Other Car Rental Programs (ie. Alamo, Enterprise) - Falling prices as the rental date gets closer

Travel prices change all the time. But since car rental reservations are not binding on the renter, it more often pays to keep checking (than for hotels and airfare). This is nothing new, but I had what seems to me to be an extreme example of this recently. I wanted to rent a car in Houston for 4 days around a weekend in late May. I first checked in March at Alamo, and found prices of $228.32 and then $208.87 when I put in my insider number. I didn’t make a reservation. On April 7, I made a reservation at National using a free day offer, for $172.11. The following is the history of reservations I made, all cancelled except the last one:

4/7 National $172.11
4/25 Alamo 131.97
4/25 Alamo 127.39
5/2 Alamo 90.27
5/9 Alamo 89.46

What I actually paid: $89.46.

Wow! That's a huge difference! I've gotten into the habit of double-checking rental rate as my rental date approaches, too, but I've never seen a decrease that steep by percentage. What I've experienced, periodically, is that a much nicer tier of vehicle might be available for less money when a reservation is a few weeks out (I've gotten mid and full-size SUVs for cheaper than intermediate), but the closer it gets to the reservation date the higher priced those vehicles become. On a trip to Austin recently, I reserved a full-size SUV, because it was cheaper than intermediate and then got upgraded to premium SUV upon arrival. Unfortunately, they wouldn't upgrade me to the Mustang or Challenger...

That's Alamo's SOP, I think. I have rented from them for 1/4 the original quote/reservation several times, usually at least 1/2.

Don't know for the other rental companies (usually rent from Alamo), but for them it really pays to check their prices several times.

I do the same thing for Dollar and Enterprise. At one point this year I had an $80 reservation for a one day pick up at FLL drop at MIA and checking back I saw the rate dropped to $30 :eek:

I noticed this too. Thanks for the heads up. I rechecked and voila prices have fallen for Alamo and Avis.

This thread prompted me to check an upcoming reservation and my car dropped from $45.05 to $41.03. Hey, every little bit helps :D

http://www.autoslash.com/ does this for free :) Thank baseline for his wonderful service.

From what I've seen, Alamo is notorious for this.

I rented an economy for 4 days in Vegas in February - original quote using a BJ's discount and coupon was $120 all in. I checked several times and ended up at $2 rental fee (no lie) and $21 in taxes, totaling $23.

On top of that, they were out of economy so I got a midsize for 4 days for $23.

Best travel deal I've ever gotten.

Yes always reserve a couple of months early, then check every week. Have been quoted a cheaper rate three quarters of the time, cancel and reserve at lower rate.

Yes always reserve a couple of months early, then check every week. Have been quoted a cheaper rate three quarters of the time, cancel and reserve at lower rate.

Checked one I've got for next week last night. Changed my reservation to a bigger car at $.50 less a day than what I was currently in :D

Checked one I've got for next week last night. Changed my reservation to a bigger car at $.50 less a day than what I was currently in :D

You're gonna end up spending those $.50 on the extra gas to feed the bigger car.

You're gonna end up spending those $.50 on the extra gas to feed the bigger car.

Some of us appreciate the comfort, power, or other attributes of the bigger car.

For me, I'd much rather drive a Buick Lacrosse on a 1,000-mile road trip than a Ford Focus, even if it costs an extra $50 in gas. :)

Yes always reserve a couple of months early, then check every week. Have been quoted a cheaper rate three quarters of the time, cancel and reserve at lower rate.

Yeah, no question that USA car rentals are usually -- but not always -- cheaper as the date approaches. This is especially true because you get a lot of sales that are only good for the next few weeks.

The big exception to this is during peak periods -- like holidays. In that case, it usually gets progressively more expensive. In fact, if you know you're going to be travelling during a peak period (Florida at Xmas, Alaska in summer) your best rates might be obtained a year in advance (like when you grab award airline tickets). Sometimes the car rental companies "forget" to blackout peak periods that far in advance.

For some reason, when I book ahead (like 3 or 4 months in advance) Dollar/Thrifty is most likely to be the cheapest. But to get their rates, you have to do exactly the opposite of what you usually do to rent a cheap car: don't enter any codes and see if a "special" pops up on their website. Most of the time, I wind up cancelling these Dollar/Thifty reservations because a better deal with the big boys comes along, but it's always good to hold something, since there's no risk involved.

Finally, when you do figure out who's cheapest, go to a cashback site like evreward.com to see if they have a link that saves you a few bucks. More often than not, they do.

Similarly, one time I had good luck doing a last minute Priceline booking. Rates were pretty high for a weekend rental at SFO, the best deal I could find was Hertz. But a day or so before the rental, I put in a bid for a lower rate on Priceline that was accepted (by Hertz, no less). Similar bids were rejected a week before. So it seems that in addition to dropping their own rates as the rental date approaches, they'll also release lower priced inventory to opaque sites like Priceline.

Similarly, one time I had good luck doing a last minute Priceline booking. Rates were pretty high for a weekend rental at SFO, the best deal I could find was Hertz. But a day or so before the rental, I put in a bid for a lower rate on Priceline that was accepted (by Hertz, no less). Similar bids were rejected a week before. So it seems that in addition to dropping their own rates as the rental date approaches, they'll also release lower priced inventory to opaque sites like Priceline.

Yeah, Flyertalkers tend to be pretty good with manipulating the discount codes/coupons, but I find that priceline materially beats those rates about 10 to 15% of the time (I probably rent 25 cars a year). And there's no question that the car rental companies change their priceline rates just like they do their published rates. I tend not to bid in advance for priceline cars not only because the rates are usually higher, but because I also don't like the "no changes, no refunds" aspect of priceline bidding. No real reason to bid for a car until your plans are 100% firm because the savings tend to be fairly nominal.