Hotwire

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

I always shop sites like Travelocity first. Or go through Kayak to compare several.Then I go to individual sites like Thrifty or Alamo. After I feel I have the lowest price I can find--THEN I go to Hotwire. If you are shopping PRICE as the major factor, they almost always beat the best price. You don't know which company--but who cares? I don't as long as it's a clean,well-maintained car.

Every so often I go to Priceline and run the Hotwire amount less 10% or 15%. I have probably done this 8-10 times and have NEVER had Priceline beat the price. I just get the same old--"We agree that would be a great price..." line, but they never match it in my experience. I guess they must be matching for people somewhere, or they wouldn't still be in business!

I do the same thing. I frequently find that Hotwire does not offer the best price. That happens most often with rental cars.

When I use PL as a benchmark for a PL bid, PL beats HW about half the time.

The last two times I've tried to pick up a rental car on HW, HW has given me a good rate, but when I try to accept their offer, the next window says the price is no longer available and the quote has been about the 3x higher than their initial "offer". Quite irritating!!!

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

I probably do way-to-much rental car searching, but I have always found the best deal with National Emerald Club and whatever Contract ID/Coupon special du jour is.

I can tell you that the ski-rack special does not help you in Florida.

I first found the codes on flyertalk and there are so beaucoup of them there that it takes awhile to test them all. Normally whatever comments are posted on Flyertalk, and elsewhere including here, will steer you to the best current codes.

Even better than Hotwire and Priceline.

For our upcoming Florida trip we have relatively discount airfare (for this day and age), pick up an Emerald Club rental car with a code posted here, and head to a Priceline hotel for a night before checking into the first resort the next day.