The wild and wacky world of car rental
I recently rented a car for three weeks on the west coast. That’s a long time, and car rentals have become very very expensive. Indeed, the prices I originally got for this 3-week car rental ranged from about $1200 to $2000, all for a mid-sized car for the same duration.
I’d paid that much before, too, for rentals during the past few years. The explanation I’d read was that car rental companies had overbought electric cars, which just about no one wanted, and also that during the COVID travel slowdown they had to unload a lot of cars that were just lying around on their lots unused.
For this recent rental, I then tried renting the car through hotels.com, which I often use for hotel reservations but had never used for cars. I’m some sort of member, which gives a small extra reduction. But when I checked the same car rental for the same duration through the hotels.com site, I discovered to my shock that the car would cost $315 for the three weeks.
Yes, you read that right: about three hundred dollars total. From a reputable rental company. Same size and type of car.
It seemed too good to be true, and on the flight over I was nervous about whether that car would be waiting for me. That nervousness was compounded when I got some sort of message that the reservation was not found. But you know what? The car was right there, waiting for me, at the quoted price.
Can someone explain this? I’m not complaining. I’m just flabbergasted. And happy.
Your lucky day. They forgot a Zero at the end of the quote.
Was it a conventional internal-combustion engine, or a hybrid, or electric?
Dunno. The car rental place near us we’ve had to use for day trips out of town is a slipshod operation. It’s an Enterprise franchise.
Aggie:
Regular brand-new Nissan Sentra.
We just ordered a rental for a trip we’re taking next month. The rental fees were pretty reasonable, but then they want to sell you on liability insurance in case of accidents, etc. which is where they make their money. Be careful, in many cases the credit card you use to make the reservation with (in our case USAA) covers that. You should check.
That’s a great price! Congratulations! I haven’t been able to find any decent deals on rental cars over the past, several years. Also, they almost always try to push me into an electric. I’m open to renting an electric, but only if I can be sure I’ll have chargers available, when needed, where I’m staying, which is hard to know when you’re not a local. The agents always seem disappointed when I explain why I’m not willing to take a risk on an electric. It seems like they are stuck with a lot of electric inventory and have trouble getting renters to take electrics.
It’s what economists call “price discrimination,” much as airlines do–try to charge different buyers different prices based on their willingness to pay. If they have surplus cars they’d rather get something than nothing, but they don’t want to give that rate to just anyone, only to someone who’s a bargain hunter.
Rental companies will give discounts for longer-term rentals (for the same reason). But $315 for three weeks does sound implausibly low.
Earlier this year we rented a car in California for a “new normal” price— hundred a day? We were given some sort of behemoth SUV that used to command a premium. Thinking of CA gas prices and how many miles we had to drive, we asked if they could change us into a smaller car. They could — but it would be extra, much much extra. So Neo was doubly lucky!
I was feeling pretty good getting about 20% off thru CostCo on a 5 day rental, but Neo put me to shame. However Denver’s mayor along others got an even better deal recently:
Denver mayor caught up in bizarre rental car meltdown
“So Johnston and many other Hertz customers who had reservations just found Hertz cars with keys in them and drove away.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/denver-mayor-rental-car-meltdown-mike-johnston/
That is an epic deal. The only explanation I can offer us that years ago I learned priceline could undercut hotel nights because they would prepurchase the rooms then needed to unload as that date came. I always had good deals through USAA but more recently Costco travel beats them every time. I always use enterprise and rack up the points for free days. Here is my tip: rent the lowest/cheapest car class you are willing to deal with then let them upsell ($12-15 per day) to get into a much nicer car that is available. I have gotten amazing deals on really nice vehicles that way.