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Technology Stocks : Preview Travel (PTVL) ---- Via...Excite & AOL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Hardison who wrote (629)	4/28/1999 7:38:00 AM
From: Kip518	Respond to of 728

Lots of Online Tickets April 27, 1999/FOOLWIRE/ -- Discount purveyor of airline tickets Cheap Tickets (Nasdaq: CTIX) rose $5 1/8 to $46 7/8 after reporting a 3780% increase in year-over-year Q1 net earnings and earnings per share of $0.05, versus a loss of $0.01 per share in the prior-year period. Run rate revenue came in at $242 million, and "a major factor" contributing to the firm's expanding top line was Internet distribution at cheaptickets.com. Gross online bookings increased $18 million to $20.3 million in the first quarter from $2.2 million in the same quarter in 1998. The online business added about 332,000 new registrants in the quarter, bringing the total number of regular users to more than 750,000 compared with 400,000 registered users added in 1998. Notice that the firm is not incorporated as CheapTickets.com, but was founded in 1986 (online since October 1997) and acknowledged that the opening of its fourth call center also contributed to the strong top line growth. Soon the excess capacity seat business will see another pure play public firm enter the fare wars, Lowestfare.com filed for an initial public offering in mid-March. The Carl Icahn firm -- created to take advantage of the "cheap tickets" that Icahn can acquire through TWA until 2003, thanks to his investment settlement four years ago -- reported that since inception (through the end of March 1999) lowestfare's total gross bookings grew from $116.9 million in 1996 to $232.7 million in 1998, while online gross bookings grew from $12,000 in 1996 to $13.2 million in 1998. One key variable in this type of business is the ability to continue to get favorable inventory as the pace of competition and the number of entrants to the business continues to expand. (Icahn's TWA agreement ends in 2003, and Cheap Tickets doesn't have long-term contracts with airlines.) One chief advantage for a competitor like Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) is in its auction structure -- which inherently forces consumers to compete against each other, all for the benefit of the seller where the highest bid rules (invariably at no more than 30% below quoted prices for Priceline's airfares, unless the firm purposely sells below cost for market expansion purposes). Priceline recently reported the magic million customer mark in a little over a year -- even faster than eBay's initial growth -- which validates the compelling, competitive element of the business model. It's anyone's guess if Sabre (NYSE: TSG) will bring Travelocity public -- with $285 million in 1998 revenue -- with almost 83% of Sabre's shares owned by AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR). Other competitors on the periphery that figure in the sky scene include Preview Travel (Nasdaq: PTVL), Biztravel.com, Expedia (which is operated by Microsoft), Internet Travel Network, and Trip.com.

To: Bill Hardison who wrote (629)	4/28/1999 11:07:00 AM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 728

Bill,ptvl on cnbc? do you know at what time? this should indeed be good for a little boost,as they'll likely be very upbeat. ptvl deserves more recognition. regards, hb