Leading Search Site Also Debuts New Logo and Other Site Upgrades 

NORWALK, CT - January 26, 2006 - Continuing to push the travel search envelope by developing the latest technology and convenience for consumers, Kayak.com, the comprehensive travel search site, today introduced Fare Alert and KayakBot. Kayak.com’s Fare Alert allows users to track an unlimited number of trip itineraries and receive email notification when the fare meets or beats a traveler’s specified price. KayakBot provides travelers with flight, hotel, rental car and flight status search capabilities from the convenience of AOL Instant Messenger.

“Consumers with flexible travel plans or tight budgets can now benefit from our new Fare Alert service,” said Steve Hafner, Kayak.com CEO and co-founder. “Like Google News Alerts, Fare Alert contacts a user only when the Kayak.com search engine finds a trip that exactly matches the consumer’s specifications. And like everything else on Kayak.com, it’s free to use.” Consumers can register for Kayak.com’s Fare Alert by choosing “Best fares by email: specific city” on the Kayak homepage, or by clicking on “watch this fare” at the top of the flight results page. Users can then specify departure airport/city, destination airport/city, travel month, maximum price and frequency (daily or weekly). Users that specify a particular travel month will receive an alert when the fare meets or beats the price for that month. If the consumer does not specify a travel month, an alert will be emailed as soon as the fare meets or beats the maximum price for any month.

KayakBot
KayakBot is an innovative fare search feature that lets travelers search prices and availability for air, hotel, rental cars and flight status directly from their AOL Instant Messenger and without the inconvenience of launching an Internet browser screen.

As with other bots, KayakBot responds to simple commands, “fly”, “room”, “status”, airport codes and numerical dates. Interested in a trip to San Francisco from Boston? Simply type “fly bos 2/20 to sfo 2/28″ in your AIM window to execute a Kayak.com search for flights from Boston to San Francisco on February 20, returning February 28.

“Instant Messaging has become a part of any Internet user’s daily routine for everything from communicating with colleagues to checking a stock price, but until now, that didn’t include the ability to easily search for travel,” said Paul English, CTO and co-founder of Kayak.com. “KayakBot is the latest of many recent innovative features that Kayak.com has introduced to make travel search a convenient and interactive experience for online travelers.”

Users can add KayakBot to their AIM Buddy List by selecting “Add a Buddy” and typing in “KayakBot.”

The following additional Kayak.com enhancements are launching on January 26:

• Kayak Buzz Alert subscribers can now add travel month to their personalized Kayak Buzz Alerts. Launched earlier this month, Buzz Alerts are free, personalized email notifications of low fares found by other Kayak users. Consumers personalize alerts by specifying departure airport or city, region, theme, maximum price, month of travel and frequency of emails.
• Kayak.com moved RSS or (Really Simple Syndication) functionality from the developer’s section to the homepage. Kayak.com’s RSS feeds will update savvy Internet users on Kayak Buzz, Kayak Deals and new postings from Kayak.com’s favorite travel blogs.
• Kayak.com introduced a new logo to herald the evolution of the site to meta-search 2.0.