Car Rental - Presidents week

[EllenJ]

We just made a last minute decision to fly to FL during school break instead of our normal drive from CT. I was able to get a good airfare as well as using my SW credits. My only problem is that I cannot find a reasonable rental car. I usually use National Emerald Aisle. The rates they are quoting are well over $500 for the week. I've never paid more than $200 in the past.
The strange thing is I can rent a car at the in Tampa and return it here for less then $300.
I'm almost tempted to drive one way and fly the other.
Any help getting a better weekly rate is appreciated.
Ellen

 

[keishashadow]

I had booked an SUV w/alamo beginning the Sunday prior to Pres. Day, returning the Tuesday afterwards; nearly a year prior.

Our flight arrived (on-time) around 1:30 p.m.; when we traipsed over the the garage (using qs, w/cc on file, etc.)...all that was left was a pt cruiser.

did manage to get a few $ back when we got home but, it was the ONLY type of car in the garage.

Alamo told me they "...always overbook, expecting cancellations..." and that i should be happy to get a any car

good luck, perhaps ME or towncar service?

 

[dvc guy]

We have rented car in Fla for the past 6 years over Presidents week. Not much you can do but bite the bullet and pay. The rates are up there with Christmas and Easter.
Try using some of the National codes on the web site if you can.
Good Luck

 

[jeff968]

Ellen, we're going into Tampa and I got a good hertz rental on a ford escape for 9 days. The weekly rate was only $250. I got it a few months ago. I'm curious about your flights. How well did you do? I can never find anything good out of hartford for president's week. We're going out of LGA and into Tampa. I purchased my tickets over the summer and still had to pay $220 a ticket non-stop. Leaving Friday 16th, coming back Sunday 25th. Hartford is always $350 plus.

 

[TLH1977]

You might want to check the dollar thread started a week or so ago. We are heading down that same week but only for 5 days and managed to get a intermediate car for 200.00, a whole lot cheaper then any other company could offer. They posted a code there that seemed to work but cant remember it off hand. Good Luck!

 

[DVC-Don]

This past Christmas the wife booked us a last minute surprise WDW trip and was getting car rental prices (mid sized for 5 days) of $500+. But then she tried Priceline and got us a mid sized with Alamo for $250.

 

[Armadillo4]

I ran into this same problem myself when I went reserve a rental car for a 4-day trip over Presidents Day weekend. The prices are astronomical, even with all the Dollar codes and monkeying around with the National and Alamo codes. Our problem is that we'll be there during the peak days of the weekend: Feb. 17-20, so available inventory levels are low and prices high. I tried all the Dollar codes for our trip and the best I could do for an intermediate was $100/day base rate (!) before some miniscule discount.

Someone mentioned Priceline and that's probably a pretty good bet. I considered it myself and still might try it.

We got a little creative and found an okay rate with Dollar at their location at hotel row (next to DTD). We'll use DME to get on property (staying at ASMo) and then have the Dollar shuttle pick us up from ASMo. However, we will drop off the car at the Dollar location at MCO instead of using DME to get back to the airport. The rate was decent, but not great ($38/day, intermediate). We're accepting some compromises for booking our trip last minute for a peak vacation weekend.

We also tried Alamo's on-property locations, but their rates were the same as the airport. There are a couple other companies with hotel locations by DTD too if you want to try them.

 

[BelleBoo&AmisMum]

We're flying down on the 20th and get in late that evening. I did a happy dance when I got the mini-van rental down to $555.88 for two weeks and one day. I'm still checking every day to see if it goes down but no such luck!

 

[EllenJ]

Thanks for the replies. I will keep looking.. Priceline may be a good options also.


Jeff, the flights that we got are out of Philly. with our 2 free roundtrips it costing $300 for the 3rd flight. I could not find anything around here unless we went mid-week to mid-week. We have friends in the Philly area so we can park at their house and they will bring us to the airport. The 3 hour drive is better than the 20+ hour drive since my husband threw his back out recently.

 

[Alexander]

Unfortunately President's Week has always costs us much more to rent a car than even Easter Week. I check months and months in advance and just can't seem to get the rates down. They often use up all of the allotted cars for certain corporte codes and coupons too. One year we waited and rented at the Dolphin and saved about $80 (took DME to the BCV and walked over) but this isn't always convienent for those not staying in the Epcot resort area.