car rental

[dmacw]

Did anyone find any new deals for car rental? I am going 1/25/06 - 1/31. The cheapest I've found is 160.00.

[hhalligan]

I am goingJan 8th and leaving on the 13th. booked car with dollar. total including all airport taxes is $167.62. Base price is 113.95,

[hhalligan]

i BOOKED THE ABOVE RENTAL THROUGH SOUTHWEST AIRLINES AND CANCELLED IT. wENT DIRECT TO DOLLAR.COM AND GOT THE SAME CAR FOR 129.39 WITH ALL TAXES. iT IS INTERMEDATE,. DODGE STRATUS.

[sonntex]

Did anyone find any new deals for car rental? I am going 1/25/06 - 1/31. The cheapest I've found is 160.00.

Thrifty.com has Neons for $116.90; Stratus, $119.66, Intrepid, $126.86 before taxes. To get this rate you have to enter promotion code SAMS.

If they are out of the car you want, they are very good about upgrades. We have a gotten a 300M as a free upgrade. We rent the midsize (Stratus) and always pick out a Sebring.

[smmoo]

If you are comparing car companies on the same date you also need to compare the cost after taxes and the class of car to get a fair comparison. Taxes and fees add another $40-50 to each class. I have rented through Dollar about 30 times and have never found a cheaper deal. I am sure there are some out there if you belong to a different car rental's premier club, or belong to AAA or have some other discount to use and those are all part of the equation.

[magicfish]

I always book my cars by going to Orbitz.com and checking all companies
- then I go the actual co., using my frequent renter card no., and I can always beat the price ....

I usually rent with Thrifty - good prices, online 10% coupon (off base rate only), and if you choose their club for your frequent renter program - there is no cost and free car after 16 days rentals ( I know sounds like a lot, but they have frequent double pts days)

[sonntex]

I always book my cars by going to Orbitz.com and checking all companies
- then I go the actual co., using my frequent renter card no., and I can always beat the price ....

I usually rent with Thrifty - good prices, online 10% coupon (off base rate only), and if you choose their club for your frequent renter program - there is no cost and free car after 16 days rentals ( I know sounds like a lot, but they have frequent double pts days)

Same here. We always use Thrifty. We like it because the prices are competitive and it is easy in and out at the airport. Their shuttle service is very good.

[smmoo]

I originally reserved an economy for $131 for the week months ago. I went back to Dollar site and upgraded to intermediate for $2 more for the week, for $133. When we got there they had about 50 minivans that were available and only a handful of intermediate so they practiacally begged us to take a minivan for the same price which we we got there would be $136 complete. Since a minivan is easier to get in and out of when a person has arthritis, we took the minivan. It was good to be able to step up to get into rather than scootch down to get into a regular car. When we reserved a minivan last year to take our kids and grandkids to CA from Vegasit was $318.10 for the week, so this was quite a good Christmas gift.:D

[momviolett]

Just got a full size rental from National for 4 days thru Priceline. Total price$111.27

[LJG0722]

Hello

How did the Priceline option work? Did you pick out the vendor and size of car or was it a blind bid and then you found out the vendor and/or car size?:confused:

Thanks

LJG0722

[Meng05]

I have always used expedia.com. If you have time (a couple of days/weeks), keep checking back. I reserved an intermediate for 5 days for approx. $150. Also, the price you see in the search is the price you pay. With a lot of sites, a price is shown and when you get to the booking page, another $40 - $50 in taxes are added.

[sageblue]

In contrast to some of the other suggestions here, I don't usually book cars at the larger travel websites like Orbitz or Expedia, but go to the company sites instead. One tip is to sign up for all of their frequent renter programs, as well as their email specials. Another tip is to consider buying one of the Entertainment coupon books. In addition to local food buys, there are also coupons for car rentals: I used one for our trip in May and am paying $60 (taxes included) for a Fri-Mon intermediate rental through National.

Here's how my usual process goes:

Check Orbitz and Expedia to get a sense of the range of prices
Go to Hotwire to see if they beat them. The nice thing about Hotwire is that you don't have to bid on anything (unlike Priceline); you put in dates, times, and car size, and they tell you what rates are available.
Go to Priceline and see if I can get an even cheaper price through bidding. Usually I bid extremely low--hoping to get far below what Hotwire quoted. As I noted, you decide dates, times, and car size. If, however, you don't get the bid, you have to wait 72 hours before trying again (unless you're willing to change car size, which I usually am--e.g. intermediate to compact doesn't really make that big of a difference to me). For the Priceline newbies out there, it can be very daunting, but it's pretty harmless for car rentals--they only use brand-name companies: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Hertz, and National (with our last successful bid in LV, we got an $11/day compact through Hertz--it was dirty so we upgraded to an intermediate for free:)). If you ever need help with the bidding, feel free to PM me.
If Priceline is unsuccessful, go to my Entertainment book or email offers and make a reservation that I can cancel in case I can re-bid on Priceline.


I think LV is one of the cheapest markets for renting a car, and after doing it last time, I'm a convert: I don't think I will ever not rent a car.

[Lori R]

Wanted to make everyone aware of something that happened last night. I work in the reservations department at a hotel in San Diego. Last night, a minister and his wife were traveling in for a convention. They landed in Los Angeles and had reserved a rental car to drive down to San Diego.

This man called me in a panic. He had reservations with Advantage. His plane was late. Because of that, the desk person at Advantage told him that the $130 (I'm assuming a 3-4 day rental) rate he was supposed to pay was no longer available. Instead, it would cost him $900 to rent the car (I'm serious as a heart attack here). They had plenty of cars in their lot.

I was able to assist him in finding alternate means of transportation but I suspect that he is not the first person to whom they have done this. I don't know if Advantage has a presence at McCarren but thought you should be warned.

Lori