Lastminute.com to extend price comparison system into Europe

Lastminute.com is planning to extend its Ratefinder price comparison technology to France and Italy after a successful and low-key UK launch in the summer. The online giant introduced the price comparison ‘pop under’ in August enabling consumers searching for flight only or hotel only to compare prices from other supplies such as HRS, booking.com and…

Lastminute.com is planning to extend its Ratefinder price comparison technology to France and Italy after a successful and low-key UK launch in the summer.

The online giant introduced the price comparison ‘pop under’ in August enabling consumers searching for flight only or hotel only to compare prices from other supplies such as HRS, booking.com and Kayak.

The price comparison pop under will only appear from the home page once in every 24 hours and from the flights or hotels pages within every 20-minute session.

The system uses IgoUgo, also part of parent company Sabre, to allow consumers to compare and also provides them with user-generated content such as reviews and photos.

Lastminute.com claims the technology has proved successful and there are also plans to integrate it into the Holiday Autos car hire brand.

Teletext Holidays is considering a similar move where on exiting the our site customers will be offered links to competitors’ sites.

Managing director Matt Cheevers said: “We know that the vast majority of them will go on to do price comparisons with these companies so why don’t we offer them links from our site?”