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holiday autos scooped the award for ‘Top Leisure Car Rental' company for the 8th year running at the annual Travel Bulletin Awards on Monday September 22.

Sales Director Ian Coyle , who was presented with the ‘Travel Star' award, said the win was testament to holiday autos' commitment to the trade as a key sales distribution channel.

“Our ongoing support of travel agents has kept us at number one in the leisure rental market and we are delighted to pick up this accolade from them for the 8th consecutive year,” he said.

“But it's not really us that are the stars, it's the agents who utilise our services and ultimately vote for us, and it's with immense gratitude to the trade that we add this award to the holiday autos display cabinet.”

Coyle added: “We are continuing to enhance the services we offer to travel agents, most recently introducing an automated system for making referral commission payments to partner affiliates, and developing our trade website to make online bookings simpler and more convenient for agents than phoning us.

“With several new initiatives in the pipeline for next year, we look forward to developing and building our relationship with the trade.”

About Holiday Autos

Holiday Autos is the world's largest leisure car rental broker. Founded in 1987, the innovative company revolutionised the car rental industry by introducing fully inclusive rental prices, and, a few years later, was among the first to enmbrace e-commerce by developing the website as a key distribution channel. Today more than 40% of business is transacted on-line.

The Holiday Autos Group operates through a mix of corporate offices, joint ventures and sales agents in 40 countries worldwide. In 2002 the group turnover was £154million.

In March 2003 Holiday Autos was bought by lastminute.com for £40 million. Company founder Clive Jacobs retains the position of chief executive and has joined the board of lastminute.com as vice chairman.

About lastminute.com

lastminute.com is Europe's leading online provider of travel and leisure solutions. Based on the idea of matching supply and demand, it offers consumers last minute opportunities to acquire airline tickets, hotel rooms, package holidays, car hire, entertainment tickets, restaurant reservations and home delivery, speciality services, gifts and auctions.

Operating across multiple markets, lastminute.com has established approximately 15,300 supplier relationships and over 7.5 million subscribers to its weekly newsletter.

More information available at www.lastminute.com/ir