Frustrated with car rental rates

[chris1gill]

I think that I am throwing in the white flag on this one We had to change our vacation plans over the last few weeks & I am trying to find any decent car rental rate for 12/18-12/24... The best I am coming up with is around 350.00, way more than I have ever spent for any one week rental! That's for a full size... Does anyone have any magic they can pull out of their hat???? Or can anyone just comiserate????

TIA!

 

[CarolA]

The big p;roblem is that most specials are not good over Christmas. I ran into this last year and found out it was cheaper to rent my car and leave it parked during or crusie then to wait unitl 12/18 to rent.


Keep watching.... as it gets closer you might try priceline.

 

[DebbieB]

It may still drop. When I first checked rates for my May trip in February, it was $198, way more than I usually pay. It steadily came down and I ended up with $118 a couple weeks before with the priceless code.

 

[don8life]

Keep trying! All last week I kept checking every car rental with every coupon and the cheapest I could get it dow to was 202 for 8 days(Full size). Yesterday the 3rd time I checked it for the day went from $200 to $158(with taxes). Just like magic, keep checking, check different times during the day, check the same company.
Good Luck

 

[SnackyStacky]

I just checked with National.

Using the priceless code, and an entertainment coupon, I've got you down to $293.09 including all taxes and fees.

 

[mareed]

Try Thrifty with code AU02. It's from Mousesavers.com and if you do a search here, you'll see quite a bit of discussion about it. I pulled up a minivan for your dates for a total of $212.11. I'm also booking vehicles over XMAS, and this is even lower than the rates I got back in May before all the companies seemed to realize it was XMAS and doubled or tripled their prices.

 

[westjones]

Originally posted by mareed
Try Thrifty with code AU02. It's from Mousesavers.com and if you do a search here, you'll see quite a bit of discussion about it. I pulled up a minivan for your dates for a total of $212.11.

I got this too (thanks to this board) for the week starting Dec. 17th. DH seems to be very pleased with this price (he is the one who books car rentals, I just read the boards and pass info on to him).

Thrifty is offsite, but there is suppose to be a shuttle to take you to it.

Here is a link to a post I made a while back about Thrifty:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=620078

DJ

 

[mom_rules]

I have come to a few conclusions-car rental rates is like paying the stock market. Depending on the conditions, the rates change.

Here is what I have discovered about National-I was also getting frustrated because people were always getting better deal, their rates were going down etc. Everytime I used a suggested code or ID my rate did not change or went up. First I thought it might be my dates over the October long weekend, then it was the type of car (conv)-well I found out today it is the rental location.

The best deal is p/u MCO drop off at Dolphin Resort 10 day rental-conv with code and coupon $360.71
If you rent from Dolphin return to Dolphin everything else the same $371.60
If you rent from Dolphin or CCC but return to CCC rate is $416.33.

I would have thought that it wouldn't matter where the location was the rate would be the same (like Alamo).

 

[chris1gill]

Thanks for the Thrifty idea... just in case, I've made the reservation for the minivan for 212.00, I doubt we'll get lower than that, but if I could get a full size for that price I'd be happy.... I'm not too excited to have to take a shuttle to & from the rental car company.... we've done that sort of thing before, but it just seems to add a lot of time on to the trip.....

Hopefully we will see some rates come down, but if not, this will be great. Thanks!

 

[chris1gill]

HERE'S MY UPDATE!

I went ahead & logged onto the National website with the intent of cancelling our original reservation for 12/29 (which had a rate of 175.00 for a full size), so instead of cancelling it, I modified it for our dates (12/18) & GUESS WHAT!!! It kept my original rate!!! Looks like I had used the priceless code with the 20.00 Entertainment coupon, so we're paying 180.00 for the full size including all taxes!!! I had never thought about modifying the original reservation & I certainly never thought it would keep my rate!!

I'm psyched!

 

[ckret01]

I just booked through Dollar and got a reat of 179.02 plus taxes and all. Its from a friday to the following saturday in October. I have no idea if that is a good rate although all the other websites were higher in price. Dollar so far to me has been the cheapest.

 

[mom_rules]

ckret01-what type of vehicle?

Also FYI-Budget has specials running to Oct 15th on their site.

 

[HappyLawyer]

have u checked out eagle they have good rates for me dec 11-19 the hotel i am staying at uses them and budget so i assume they are decent

 

[ckret01]

Its for a compact car and I should be receiving a coupon for a free upgrade for signing up for Fastlane. (well that is what I heard I don't kow for sure) My dates of travel are Oct 15-23. SO I am not sure if Budget will work for me. Thanks! But I will keep checking b/c according to the agent I spoke with there is no charge to cancel or change a reservation.