Car Rental

[MyPrince&Princess]

Hi everyone! Wow! Do we have a car shortage?!? I'm looking for a rental car either in Tampa/Orlando (to rent after our flight) or from Toronto (to drive down). I am suffering from sticker shock! Almost 3000$ for two weeks!?!?
Can anyone offer any tips on renting a Minivan for less than a downpayment on a lease?
I've tried Costco and autoslash and they're both way too much. Am I looking too early? Will prices fall or is this the new Covid pricing era?

 

[EACarlson]

Yes there is a car shortage. At the beginning of the pandemic, many rental companies started selling off more of their fleets as demand crashed. Then they put a whole bunch of them in storage in Ft. Myers, then that storage lot burned up. Then especially for minivans, the largest supplier of minivans for rental fleets stopped making them. Then the chip shortage is stopping vehicles from being build and sold to rental car fleets.
My suggestion is to book whatever you can find now, and then have Autoslash track it. I did a week long car from MCO in both October 2021 and January 2022, in both cases the rental started at $600 a few months out and thank to Autoslash I paid $240 in October with National and $150 in January with Thrifty. I have a rental in Nashville next week for three days, started at $250 and is down to $135.

 

[Denise W]

The Transportation Forum has lots of threads and advice on rental cars.

 

[Dakota731]

And we rented a large SUV so gas will be a big expense ugh