Hertz - Vegas Strategy?

I'm trying to rent a car at LAS for early-March with a Wednesday night pickup and Saturday afternoon return. Hertz is pricing at $44, while the others are as low as $22. Any suggestions? I am a Gold member and would prefer to stick with Hertz.

Vegas Strategy?

Split aces and eights.

Who cares about Gold membership when you can rent it for half the money from another rental car company.

Step 1 - Is the $44 the base rate you see on Hertz.com? Have you tried all CDP/PC combinations available to you to possibly get a better rate? Wed-Sat is a bit of an odd rental (e.g., it's not a week and it's not a weekend), so it doesn't surprise me that base rates on that one aren't too good. Definitely scour this board, the Hertz site, and maybe do some Google searching for CDP/PC codes. Perhaps you can find a "Third Day Free" or similar coupon online.

Step 2 - For Vegas, it looks like Budget, Dollar, and maybe Alamo offer the best rates for those two early weeks in March. It might be worthwhile to go through the same exercise with those companies - plugging codes, etc. Depends on how much time you want to spend on this. My hunch is that you can probably get a very cheap Budget rental if you work the codes right, but that's just a hunch.

Step 3 - If you decide to leave Hertz, make sure you enroll in whatever expedited rental program that other agency has! FastBreak, Quicksilver - whatever it's called. Sometimes the first rental requires a signature, but if there is a line, you will still be able to go to the dedicated "frequent renter" line.

I see sub-$20 rates at third-tier offbrand agencies. Those are so apples-and-oranges to a major agency that they are hardly worth discussing.

The other option is Priceline, but if Budget is already down in the low $20's, you aren't going to save a whole pile of cash on a three-day Priceline rental, even if you win your bid in the mid-teens. Priceline gets their six bucks...just not much room to save when the going rates are already very low.

Who cares about Gold membership when you can rent it for half the money from another rental car company.

I see your point, but there is some value to not having to wait in what could be a very long line at another agency if they do not have a similar express check out. I also remember reading some horror stories about smaller operations that would require you to provide them a copy of your auto insurance card or suffer some tacked on fees.

So, I guess one needs to decide what the value is for such services and peace of mind.

I see your point, but there is some value to not having to wait in what could be a very long line at another agency if they do not have a similar express check out. I also remember reading some horror stories about smaller operations that would require you to provide them a copy of your auto insurance card or suffer some tacked on fees.

So, I guess one needs to decide what the value is for such services and peace of mind.

Absolutely! And like a lot of tourist destinations, Vegas is home to a lot of those car rental horror stories. I wouldn't hesitate to use on of the other majors besides Hertz to save some money as long as it is an expedited rental, but I don't think I'd even take a free car from Payless. I'd be too worried that they'd use some fine print on page 10 of the contract to drop a $5000 charge on my credit card. :eek:

Stick with a major agency unless you want major headaches.

Hertz is usually very expensive for weekday rentals in Vegas. I usually rent from Dollar at one of the hotels and save the 10%+$3/day airport tax. On weekends, Hertz's airport rates are so low they are competetive even with the tax.

QL

assuming you're going to vegas for fun, for $44/day, why would you even want a rental car in vegas? just use cabs at that point. it's about $20-22 to go from stratosphere to mgm which are about the extremes of the strip. if you're sticking to the strip, then I'd probably just take cabs

btw, not sure how familiar you are with vegas, but driving on the strip is a PITA - recomendation is to use the side streets as much as possible

I would also consider doing without a rental unless you are going to be driving out of Vegas to places like Scotty's Castle, Lake Mead, Furnace Creek, etc.

If staying strictly in town, I have found the taxi fares to be decent, and the public transportation along the strip to be inexpensive and "user-friendly" --although, of course, YMMV.

Oh, I forgot to add, that many of the hotels have service to and from the airport, so you can probably forget the taxi fares. Again, it all depends on what your needs are while in the area.

I'm trying to rent a car at LAS for early-March with a Wednesday night pickup and Saturday afternoon return. Hertz is pricing at $44, while the others are as low as $22. Any suggestions? I am a Gold member and would prefer to stick with Hertz.


Do a back-to-back W-Th (possibly from the others) then weekend Thu-Sat from hertz with appropriate PC. Or you can just rent on thursday-saturday.
I personally prefer to have a car in LV.

I've been doing back to backs as the previous poster mentioned, and it comes out a lot nicer. If you have Gold for both, you literally drive into the lot and walk over a few rows and then drive right out.

As a frequent Vegas traveller, I usually rent from Hertz for Thu (afternoon) to anytime on Monday. This is because Hertz offers the weekend rates for this period of time and especially with easily available coupons the rates are very competitive if not better than the discount rental places.

For anything that extends into a weekday I usually rent from Dollar or Thrifty, both of which usually have compact cars for <$20 a day. Sometimes I pick up from off airport locations to save the airport rental fees -- Dollar told me that you can pick up and drop off at any of their Vegas locations for no extra fees.

There are definitely two schools of thought on whether you need a rental car in Vegas. As I like to spend most of my time off the strip it's a no brainer.

I believe that the Monorail is working again!
You can find it here (http://www.lvmonorail.com/)

Thanks for all the helpful tips. We are staying at the JW Marriott in Summerlin and will need the car. I do prefer to have a car in Vegas, even if staying on the Strip.

I signed up for the Dollar frequent renter thing. They are pricing around $21 now.

I have seen Priceline wins for as low as $12, so I may try that.

The $44 at Hertz is with the AAA discount. I have not been able to find any good weekday coupons.

If I pick up on Thursday at noon, I can get the two-day Hertz rental for $35 inclusive. However, I don't know if I want to have to make my way back to LAS for the pickup.

I just rented in Vegas - got a Mustang for 44/weekend for a Fri-Sun 2004 Mustang convertible rental (2-days). Here are some recommendations for your rental (remember, test sell, test sell, test sell - the prices dropped weekly as it got closer).

I used the following CDP's for my test sells:

TRAVEL PARTNERS CLUB (706900)
AMEX OPEN SAVINGS (306613)
PLATINUM CARD FROM AMEX (211762)
AAA MID ATLANTIC (212)

and a combination of the following coupons:

Rent 1, Get 1 free
http://offers.hertzgold.com/offer.aspx?offerid=82&UID=47300E3B28342883

Rent 2, get 1 free
http://www.hertz.com/special_07/bapextrarentalday.jsp

Some Fat Wallet Codes:
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/63/416442

20.00 off a 2-day keep
http://www.hertz.com/special_07/gold20offwknd.jsp?ex=0

I ended up using AAA which gave me a 20% discount (same as Travel Partners Club, but not as risky since TPC apparently sometimes requires ID to rent).

One thing you may want to try (since you have it for 5 days) is to split it up - call the JW Marriott & see if they have a Hertz Rental Desk on property - (the new Renaissance has one in their business center). If they do - seperate your rentals - do a pick up from the airport & drop off 2-days later at the hotel (use a 2-day coupon) and then get another rental at the hotel & drop off at the airport.

Good luck!

If staying strictly in town, I have found the taxi fares to be decent, and the public transportation along the strip to be inexpensive and "user-friendly" --although, of course, YMMV.

Oh, I forgot to add, that many of the hotels have service to and from the airport, so you can probably forget the taxi fares. Again, it all depends on what your needs are while in the area.

Taxi fares are fairly outrageous. I've never taken the CAT bus but people willing to travel that way say it is convenient. I don't know of any hotels that have service to or from the airport. There are limos available for $35-45 and shared-ride vans.

QL

I think I saw a HLE desk listed for the JW Marriott in Summerlin; I hope this means you would not need to drive all the way to LAS t exchange cars.

I was in Vegas earlier this month and got a great deal on a Mid Size from Dollar. It was $19.99 a day - I had the car for two days, picking up on Wednesday and returning on Friday. The special was on their promotions page, specifically for a midsize in Vegas.

When I got there they offered me a $10 upgrade to their luxury cars which I took, and got a SUV, as I was driving up to Utah so wanted something larger. On the lot the premium cars were very nice, they had a number of Crossfires which would have been fun had I not been driving so far.

I usually stay with National as like you I like staying with a larger company, but I rented twice from Dollar this month and was very pleased with the cars, the service and the lack of problems with both rentals.

$20 a day for a midweek rental is hard to beat.

I was in Vegas earlier this month and got a great deal on a Mid Size from Dollar. It was $19.99 a day - I had the car for two days, picking up on Wednesday and returning on Friday. The special was on their promotions page, specifically for a midsize in Vegas.

When I got there they offered me a $10 upgrade to their luxury cars which I took, and got a SUV, as I was driving up to Utah so wanted something larger. On the lot the premium cars were very nice, they had a number of Crossfires which would have been fun had I not been driving so far.

I usually stay with National as like you I like staying with a larger company, but I rented twice from Dollar this month and was very pleased with the cars, the service and the lack of problems with both rentals.

$20 a day for a midweek rental is hard to beat.

I'll second Dollar, and I usually don't give props to these types of agencies. FastLane is definitely not #1 Club Gold, but it's not bad. I have used Dollar in CA and FL when I wanted a convertible: for whatever reason, they had by far the best rates on those cars for my dates - sub-Priceline rates. So I went with them and got prompt service and none of the offbrand junk (insurance hard-sell, gas scams, etc.) that I was steeling myself for.

If you've ruled out $44 as too expensive, I would certainly take a Dollar rental over an unnecessary car-swap to achieve the good rates from Hertz.