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Car rental prices moving lower

Car rental prices moving lower

Old Apr 13, 2011, 5:50 am
  #1  
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Car rental prices moving lower

If you're headed to Hawaii later this month (or probably next month) recheck your car rental prices. I've seen them move substantially lower at both OGG and KOA. We're talking under $100 for a full-size car for a week, before the nasty taxes and fees. Dollar/Thrifty seems to quote their best prices if you go directly to their website and DON'T put in any codes, but the competitors all use the code/coupon game (although Alamo generally only seems to have coupons these days -- the codes don't do much).

I'm finding Dollar/Thrifty, Alamo and Budget to have the lowest prices at the moment. Looks like an old-fashioned price war. Bookings must be soft.

This is why I always reserve a car when I book my airline tickets, but always check back periodically for better prices. Sometimes they go up, sometimes down, it's impossible to know.
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Old Apr 14, 2011, 11:44 am
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Thank you for posting! I thought I had pretty decent rates to begin with, but I was able to save almost $150 total on our Alamo rentals for Maui and the Big Island for the last week of May and 1st week of June. ^
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Old Apr 14, 2011, 2:28 pm
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Originally Posted by BluEyezNSC
Thank you for posting! I thought I had pretty decent rates to begin with, but I was able to save almost $150 total on our Alamo rentals for Maui and the Big Island for the last week of May and 1st week of June. ^
Yeah, there are some crazy car rates in Hawaii now. The lowest I can recall seeing. Like $85 week for a full size car.

I've heard that some Japanese are cancelling their trips, but I wouldn't think the Japanese would rent a lot of cars. I've not really seeing crazy prices on last minute hotels, but I haven't looked that hard.
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Old Apr 14, 2011, 2:43 pm
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I just booked a convertable Mustang to drive down the PCH from Santa Monica to San Diego ifor May and it dropped $100+ from Sunday to Wednesday. Glad I waited the extra couple of days, as now my Capital One will cover 2 roundtrip flights from Boston to the West Coast, plus the car rental in full.

Thanks
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Old Apr 14, 2011, 4:24 pm
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Originally Posted by kyletrems
I just booked a convertable Mustang to drive down the PCH from Santa Monica to San Diego ifor May and it dropped $100+ from Sunday to Wednesday. Glad I waited the extra couple of days, as now my Capital One will cover 2 roundtrip flights from Boston to the West Coast, plus the car rental in full.

Thanks
Interesting. I was focused on Hawaii, but maybe the car rental weakness is everywhere. High gas prices, perhaps? I have some friends who called me after running into high car rental prices for Easter weeek in Florida. By the time I looked, there were several "obvious" good deals. They said the prices they saw were twice that.
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Old Apr 14, 2011, 9:39 pm
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If you're playing this game, pay particular attention to the specials on the alamo.com site. They have some good coupons right now (like free weekend day, $30 off a weekly rental, etc.) that Alamo doesn't always offer. They are fully combinable with the promo rates, including Alamo's "last minute" rates (which are useful for weekend rates, not so useful for weekly rates).

With these deals, I've now been able to drive down my daily car rental costs on a couple of rentals even further, to $11 to $13/day + tax/fee for a full size car. Priceline starts looking ridiculously expensive.

Oddly, Alamo's sister company, won't allow me to use coupons with their similar last minute rates (I would prefer to use my Emerald Club status to avoid the line). For 20 bucks, though, I'll wait on line.
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Old Apr 15, 2011, 1:01 pm
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Alamo Insiders is running a $40 off coupon for members this spring for weekly rentals. Don't remember when it expires, but the discount code is:

AD4027JDO
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Old Apr 15, 2011, 9:17 pm
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Originally Posted by Recreation
Alamo Insiders is running a $40 off coupon for members this spring for weekly rentals. Don't remember when it expires, but the discount code is:

AD4027JDO
Thanks. Another 10 bucks off, and lower taxes. I'm now at $64+ for a full-size weekly rental.

BTW, I joined the Insiders program. Seemed like a logical thing to do. Like with this coupon, they seem to give Insiders a few extra bucks off many of the promos.
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Old Apr 16, 2011, 7:52 am
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Originally Posted by iahphx
BTW, I joined the Insiders program. Seemed like a logical thing to do. Like with this coupon, they seem to give Insiders a few extra bucks off many of the promos.
I agree. As you know, when you're a member of these rental car companies, you can fill in all your pertinent info ahead of time (e.g. driver's license number), which saves a lot of time. Plus it allows you to either use the dedicated Insiders line or the kiosk to check-in instead of waiting in that huge line.
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Old Apr 18, 2011, 10:48 pm
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Originally Posted by Recreation
Alamo Insiders is running a $40 off coupon for members this spring for weekly rentals. Don't remember when it expires, but the discount code is:

AD4027JDO
Thanks! Just re-booked HNL for a week in May and cut the rate by $40. Enough to offset some of the nightly parking I thought was included in my hotel rate!
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Old Apr 19, 2011, 5:52 am
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Originally Posted by mstraveler
Thanks! Just re-booked HNL for a week in May and cut the rate by $40. Enough to offset some of the nightly parking I thought was included in my hotel rate!
Great news. FTR, the code expires on 6/4/11 and is good on any size car.
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Old Apr 19, 2011, 12:18 pm
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The lower price seems only valid from now to the summer. I tried to get a good price for the Thanksgiving week and they all look like normal.

WJ
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Old Apr 19, 2011, 12:38 pm
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Originally Posted by jwudbwei
The lower price seems only valid from now to the summer. I tried to get a good price for the Thanksgiving week and they all look like normal. WJ
They end well before the summer...pricing is completely insane for July in Kauai.
$400/week for a convertible but an economy is $497 (all pre-taxes)? Priceline NYOP suggests $48/day. It's not like supply is incredibly limited, the fixed rate options from Hawaiian/Island Air are still available through Avis/Budget. And I'm seeing some sub-$10/day wins in June on the TripAdvisor forum.
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Old Apr 19, 2011, 12:41 pm
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Originally Posted by tjbrooks
They end well before the summer...pricing is completely insane for July in Kauai.
$400/week for a convertible but an economy is $497 (all pre-taxes)? Priceline NYOP suggests $48/day. It's not like supply is incredibly limited, the fixed rate options from Hawaiian/Island Air are still available through Avis/Budget. And I'm seeing some sub-$10/day wins in June on the TripAdvisor forum.
Yeah, you want to do the best you can by loading all the crazy codes. Make a reservation, and then wait. More than likely, the demand won't be there and rates will go down again.

I would never lock in a rate (like with priceline) more than a week or two in advance (well, if it were 10 bucks maybe I would).
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Old Apr 20, 2011, 11:09 pm
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So does priceline work that good? I've been receiving tips from various sources to make bids for mini vans for next spring break.. Do you really get that big of a discount?
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