Why is Hertz so expensive (17th-21st Jul LAX)?

I just find this a bit purplexing... just 4 days rental is coming up as $465 (or £259.18 pre-paid all inclusive) for a Premium car. That seems shockingly expensive to me...

(in comparison, Avis will give me a Premium for the same period £147.44 (pre-paid all inclusve).

Why is Hertz so much more expensive?

Boo

Probably something as simple as an inventory issue.

If you want Hertz, you may want to try an off airport pick-up location for better rates, or just go with Avis... sounds like a very good rate for a premium car.

A few weeks ago, each wanted $100/day at SFO, but were renting cars for $30 a day downtown including free airport drop-off on my return. Spent $5 on BART and saved $200+ for a three day rental and dropped the car at SFO.

I've noticed the same thing.

A recent 5-day rental for a mid-sized car was $585 (5/3-5/8) and a similar rental in January was $347 and one in September of last year was $211.

Hertz LAX has been consistently expensive in recent months and I was wondering why as well.

Thanks both of you

Looks like Avis or maybe Dollar (who seem to have some very good rates).

We will be straight off a transatlantic flight, with luggage... by that point we will just want to get on our way - so off airport would be too much hassle. Good suggestion though

Boo

I was just coming to ask about the same thing - one day in mid-July. I usually pay something like $65 for a compact. This time they want $180 for a crap car! For one day! I really hate to switch companies but this is ridiculous.

To add insult to injury, they've started doing something extremely sneaky and underhanded: they present the "regular" price of the car in USD and then offer a "pre pay discount price" next to it, but in Euros, to make it appear as though it's a much bigger difference than it actually is.

Hertz is smoking crack these days. They have lost a few rentals from me due to ridiculous pricing.

Next week, I need to pick up at SMF and drop at SFO. Hertz was $320 for two days. Budget or Alamo were $160. Guess who got the business?

I don't think they're smoking crack. I think they're ****ing with us.

I got so disgusted with the above-mentioned pricing stunt last week that I just logged out and put the matter aside. Tonight I went back and went direct to make a reservation instead of logging in with my Gold #. Bam! Mazda 6, around $60/day, no PC, no CDP, no nothing. I'll take one please. Then I noticed they didn't have any of my data pre-filled so I went back to the home page and logged in and repeated the exact same search. Guess what? No Mazda, no Hyundai, only a bunch of hulking GM crap starting at $220.

The only conclusion I can arrive to is that they are purposely screwing me because they assume I'll pay 4X the rate since I'm loyal or whatever. Look at this:



And check out that prepay special on the RAV4!

I seldom lose my temper at a company; I can always choose to walk away and do so when treated badly. But this appears to me to be such a blatant attempt to treat me as a sucker that my blood is boiling right now.

They are completely nuts. Noone would rent at these rates.
Not sure what their goals are, perhaps Hertz lurkers here can forward this screenshot to their management to explain the bizzarre pricing structure.

alanw, can you post your dates, I wanna check if I get the same prices from my US based account. Perhaps Hertz just doesn't like europeans

I just noticed the same thing today. I haven't rented any cars this month and just went to book 3 different trips and found that Hertz was more than double their normal historical rate at 3 different locations while Avis was within 10% of their last years pricing.

Sure, pickup 9 July return 10 July.

I e-mailed them a piece of my mind last night but doubt it will do any good.

Strange - I get $100-120 rates for most regular cars with or without logging in. Even tried a different browser without any hertz cookies - same result.
The cheapest is RAV4 $80-ish ans it's the only one offered with pay it now (for about $65).
So they either fixed it or Hertz europe website (that I assume you use) is messed up.
That being said $100+ for a compact is nuts to put is mildly. They are not running out of cars here AFAIK...

It's not just LAX. It's an airport thing and a California thing. Airports are always more expensive because: 1) due to higher demand, higher rates, and 2) airport taxes. California is certainly a high-demand location. But, California in general seems to have above-average airport taxes. Soak the visitor, perhaps?

No, it's got nothing to do with airports or California. I've rented at LAX 100 times and while it's always pricey and crap selection this time they've tripled the price.

Surprisingly (considering), today I got a very polite (considering) email back from them explaining that my "insurance preferences" were set in such a way that most of the cars and rates didn't match and that if I went into my profile and reset them I would likely see the full range.

I haven't tried it yet but it's nice to get a comprehensible reply that addresses my problem (years of Flying Blue have taught me not to expect that).

So...this has an interesting outcome. I went back into my profile, which hasn't been updated in years, and turned off NeverLost. An error popped up that they weren't able to change my profile, but when I went in and did a search (same dates as above) I was presented with new options. Including a Corvette at 79€.