Any luck with August car rental rates?

[WDWRocksMySocks]

Has anyone had any luck w/ August car rental rates, yet? The cheapest I've found so far is $196/6 days with Enterprise. My biggest problem is we're not doing a Saturday night overstay so that jacks up the price considerably. Otherwise, Thrifty has a good rate of $170/7 days. Le sigh.

 

[keliblue]

 

[jlewisinsyr]

At $32.66/day, fully loaded with taxes, that is a great price IMO. Did you try Hotwire/Priceline?

 

[PatMcDuck]

I booked awhile ago with Alamo using Costco codes (I am a member). I need a standard SUV, because of my son's wheelchair...... Aug 5-9 standard SUV is about $250 including tax, and that is NOT a fantastic price. But, I can't seem to find any better, so I am keeping it for now. I am tempted to try Priceline, but fear getting placed offsite. That would be very hard for me with the wheelchair, DH is not coming on this trip.

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

At $32.66/day, fully loaded with taxes, that is a great price IMO. Did you try Hotwire/Priceline?

$32-33/day including tax isn't terrible, but I'm still holding out hope for something better. I realize I probably won't find as great of a deal as I did last August ($15/day including tax), but I figure I can still keep an eye out and see what other people are getting...just in case.

I checked both Hotwire and Priceline but haven't had any luck yet. Hotwire's cost is still above $200. I'll just keep stalking different sites and keep my fingers crossed.

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

I booked awhile ago with Alamo using Costco codes (I am a member). I need a standard SUV, because of my son's wheelchair...... Aug 5-9 standard SUV is about $250 including tax, and that is NOT a fantastic price. But, I can't seem to find any better, so I am keeping it for now. I am tempted to try Priceline, but fear getting placed offsite. That would be very hard for me with the wheelchair, DH is not coming on this trip.

You might check Priceline. I'm pretty sure they only use on-site vendors (Budget, Alamo, National, Hertz and Avis).

Also, keep an eye out for Alamo deals. They typically have some pretty sweet weekend deals for Thursday - Monday (we paid only $10/day including tax in January for a compact).

 

[PatMcDuck]

Well, with Hertz you have to ride a bus, at least you used to......

Thanks for the advice though. I have used Priceline for hotel rooms in both Chicago and Philadelphia with great success.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

I booked awhile ago with Alamo using Costco codes (I am a member). I need a standard SUV, because of my son's wheelchair...... Aug 5-9 standard SUV is about $250 including tax, and that is NOT a fantastic price. But, I can't seem to find any better, so I am keeping it for now. I am tempted to try Priceline, but fear getting placed offsite. That would be very hard for me with the wheelchair, DH is not coming on this trip.

$250, is a great price for a SUV, guaranteed rental for not a full week.

 

[PatMcDuck]

$250, is a great price for a SUV, guaranteed rental for not a full week.

You are right, it is ok for an SUV. I remember getting $199/week for a minivan year after year, but that was quite awhile back....... and a 5 day rental usually costs the same as a week of course. And I just looked, it is $262 including all taxes and fees.

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

Well, with Hertz you have to ride a bus, at least you used to......

Thanks for the advice though. I have used Priceline for hotel rooms in both Chicago and Philadelphia with great success.

Hertz actually came back onsite last Spring (see this article).

 

[jlewisinsyr]

You are right, it is ok for an SUV. I remember getting $199/week for a minivan year after year, but that was quite awhile back....... and a 5 day rental usually costs the same as a week of course. And I just looked, it is $262 including all taxes and fees.

Not always, shorter rentals often are more expensive then week rentals.

 

[katml14]

I just checked the rates for our trip in August (Aug 12-22) and they have DOUBLED in the past couple of days! I'm hoping that they will come down within the next couple of weeks!

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

I just checked Enterprise, and the rates have dropped for 8/22-28. If you have an Entertainment Book, you can also save an additional 5% off (yeah, not much but still something). I went ahead and cancelled my previous reservation and re-booked through Enterprise for a grand total of $160 (including taxes and fees) for an economy. Not bad!

 

[Tinkaroo]

I am positively shocked at the rental rates for August. I need a 2-week rental from 8/14-27, and the rates are over $1,000 - for the majority of the agencies I tried!!! Um, aren't we heading into the slow season??

We're flying in/out of MCO, but visiting family for the first week about 2 hours outside of Orlando (who have a car, and are willing to pick us up from MCO). Surprisingly, if I put in to pick up a car at the West Palm airport on 8/15, with a return drop at MCO on 8/27, my price dropped to about $400 with National. (And same scenario but picking up 2 days later when my husband flies in on 8/17 had the price back up to around $700.)

I don't know what's going on with these rates, but I'm hoping they get out of the nosebleed section in the next couple of weeks. I've traveled to FL multiple times at this time of year, and car rental rates have always been cheap. These are rates I would think are seen over Christmas!

 

[jerseygal]

I thought summer 2008, Orlando rental car rates were quite high!

We always do a rental car on vacation in Orlando, and this seemed to be the year that started to climb!

Last yr, summer 2009, we did Disneyland/ and San Diego and the California rates are even worse!

You're right, August 2010 rental car rates are very high!

Have a reservation on National, but will keep looking.....We usually rent at least a full sized car, sometimes a premium...We're renting 8 days, so its seems that 8th day makes it even higher still than a 7 day!

Anyone else find rental car rates to be high?

Thanks!

 

[garnet1240]

The National rate seems to have come down some... using code 5007160 (continental air) and the site $25 coupon.....

 

[k&a&c'smom]

For my week, it's still over $550 for 8 days, and that's way too high! I'll use ME, I guess.

I've been watching August rates for a month now, and I can't get a decent rate with any of the rental agencies I've tried. Crazy high.

 

[clutter]

Here's how bad rates are. I found an AWESOME rate on Alamo way back for 8/25 to 9/5. Eleven days, maybe $270 with taxes! Unfortunately, my room is booked for starting the 26th. I haven't purchased my airfare down yet, so I'm looking into going on the 25th. $70 for a night at a value v. an additional $200 for a rental!

Now the problem is that the pick-up is for 10:30pm. The flight I'm thinking of lands at 9:00. So I don't know if we have to hang out at the airport for an extra hour to get my rate.

 

[webworm]

I am positively shocked at the rental rates for August. I need a 2-week rental from 8/14-27, and the rates are over $1,000 - for the majority of the agencies I tried!!! Um, aren't we heading into the slow season??

We're flying in/out of MCO, but visiting family for the first week about 2 hours outside of Orlando (who have a car, and are willing to pick us up from MCO). Surprisingly, if I put in to pick up a car at the West Palm airport on 8/15, with a return drop at MCO on 8/27, my price dropped to about $400 with National. (And same scenario but picking up 2 days later when my husband flies in on 8/17 had the price back up to around $700.)

I don't know what's going on with these rates, but I'm hoping they get out of the nosebleed section in the next couple of weeks. I've traveled to FL multiple times at this time of year, and car rental rates have always been cheap. These are rates I would think are seen over Christmas!

Have you tried Thrifty using the Orlando Magic Card Code Corporate ID 004M001010? The total for a Wild Card (midsize or larger) including taxes is $465.02

 

[Procrastinate]

The only deal I have been able to find in weeks of looking is to rent one-way for one day to Tampa, then rent one-way from Tampa to Orlando for the rest of my trip. This works for me because we were going to Tampa anyway, so we just put that part of trip at the beginning of the week. The cost doing it this way is one third of what I would pay renting round trip at MCO.