Is Something Up With Rental Cars?

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Just went in to do some last minute checking on rental cars out of LAX for P-week and nearly fainted! Cheapest current rate coming up on carrentals.com and kayak.com is ~ $500/week all in or $57/day + taxes. I can't speak for hotwire.com because it's site appears to be down at the moment.

I am so glad I reserved awhile back with Thrifty at $200. I wasn't happy about that rate but now it appears I got a real bargain. Though I am not wild about their relatively new "fill 'er up within 10 miles of drop-off point" rule, I am very familiar with the area and know exactly where to buy fuel before returning the vehicle.

ETA: This is the message I get when I try to reprice at Thrifty:

LOCATION IS SOLD OUT.
(Message 20)

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

My complaint against Priceline is still unresolved.

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

My complaint against Priceline is still unresolved.

I was always under the impression with Priceline that once you booked you were done. No going back and no repricing.

They have their times when they seem to work for me regarding rental cars and times when they do not. They are in the "do not" cycle and have been for about 12 to 18months now.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I was always under the impression with Priceline that once you booked you were done. No going back and no repricing.

They have their times when they seem to work for me regarding rental cars and times when they do not. They are in the "do not" cycle and have been for about 12 to 18months now.

Me, too, but they brought it up, the Big Deal Guarantee, and sent me an email that $16/day was available for what I already had from them at $26. When I called to see about picking the car up earlier, I mentioned it was now available at $16 on hotwire . . . and their agent brought up their guarantee. Then they denied it.

It's being looked at, not very hard obviously, by the powers that be.

[Icc5 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Icc5]

Not airport sights

I didn't read all the posts so somebody might have posted this already and hopefully it is this way everywhere and not just where I'm going.
Try car rentals away from the airport. You may find it way cheaper even with using a taxi. Now this wouldn't work in an airport like Denver because the taxi ride would be a long way. We are saving over $200 doing this in Nashville.
Bart

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I didn't read all the posts so somebody might have posted this already and hopefully it is this way everywhere and not just where I'm going.
Try car rentals away from the airport. You may find it way cheaper even with using a taxi. Now this wouldn't work in an airport like Denver because the taxi ride would be a long way. We are saving over $200 doing this in Nashville.
Bart

That worked not long ago in one of these threads for Orlando, that the off-site locations were much lower.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Exactly the problem I am talking about, that I cannot do that with Priceline (or Hotwire).

Yesterday I received an email from Priceline hyping the lower, $16/day, price for our specific rental, saying another Priceline customer has obtained that rate.

Did you know that you can save up to 40% off published-price rental
cars in Saint Petersburg, FL from Jan 1 to Jan 14 when you Name Your
Own Price®?

Mid-Size Car - (PIE)
One of our customers just booked a Mid-Size Car in Saint Petersburg for
$16 a day. $16

& that is the lower rate they will not honor with their Big Deal Guarantee. They are saying it is available for the purpose of getting new business, but not for the purpose of honoring their guarantee.

One of the more consumer-friendly Attorneys General has decided that Priceline's policy of not honoring their Low Price Guarantee and Big Deal Guarantee for sites that do not reveal the provider until after the consumer has made their purchase is not unfair or deceptive enough to warrant action.

[dcwojo Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dcwojo]

My wife and I Had a car reserved for a good rate for last week in Orlando. Three weeks before we went while searching on expedia we found a full size car rental with enterprise for $152 for the week with unlimited miles. Keep looking every few days on different sites to see what you can find.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

Keep looking every few days on different sites to see what you can find.

Unless you have previously booked with one that you cannot cancel, and does not honor it's low price guarantee.

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

We are in Orlando in a couple weeks. I originally booked a car through Bluegreen and got a good price. Now, about 5-6 weeks after that booking and 2 weeks before the trip, Alamo has a price about $150 cheaper with a coupon code. I canceled the Bluegreen reservation and prepaid for the Alamo rental saving another $12.

[HassieRiver Member Find all posts View Profile Close HassieRiver]

Rental Cars on Kauai

What the best car rental rate and company the anyone has found for Kauai??
Thanks, Don

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

What the best car rental rate and company the anyone has found for Kauai??
Thanks, Don

On Kaua'i we've almost always received the best rates through Priceline or Hotwire, though in our 2009 visit we got the best rates from Budget. The utility of PL and HW differs among the islands, and until our 2009 trip Kauai was one island where PL and HW were consistently the cheapest.

Note that if you want to have more than one driver on the vehicle you need to incorporate that into your shopping. With PL and HW, adding a second driver will almost always include an added driver charge, whereas sometimes you can get the second driver included in a direct booking. In such cases, that factor can eliminate most or all of the PL/HW price advantage.

[davhu1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close davhu1]

Keep checking back for price change.
I booked (actually rebooked) Orlando today for March $169/wk Mid-size at Thrifty. ($113 plus fees)
Unless I can save 20% I am not going to bother with Priceline, which needs to be no more than $13/day.

Rental companies at their with whatever discount code I find.
Budget $203
Enterprise $205
Avis $320
Dollar $201
National $269
Alamo $259

Lowest on Orbitz, U-Save $195
Lowest on Hotwire, $218
Costco was not any cheaper

Original reservation in Dec for National for $262 and was within $15 of the cheapest at the time.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Unless I can save 20% I am not going to bother with Priceline,

That's roughly my point as well, though it varies with the total rental cost. If the rental is $50 total, I'm probably not going to pay more than $35, all costs included, with Priceline or Hotwire.