Expedia.com Expedia.com Delivers A New, Easier Way To Shop for Travel
Bellevue, Wash. January 22, 2001 Today, Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) unveiled a new way to shop for travel. Now, consumers have more choices and more control over their travel plans than they've ever had before. Travelers using Expedia.com to plan their travel can now choose from among an average of 400 itinerary combinations for each roundtrip domestic air ticket search, taking advantage of powerful new technology that makes it easy to organize and change their searches.
“Until now, finding that right combination of price, time and carrier has been like searching for a needle in a haystack,”shared Richard Barton, president and CEO of Expedia, Inc. “The new Expedia.com flight search lets travelers take a powerful magnet to the whole barn.”
Along with the new flight search capabilities, Expedia.com gives travelers the flexibility to build their own air and hotel packages at steeply discounted prices. No other online travel site currently offers more powerful sorting tools or the ability to build a custom combination of flights and lodging.
“Ultimately, a traveler only wants one choice the right choice. However, the definition of that varies for each traveler. Providing more choices and at the same time giving more control to sort through those options is the best way to help travelers find that right choice,” continued Barton.
Putting More Control Into Travelers' Hands
Once a customer enters specific search criteria such as destination and time of flight desired, the new flight search defaults to All Airlines a display that is sorted by price with the lowest fare for the requested times and route sorted to the top. Travelers can then build their own custom trip, leg by leg, to create the perfect itinerary. Unlike any other site, Expedia.com allows travelers to see the roundtrip price as each leg is chosen. The prices and flights shown are already checked for availability and accuracy and include all airline surcharges and taxes.
One of the key tools Expedia is introducing is the new sort bar a design innovation that gives travelers the ability to sort results by price, duration, departure time, or arrival time. Other ways in which Expedia helps travelers find the right trip include:
Best Tripsidentifies and displays the best flight combinations from among the hundreds shown. The best flights are chosen based on a combination of factors including lowest price, customer-requested departure and return times, duration and airline diversity.
Specific Carriersallows travelers to view flight choices for individual airlines who have the lowest fares on the specified route.
Air & Hotel Packagesenables customers to build their own packages by choosing a combination of airfare and lodging to over 320 destinations worldwide. Travelers enjoy great savings and can change package components easily, exploring different hotels and various flight itineraries for their vacation packages.
The Technology Behind The Scenes
Expedia makes this all possible because of a revolutionary platform the company has been developing for more than four years. Named Expert Searching and Pricing (ESP), this platform is built on Windows® NT and is fully scalable and capable of handling massive transaction volumes. Extensible to all types of travel, this platform underlies the new flights section, the packages section, and will soon accommodate the entire travel planning process on Expedia.com including destination services and ground transportation.
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 both PC Magazine's “Readers' Choice” and “Editors' Choice” Awards, Yahoo! Internet Life's “Best Overall Travel Site,” Smart Business' MVP Award, Gomez Advisors' “Number One Travel Site for Fall 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.
Expedia and Expedia.com are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Expedia Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
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Jeanenne Diefendorf, Edelman Public Relations +1 (312) 297-7417
Jeanenne_diefendorf@edelman.com
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