Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - some priceline car rental tips

A couple of helpful hints I've discovered recently.

If you book airfare with priceline (a good idea, because you can get a 3% rebate through fatwallet.com), priceline will allow you to add a car rental to the reservation at a certain price, which may look quite attractive. Don't do it! Try a separate bid for a couple dollars less. It's worked a couple times for me (just like when their hotel system lets you bid again for an extra few dollars).

Another trick is to REALLY low ball your car rental bid. Like if Hotwire is getting $25/day, type in an $8 bid. Priceline will usually tell you that your bid is silly, but that you'll have a "good chance" at $18. Try offering them $15. It's another good method of price discovery.

Yep, the exact same "tips" that usually work on hotel bids. Never take their offer.... :)

I find it's not worth a couple of bucks to find out. I have been rejected going only a little below the suggested price. And with rental cars, you can't change anything but size to rebid so you never know what would win. I find the prices change frequently and the suggested prices are pretty good anyway - and they change too.

I find it's not worth a couple of bucks to find out. I have been rejected going only a little below the suggested price. And with rental cars, you can't change anything but size to rebid so you never know what would win. I find the prices change frequently and the suggested prices are pretty good anyway - and they change too.

You can bid the next day. But if it's time-sensitive, you're right, it's not worth the couple of bucks to reject their offer.

But the second tip would seem to work for even the time-sensitive traveller -- even if you wanted to follow their "advice." Has anyone ever had a bid rejected that was supposedly a "good chance"?

Has anyone ever had a bid rejected that was supposedly a "good chance"?
I had this happen once. It was for Halifax last summer. The price was well below market rates so I took it. And then they came back with "no cars are available" or something like that, which I took to mean, no cars at any price from their suppliers. I tried again for several days and the same thing happened. I had a good rate from an early reservation with Thrifty, and it worked out. But it rained all day every day for a week.

Always low ball the first offer and they may come back with
a "one time offer if you increase your bid to ...."
usually a better price than using CODES but not always

Oddly, this is exactly the topic I needed to find out about. Flyertalk rocks.

Strangely, I put in a bid at priceline that was so low that I thought for sure they'd reject it ($8/day). They didn't.