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Need FT community help to review AutoSlash.com

Need FT community help to review AutoSlash.com

Old Jun 19, 2010, 9:14 am
  #46  
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Originally Posted by baseline
OK, this is a *very* interesting nuance of rental car pricing. The key factor here is the time of the rental. Not the duration of the rental but the time itself. Let me illustrate with Alamo.com, and then we can talk about AutoSlash.

Let's take your rental parameters and use 7014667/AU2852SDA since that nets you the best deal. Plugging all of this info into Alamo.com does come up with the price of $20.24 as you stated.

Now let's put the exact same info in, but change the pickup and dropoff times to 5:00PM instead of 5:30PM. Important note that the rental is still a 24-hour period, it's just offset by 30 minutes. One would think that it would yield the same rate, but then again that would be a logical assumption. Logic sometimes has nothing to do with rental car pricing! The actual rate for this rental is $26.19! Why does moving the time 30 minutes change the price by $6? Who knows, but it does.

If you repeat the same exercise using 4:00PM as the pickup and dropoff times, and then try substituting 4:30PM instead, you will receive the same results. So, the there is some strange on-the-hour penalty going on with Alamo's pricing (or a half-hour discount depending on the way you look at it).

This is not new to us. It's actually something that we're working on building into our pricing engine down the road. Basically the idea is that small variations in time can something yield savings. We can automatically test varying the time by up to an hour in either direction and see if it makes a difference in the rate. Admittedly, we have higher priorities in the short term, but it's an interesting angle that can be leveraged.

OK now let's get back to AutoSlash. AutoSlash can in fact achieve the lowest rate of $20.24 for this rental. The nuance is that our time picker only goes in hour increments. This is easily solved though by selecting 5:00PM for your time, and then clicking into the time field and editing it to say 5:30PM. Then when you click search, you'll see the $20.24 price in the grid.

As for the issue of only showing you confirmed into a compact, this is just a limitation of the Sabre interface we go through. There is a protocol that Sabre uses to talk to the rental companies in-house reservation systems. This interface can do all the basics, but it's not robust enough to be able to sense things like an upgrade coupon changing the car class automatically. Even though it shows a compact, the coupon is successfully applied, and you will receive the upgrade. You can actually confirm this by taking your Alamo reservation number from your AutoSlash confirmation and plugging it into Alamo.com to view your reservation there.

Hope this helps to clarify things. I *very much* appreciate your posting the details of your rental and the price discrepancy. We're still optimizing things, so stuff like this is useful to us. It reminds me that we definitely need to focus on timing issues in the future to get our customers the best deal possible.
I think Autoslash just became my new favorite booking engine.

Thank you very much for the thorough explanation. It does make sense that this is what's going on, though even I wasn't aware that a difference of 30 minutes could net such a big change in price. I will keep it in mind for the future and hope that Autoslash will eventually automate this for me.

Is there/will there be any notion of signing up for an Autoslash account? Absolute nirvana for me would be a place where I could store all of my various discount ID's and coupon codes (including more than one per vendor), and automatically compare each vendor's most-discounted prices. Today I am basically forced to use a consolidator like Kayak or Travelocity to find the best rate, and then manually cycle through the various discounts and upgrades at each site in an attempt to find the best one. Some places like Hertz even play dirty and will slightly increase the rate if I'm logged in to my #1 Club account! It's tedious work at best, and it seems Autoslash is poised to let me reclaim literally hours of my life.

Thanks again for the explanation, and I expect to see many more great things from Autoslash in the future. Keep up the good work!
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Old Jun 19, 2010, 9:31 am
  #47  
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Absolutely! This is definitely coming. We recognized early on that people (especially FT'ers) would want to store multiple discount codes in their profiles.

As we've stated in the past, AutoSlash only applies publicly available discount codes to our rentals that anyone is eligible to use. If we find potential savings with something like a AAA or AARP discount, we will confirm with the customer that they are a member first.

However, it would be hugely valuable to be able to specify in your profile private discount codes which you may be eligible for (through your company, other organizations you may be a member of, etc.). This way, we can analyze your rental from a multitude of angles--with both public and private discount codes, and figure out which one will yield the optimal rate.

As I've said in the past, we've only scratched the surface in terms of the functionality we intend to bring to the table here. Stay tuned, and I think you'll be happy with the direction we are going.

Originally Posted by baliktad
I think Autoslash just became my new favorite booking engine.
Is there/will there be any notion of signing up for an Autoslash account? Absolute nirvana for me would be a place where I could store all of my various discount ID's and coupon codes (including more than one per vendor), and automatically compare each vendor's most-discounted prices. Today I am basically forced to use a consolidator like Kayak or Travelocity to find the best rate, and then manually cycle through the various discounts and upgrades at each site in an attempt to find the best one. Some places like Hertz even play dirty and will slightly increase the rate if I'm logged in to my #1 Club account! It's tedious work at best, and it seems Autoslash is poised to let me reclaim literally hours of my life.

Thanks again for the explanation, and I expect to see many more great things from Autoslash in the future. Keep up the good work!
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Old Jun 20, 2010, 7:57 pm
  #48  
 
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Originally Posted by cl.lurker
awesome idea! (why didn't I think of that???)

My new #1 site for car rental....best of luck to you guys!
My new webiste for all my Car Rental bookings!!!
Way to go Baseline and Jackal.
dd

Last edited by dd1612; Jun 28, 2010 at 7:09 am
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Old Jun 21, 2010, 8:31 am
  #49  
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 123
Originally Posted by dstan
So I just want to confirm that the Entertainment Book coupons are not currently loaded?
I am interested too as you list several on the site. Also I have tried some dates and seen some Costco codes being used in the booking engine. I am not a Costco member and there was no disclosure.

Note this post here where you add an entertainment coupon to a customers reservation:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...l#post14169423

I have used http://www.carrentalsavers.com on several occasions in the last year and seems like you have taken their concept and added your own improvements to it. I like what you have done but, I would caution anyone on using your site as the use of non publicly available codes can cause major issues.

Last edited by mmmgood; Jun 21, 2010 at 8:37 am Reason: sp
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Old Jun 24, 2010, 11:49 am
  #50  
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Seems that autoslash is down for the count. The front page has a warning that some vendors might not have data, but when I search for a rental, I get no results at all, just:

We're sorry, we could not complete your request at this time
What you can do:

We were not able to process your request. There are no cars fitting your request at the location you have chosen.
Resubmit your request using another car type.
Resubmit your request using a different airport location.
Resubmit your request using another vendor
I am in the midst of planning 2 summer trips and was really hoping I could use Autoslash to reduce the amount of time I spend playing around with coupon codes. Any ideas when it will be back and functioning?
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Old Jun 24, 2010, 11:54 am
  #51  
Company Representative - AutoSlash and HotelSlash
 
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We're sorry you are having trouble with the site. We are aware of the issues, and we hope to have them resolved very shortly.

In the meantime, feel free to email your pickup/dropoff location and date/time to support<at>autoslash.com, and we will help you to find the best deal.

Thanks for everyone's patience.

Originally Posted by baliktad
Seems that autoslash is down for the count. The front page has a warning that some vendors might not have data, but when I search for a rental, I get no results at all, just:



I am in the midst of planning 2 summer trips and was really hoping I could use Autoslash to reduce the amount of time I spend playing around with coupon codes. Any ideas when it will be back and functioning?
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Old Jun 24, 2010, 12:50 pm
  #52  
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Tried a rental quote for OAK, 7/2 to 7/11. Only gave me one company, Payless, and no minivan prices (which is what I need).
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Old Jun 27, 2010, 12:43 pm
  #53  
 
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I've been using autoslash.com and trying my best to find a direct-booking discount code that beats them so I can email Jonathan with my big ole tongue out

No luck. It has been beating every code I can find for Avis and Budget. Sometimes substantial like $20 on a 3-day rental and sometimes only a few bucks on a weekly rental. But since I have had no problems getting my bonus miles (first the 5K bonus from Budget/DL and now the 3K from Avis/US) I can't see any reason to sweat going all over the web.

I really like the user interface and since I am in IT (specifically web IT) I am not easily pleased. I've told several friends and family members and they have been reporting back that they had no idea such good deals could be found without doing a lot of leg work.

Recently at my home location (FLL) I booked through autoslash.com as a back-up to my bidding attempts at priceline.com. When the priceline bid was rejected that was only $5 less than the autoslash.com bid I stopped and said "screw it" to myself. I'm not bidding on an opaque rental to save 5 bucks when I can confirm a rental with Avis through autoslash.com and still get my bonus miles. No brainer. I'm not saying they (autoslash) will always be able to beat opaque bookings but they did two weeks ago.

Much thanks to Jonathan and jackal. I'm a real fan.
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Old Jun 27, 2010, 12:58 pm
  #54  
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Originally Posted by Evan!
I've been using autoslash.com and trying my best to find a direct-booking discount code that beats them so I can email Jonathan with my big ole tongue out

No luck. It has been beating every code I can find for Avis and Budget. Sometimes substantial like $20 on a 3-day rental and sometimes only a few bucks on a weekly rental.
Are you saying the prices that come up on Autoslash (default, with no corporate codes/coupons) are better than what you can come up with using your own discount ID's? So far, that's certainly not been my experience. As a member of AAA, Costco, USAA, and an AmEx holder, I can often find discounts that bring rates below what Autoslash advertises by default. The Autoslash advantage to me is being able to compare discounted rates from different vendors very quickly.

I'm quickly becoming addicted to the functionality of Autoslash, but I'm dying for a way to save a profile and/or multiple discount codes. As tedious as it was to search for cars manually on each vendor's site, it's still basically the same operation on Autoslash when I have to re-enter discount codes over and over again.
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Old Jun 27, 2010, 1:02 pm
  #55  
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Originally Posted by Evan!
I've told several friends and family members and they have been reporting back that they had no idea such good deals could be found without doing a lot of leg work.

That's the beauty of it.

The days of my spending hours to save a few $$'s are long gone.

Keep is simple stupid is my new motto and this is the height of simplicity IMO.
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Old Jun 28, 2010, 10:19 pm
  #56  
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Trying to use Autoslash to research rates for an upcoming stay in HNL. I will be staying at the Hyatt in Waikiki, which has Budget and Hertz rental desks on-site. Several other non-airport rental car locations are nearby. However, when I put in the address (2424 Kalakaua Ave, Honolulu, HI), Autoslash complains that it's not able to find any rates, and spits out rates from HNL airport location instead.

How can I convince Autoslash that there are rental car locations outside of the airport, and that I'd like to rent from one?
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Old Jun 29, 2010, 4:36 am
  #57  
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A reader of my blog pointed out that Avis and Budget no longer show in Autoslash results.

Just checked it out myself and that seems to be the case.

Glitch, or Avis legal threatening letter?
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Old Jun 29, 2010, 4:41 am
  #58  
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You are correct that Avis & Budget are not currently showing in our results. We are working with the company to resolve, and hope to have them back on-line shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Originally Posted by gleff
A reader of my blog pointed out that Avis and Budget no longer show in Autoslash results.

Just checked it out myself and that seems to be the case.

Glitch, or Avis legal threatening letter?
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Old Jun 29, 2010, 4:46 am
  #59  
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I'm not sure what was going on when you searched, but I just plugged in the address and it came up ok.

It's possible that there were no available cars within X miles of that location for the specific dates you were looking for. It's also possible it was just a glitch. The address search does normally work though.

Sometimes it's easiest to just enter in a zip code if you have it (or use Google maps to find it if you don't). Hope this helps!

Originally Posted by baliktad
Trying to use Autoslash to research rates for an upcoming stay in HNL. I will be staying at the Hyatt in Waikiki, which has Budget and Hertz rental desks on-site. Several other non-airport rental car locations are nearby. However, when I put in the address (2424 Kalakaua Ave, Honolulu, HI), Autoslash complains that it's not able to find any rates, and spits out rates from HNL airport location instead.

How can I convince Autoslash that there are rental car locations outside of the airport, and that I'd like to rent from one?
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Old Jun 29, 2010, 4:53 am
  #60  
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We do listen to our customer's feedback and it definitely impacts our product roadmap.

Also keep in mind that a lot of the value that we add is after the rental is initially booked. We analyze the rental for potential savings and track the price over time. Many times we can lower our customer's rates in between the time the renal is booked and the pickup date.

Originally Posted by baliktad
I'm quickly becoming addicted to the functionality of Autoslash, but I'm dying for a way to save a profile and/or multiple discount codes. As tedious as it was to search for cars manually on each vendor's site, it's still basically the same operation on Autoslash when I have to re-enter discount codes over and over again.
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