Hertz - Hertz- Priceline

After having good success with Priceline for Hotels, thought I would try them for the a rental car in SFO for this weekend... checked with what Hotwire was offering - mid and full size being offered at $5 and $6. So went back to Priceline and bid $8 for a full size car - rejected. Changed the bid to $10 for a premium car and presto - confirmed @ 10.00 + 21.00 taxes and fees.

My rate on Hertz is $109 vs $31 including taxes on Priceline !

Are there any surprises or additional charges (other than insurance and no Gold service) that Hertz will impose with my Priceline reservation?

Hmm, I haven't used the bidding services since 99% of my travel is work (internal travel site required) or to a family member (with a spare car). But if Hotwire was offing the car for $6, why pay $10? And what's up with the taxes? I thought many of the airport charges were % based, not flat fee. I'll have to look at an old receipt to see the fixed fees.

There are plenty of rental fees I've seen at locations all across the US that are flat fees and not percentage based. Priceline and Hotwire also add on their own fees.

I recently got a room on Priceline for someone here in Kansas City and when you win a hotel bid they'll offer you a rental car also with suggested bids and they were on the order of $1 and $2 per day for a weekend rental here, but taxes and fees would have added significantly to the total.

Some big city airport locations, and I certainly wouldn't be surprised if SFO is one of them, have serious problems with space on the weekend so I'm not surprised they'll rent a car out really cheaply rather than try and find somewhere to park it, though I am surprised it would be *that* cheap.

Someone at Cleveland told me that they have 1,000+ cars, but only 200 parking spaces. When it's really slow they have to pay a lot to park the cars.

I pricelined a cheap mid-size in Vancouver for the recent New Years holiday. When I picked up the car I was offered a Volvo XC w/GPS for $20CAD more per day. I took it and used it for 5 days but when I returned it, the total was $146CAD because of all the taxes, fees, and the premium location (airport) charge.

The priceline total included all taxes and fees which didn't seem too bad.

Lesson learned.

I had never before used Priceline for a car rental, but when my search for a 2-week rental at YYZ at the end of July turned up a whopping C$750, I decided to look give PL a shot. I'm glad I did, as it resulted in a whopping 50% savings; but I still don't quite understand why Hertz did not have a more competitive rate.

Are there any surprises or additional charges (other than insurance and no Gold service) that Hertz will impose with my Priceline reservation?

No, nothing. They'll push insurance and prepaid gas on you, but that's it.

If you bid through Fatwallet.com you'll also get 3% cash back for Priceline.