Word: though
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Certainly, it is a very cool concept, one that founder Jay Walker predicts will eventually eliminate price-tag shopping. Never mind that fixed pricing in one form or another has been around since the time of Xerxes for a reason: people like it. As Walker points out, though, myriad products--from FedEx shipping, where rates increase with the speed of delivery, to groceries bought with coupons--fall into the variable-price category. Thus Walker argues that he is merely pushing an already flexible system to its logical extreme...
...last week that prospect got more complicated for Priceline when major airline companies confirmed that they will invest in a website, to be called Hotwire, that will compete with Priceline to sell unused airline seats. Unlike Priceline, though, Hotwire will set prices rather than auction airline seats. The news, piled on top of weeks of dotcom doom, punished the stock, which finished the week...
...Lancaster, Pa., stockbroker. "The thing that perturbed me most was the excess charges that were added [to the airline-ticket price] for fuel and miscellaneous." Other customers have complained that hotels rated as four-star turned out to be less than stellar. Frequent user Raquel Johnson of Bloomington, Minn., though happy with the service, warns, "Read all the fine print." Priceline does ask customers to initial all the rules and restrictions accompanying each purchase, shielding the company from liability for potential travel mishaps and disappointing accommodations...
...well as service. The $6.5 billion question (the figure represents Priceline's market capitalization) is whether the company can succeed in these new markets. That's one reason the stock price has suffered. Another: Priceline's accounting policy, which books every dollar of a transaction as a sale, even though most of the company's $482.4 million in revenues last year funneled to wholesale suppliers...
This time Fearless Leader's plan is to hypnotize the American citizenry via "Really Bad Television" and then command it to elect him President. It doesn't quite wash--though Bullwinkle, naturally, thinks TV is as excellent as it was when he was a star. It suffices only to get the pair off on a cross-country odyssey aimed at thwarting the bad guys. Conducted by a naive FBI agent (Piper Perabo), they do encounter some fitfully funny comic actors (John Goodman, Jonathan Winters, Whoopi Goldberg), but neither the guest stars nor the sublimely numb Bullwinkle manages to rescue...