Budget - Crazy UK vs US resident price difference..?

I am looking at doing a one way rental from Union Square, San Francisco to Reno/Tahoe airport as part of a trip to CA next week. I'm a UK resident.

Selecting the above on budget.com gives me a price for a Compact vehicle of £58.29 (~$87). It also includes unlimited mileage, LDW, SLI and £0 drop off fee.

This looked too good to be true to me so I tried the same but this time selecting that I was a US resident.

This time, price is $344 + LDW + SLI = $416.29 (~£279).

What is going on here? I'm no stranger to market pricing but 1/5th of the price?? FWIW all the UK travel sites show the same lower UK price so it doesn't look like a budget.com only error.

What happens when you book as a UK resident for a rental in the US which is quoted in £? do they simply exchange on the day?

I'm obviously worried about going to pick the car up and the agent laughing at the quote and getting stung for the full US price with no time to change plans...

Any advice? is this commonplace?

thanks.

Not an exact answ to your q, but....:
As a UK resident you can generally get quite good deals.
If you book your Budget car via USrentacar or another of the brokers you'd get an even better price than you got from Budget's own website (and with exactly the same insurances).

The following thread explains a little bit more:
http://www.thedibb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=258981


S.

With other rental co.s esp. Avis, I find that the UK resident price is often much higher because it includes automatic LDW on the assumption that very few British credit cards offer such coverage & British auto insurance may not cover US car-hires.

I say grab that 58-pound rate! The worst they can do is ask for your British passport or driving licence to prove that UR entitled to that rate.

I am a dual national US/British and hold driving licenses in each country and credit cards in each country.

Whenever I need a US car rental I will always check the UK price - I would say in 8 out of 10 bookings, the UK price is less than the US price - mostly due to the insurances.

Grab that low rate while its there mate !!!