April 2012 Rental Car Prices Wow! Any ideas?

[mom2mikel]

Where did you find these codes and can anyone use them?

I found both codes here on the DIS boards. As webworm mentioned below, BCD X474200 is a travelocity code. I've seen MUWZ023 mentioned as either being a $25 or $30 discount that won't be reflected in price when you book -- it will be taken off when you return your car. Here's a link to the coupon: http://www.carrental.com/nam/

HTH!

 

[Detailor]

I usually book one reservation about a year out as my safety net. So, I realized rates were extensively higher than last April a while ago.
I thought that they would start to drop the closer I got to April. However, I'm looking at the other months Rental car threads and they ain't droppin'.

For many years I've had generally good success making an initial reservation at about six months out, then looking for better rates beginning around three months prior to my rental period with the best rates showing up pretty predictably in the six- to two-week period before the rental period.

Normally, that would suggest that it might be too early to panic about an April rental. But the issue that I'd be concerned about for your dates is that, despite being after Easter, it's prime time for public school vacations in various parts of the country and that means greater demand for rental cars in vacation destinations like Orlando. And that increased demand likely creates a higher pricing structure than for some other periods, maybe not as high as Thanksgiving week or the Christmas/New Years time frame but still higher than we see right now for non-holiday weeks through the middle part of December.

Consequently I don't think that you can predict April pricing by looking at the monthly threads for less peak periods and I don't think there's going to be any magic in finding the "best" prices, just a lot of diligence. I think that your strategy to make periodic searches on the rental companies' reservation sites makes a lot of sense (and if you're not looking at several different companies then you might think about adding some and looking at their specials/deals over time). Along with that I'd suggest looking at the Mousesavers.com car rental section for valid codes.

Good luck.

Dick Taylor