continues to lead other Internet travel sites by adding the ability for travelers to book everything from condos to bed & breakfasts. To round out the perfect itinerary, Expedia.com now offers in-city car rentals, allowing travelers to search for car rental agencies in a city and even by proximity to a specific address.

“With this announcement, we continue to improve the Expedia customer experience and go far beyond what has traditionally been available anywhere else,” said Richard Barton, president and CEO of Expedia, Inc. “For example, for the first time, we're bringing specialty lodging into the mainstream—allowing our millions of visitors to book properties such as condos at Whistler and castles in Italy along with their flights and car rentals.”

More Flight Itineraries

Expedia.com prides itself on providing not just more choices for customers, but most importantly, the right choice for travelers. As a result, Expedia rolled out an advanced pricing engine last April called Best Fare Search, which enables travelers to see anywhere from 150 to 1,200 priced flight itineraries when they choose the Build Your Own Trip service. Now, in addition to the leg-by-leg search provided by Build Your Own Trip, customers can obtain the benefits of this powerful pricing engine with general flight searches on Expedia.com for domestic coach class tickets. Instead of the usual 6-15 roundtrip fares returned by other online travel services, Expedia now provides customers with approximately 30 roundtrip itineraries in the initial results, and continues to give customers between 150 and 1,200 itineraries in the Build Your Own Trip service.

The results are sorted by price, with the lowest fare found at the top of the list. In addition to price, the search results also take into consideration the flight times requested and flight duration, so the results provide the closest match to a traveler's request. The Best Fare Search pricing engine searches through more than 500 million possible fare combinations.

“Because customers have more choices and—most importantly—more control over those choices, a higher percentage of people buy trips on Expedia.com when they use the Build Your Own Trip service,” said Byron Bishop, Senior Vice President of Transportation for Expedia, Inc. “With the rollout of the Best Fare Search technology to Expedia.com's primary flight searches, we will now be able to extend that sense of choice and control to even more people and further instill the confidence that they're obtaining the right trip at the right price.”

Specialty Lodging

Continuing its mission to help travelers find the right lodging choice, Expedia has added a whole new world of lodging options, such as villas, ski condos, vacation homes and bed & breakfasts. All properties can be booked directly online through Expedia.com, and customers can browse through property photos, descriptions, and area attractions to become familiar with their home away from home.

A hidden treasure for families and groups, specialty lodging is an option that enables travelers to enjoy the local flavor of a destination and sometimes enjoy significant cost savings. In many cases, guests have their own kitchen, common areas and multiple bedrooms—all at a single cost. For example, guests at Borgia's Castle in Umbria, Italy, truly feel special in this fairytale castle, with its eight bedrooms, five bathrooms, full kitchen, two chefs, swimming pool and billiards room. Yet, when the current peak-season weekly rate of $6,250 is divided by the 14 people it sleeps, the castle turns out to be approximately $69 per person, per night—an amount that makes it affordable to be royalty. This and other properties have been integrated through the recent acquisition of VacationSpot.com®, a leading reservation network of properties worldwide.

In-City Car Rentals

For city residents or urban travelers, in-city car rentals are an ideal alternative to airport car rentals. Whether taking a lengthy roadtrip or a spontaneous city escape, Expedia.com offers a great way for city-dwellers to rent a car without having to trek all the way to the airport. Customers can even search by address to find car rental facilities near a certain location. The search results are displayed on Expedia® Maps, indicating facility locations.

A great advantage to renting a car in the city is avoidance of airport surcharges and other fees charged against airport car rentals. Along with the ability to rent cars at in-city locations, Expedia has also enhanced the car rental service with descriptions and photos of the available cars.

The Perfect Itinerary

By combining these new services with Expedia's existing award-winning services, customers obtain the perfect trip to suit their needs. With the array of easy to access choices in lodging, air and car, Expedia.com not only provides more choice, but most importantly, the right choice.
About Expedia, Inc.

Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) operates Expedia.com, a leading online Web site in the United States with localized versions for travelers in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. To help customers travel right, Expedia.com provides the best combination of air, car and hotel booking, vacation package and cruise offers, destination information, and point-to-point mapping. Industry experts agree. Expedia's quality and leadership was recognized through several awards, including Yahoo! Internet Life's “Best Overall Travel Site,” Gomez Advisors' “Number One Travel Site for Summer 2000” and PC World's “2000 World Class Award for Best Travel Site.”

Expedia.com customers are supported by a credit card guarantee (U.S. site only), an industry-leading privacy policy, and live agents via e-mail and an 800-number available 24 hours a day/seven days a week. Expedia.com is also available under Travel on the MSN™ network of Internet services.

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