A good end to a poor program....
http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/Foru...ML/000004.html

October 4, 1999

Car-Rental Firm Budget Bows Out
Of the BidBudget Online Business

By JANE COSTELLO
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION

Travelers looking to make a bid for a car rental from Budget will soon head to Priceline.com. But they might end up driving a rental car from a rival company instead.

The Budget Group, Lisle, Ill., said last week that it will phase out BidBudget, the online service for customers to "name their price" for a car rental. BidBudget generated an average of 1,800 successful bids per week and a 26% acceptance rate since the service was launched in June.
Online sales make up a small part of revenues for Budget, the third largest car- and truck-rental company in the world, with more than 3,200 rental offices. In the U.S., 70% of Budget's car rentals take place at airports.

Budget executives made the decision to team up with Priceline.com rather than offer the online service through the company's Web site.
"We're still working out the details," says Priceline spokesman Brian Ek. The car-rental service will either be marketed as a separate component or as part of a new travel-package option. BidBudget will continue to accept bids until Priceline introduces the new car-rental service in the fourth quarter.
Mike Gavleck, Budget's vice president of marketing, says that BidBudget's performance during its brief run "exceeded expectations." But about the time of the BidBudget launch, Budget "proactively" went to Priceline to discuss developing a car-rental component for its site (www.priceline.com).

"It was a strategic decision," says Mr. Gavleck. Establishing the partnership between the two companies, he says, enables Budget to "grow the category" for its online car-rental sales by leveraging Priceline's huge advertising budget, thereby generating a larger number of leisure car-rental customers.

But Budget must pay for the privilege of attaching its name to the buyer-driven model Mr. Gavleck says it's helping to design: The company now pays a licensing fee to Priceline, even as BidBudget continues to operate. Mr.Gavleck declined to comment about whether Budget will also pay a commission to Priceline for each rental generated.

Handing over the keys of its buyer-driven model to Priceline may not automatically mean a dramatic increase in the number of new customers for Budget. Under the terms of the agreement, Budget will be only one of several car-rental companies serving Priceline customers. Users will submit offers for a car rental and Priceline will search its database of car-rental vendors to match the offer to the client.

Mr. Ek declines to name the other car-rental companies negotiating to participate in Priceline, but said that Budget is "one of the players" and would be considered a preferred vendor.
And while Priceline plans to market the new service as a way for consumers to round out their airline and hotel purchases through the site, it remains to be seen if bidding for car-rental rates will be "big, really big" or a bust.


"I tried it for three different trips," wrote one business traveler, a consultant from Wilmington, Del., who shared his experience with BidBudget on FlyerTalk, an online frequent-flyer discussion group. He submitted bids that were 30%, 20% and 10% lower than his corporate car-rental rate earlier this summer; all were rejected. "Then I called Budget and they said they had plenty of cars available at each location. My conclusion is it's a waste of time to attempt to rent a car using this bid method."


But officials at Budget remain enthusiastic about the potential for using the Net -- and the Priceline model in particular -- to reduce excess inventory.
"Our goal is to match a happy customer with a lonely car," says Mr. Gavleck.

Thanks MisterNice- I see you too read the WSJ! My thoughts as well. As I read it I thought it's a real shame it was not better implemented since it could well have benefitted both Budget and the consumer.

I tried the BidBudget thing a few times, making what I thought were reasonable bids for cars in big cities on the weekend, never accepted ... Hopefully the Priceline thing will work better ...