Are LAX car rentals always so $$$?

[branv]

I'm trying to price a car rental from and to LAX from 4/28 to 5/5. My mouth is hanging open at the prices, even through Costco, Car Rental Savers and Hotwire. An intermediate is about $270, with a small SUV and Minivan closer to $375. Yikes!

I know in Orlando prices often fell drastically as I got closer to the date of travel. Is it the same here or is this the best I can hope for?

Thanks!

 

[Tinkerbell19672]

I'm wondering if rental car prices have gone up this year. When we went in December it was $111 to rent a car from Long Beach airport for 6 days. Going again in May and the cheapest I can find is $175 for 4 days. Have you tried autoslash? They will find the chepeast price and keep looking up until you leave. Mine dropped $30 so far with them.

 

[MaleficentRN]

I'm trying to price a car rental from and to LAX from 4/28 to 5/5. My mouth is hanging open at the prices, even through Costco, Car Rental Savers and Hotwire. An intermediate is about $270, with a small SUV and Minivan closer to $375. Yikes!

I know in Orlando prices often fell drastically as I got closer to the date of travel. Is it the same here or is this the best I can hope for?

Thanks!

It's all about the timing I guess, because right now I see an SUV for $277/wk at Alamo through Car Rental Savers for your dates.

Just noticed that with tax it's $334. That's where they get you.

 

[bcwife76]

For our last trip (August 2016) we rented from Midway for the first time. They had the best prices!

http://www.midwaycarrental.com/Pages/default.aspx?_ga=1.205541843.1539610649.1489254124

I just did a quick search for your travel dates and an intermediate car rental would be $203.

 

[SMD]

I'm used to paying $300/week for minivans and SUVs. Depending on pickup and dropoff times it looks like you have 8 or 9 days, which is a week plus 2-3 single days, that adds up. You can try searching other dates to see if you're just going at a high demand time, but I'd expect to pay about $170-200/week and $35-40/day for a midsize most of the time.

 

[MIChessGuy]

Undercover Tourist has a car-rental booking feature that becomes available once you have purchased a ticket from them. (Any ticket will do, even one of those discount dining cards.) Recently they were offering a late August rental with Budget at LAX that was better than any Costco or other deal I could find. Unfortunately the booking process requires credit card data, which was a turnoff for me. But just in terms of being price competitive, the UT offer was quite attractive.

 

[Elima2015]

In my experience, if you cross over to more than a full week, even if only a few hours, then you get charged for another day's rental. For example, you arrive 4/28 at 11:00 am and drop off 5/5 at 4:00 pm - those 5 hours will cost you a full day, which I feel like is usually around the $40 per day range. See if that could be influencing the rate you are being quoted. Otherwise, I feel like we usually pay in the $250ish range for a full size sedan and $350ish for a minivan for a week rental in most locations (taxes included). So, your quotes aren't much beyond what I would have expected. We also keep checking car rental rates and will re-book if/when they fall, which seems to happen with enough frequency that I keep checking up until we leave.

 

[bumbershoot]

In my experience, if you cross over to more than a full week, even if only a few hours, then you get charged for another day's rental. For example, you arrive 4/28 at 11:00 am and drop off 5/5 at 4:00 pm - those 5 hours will cost you a full day, which I feel like is usually around the $40 per day range. See if that could be influencing the rate you are being quoted.

Totally.


OP, I haven't had such high prices at LAX, and yes they CAN drop as the time gets closer.