lastminute.com

today announces that it is extending its joint
initiative with UK rail retailer, TheTrainline, to cross-promote
hotel and train booking offerings.  TheTrainline allows customers to
book on every train company and on every route around the UK and
sells just under 10% of all rail travel bookings.  TheTrainline
expects to sell 8m tickets this year.

Under the new agreement, customers booking train tickets on
TheTrainline will be presented with lastminute.com hotel offers
matching their destination and travel dates.  The new functionality
will allow them to purchase train tickets and book hotels
simultaneously as part of the same transaction.

This facility has been made possible by an XML feed from
lastminute.com to TheTrainline, giving access to the thousands of
hotel offers available in the lastminute.com database.  Under the
agreement lastminute.com will be the sole provider of hotel product
on TheTrainline site.  Hotels is one of TheTrainline’s top partner
products and with 75% of bookings made being for one night or more at
destination both partners are excited about the potential for the
deal.

The partnership with lastminute.com will also enable TheTrainline to
extend its travel and leisure offer by providing a white label
booking engine on the site for hotel and entertainment offers
including theatre tickets and restaurant bookings. In due course this
will enable TheTrainline customers to build an entire travel and
leisure package.

lastminute.com Chief Executive Officer, Brent Hoberman, says, “We’re
pleased to see our relationship with TheTrainline move to this
exciting next phase.  Leveraging our technology and our wide supply
base to enhance our relationship with our key partners in this way is
a key element of lastminute.com’s future growth.”

TheTrainline Chief Executive Officer Alan Tomlin says, “The extension
of our partnership with lastminute.com is excellent news for online
travel bookers - consolidating the booking process and providing them
with easier access to a more extensive range of accommodation and
entertainment offers when booking their rail travel.”

The functionality is due to go live by Easter 2004.
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