Go Back  FlyerTalk Forums > Travel&Dining > Travel Tools
Reload this Page >

Need FT community help to review AutoSlash.com

Need FT community help to review AutoSlash.com

Old Jun 29, 2010, 5:03 am
  #61  
Company Representative - AutoSlash and HotelSlash
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: autoslash.com | hotelslash.com
Posts: 5,643
Our goal is to track across all the major vendors. If we notice a significant price drop with a different vendor, we typically will let you know and give you the option of switching your reservation.

Ace is not currently supported, but it's possible that it will be in the future.

Originally Posted by ANC RED-EYE
A question about tracking rental rates and price drop notifications:

Will this tracking only follow the specific rental company and discount used in the initial reservation? Or will multiple companies and multiple discounts be tracked in case a totally different company or promotion ends up with a much better rate? Just curious. We all know that today the case may be that using Alamo with a promo coupon may be cheapest today, but that Hertz with an AA promo will likely be cheapest tomorrow...

Very excited about this website! Good work! I'm looking forward to using it.

One more question...will you be adding Ace rent-a-car to your list of companies? They are often the cheapest option in my experience.
AutoSlash is offline  
Old Jun 29, 2010, 8:05 am
  #62  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Massachusetts, USA; AA Plat, DL GM and Flying Colonel; Bonvoy Platinum
Posts: 24,209
A great tool. I especially appreciate how rapidly you're improving it and how responsive you are to comments in this forum!

I'm trying to book a one-way rental from Paris to Normandy. As you posted earlier, off-airport addresses outside North America now work - thanks!! However, I ran into two problems:

1. I couldn't specify the city of Bayeux as the drop-off point, even after entering its postal code or the street address of the Hertz office there.

2. The error message "There are no car rental locations located close to your search address" doesn't say if it refers to the pick-up or drop-off address. This is fine if you return the car at the pick-up point, but for one-way rentals it would be helpful to tell the user which of the two addresses needs attention.

Thanks for your help with this!!
Efrem is offline  
Old Jun 29, 2010, 8:11 am
  #63  
Ambassador: Alaska Airlines
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Seattle
Programs: AS MVP Gold
Posts: 2,732
Originally Posted by baseline
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!
I found out the problem. Because rental cars and parking are so expensive in Honolulu, I only ever rent cars for a single "daytime period" (eg, 8A-8P) at a time. It appears Autoslash does not like rental periods this short, so when I use an off-airport location combined with a 12-hour same-day rental period, it rejects my query and offers rates from HNL instead.

I have definitely reserved and rented cars for less than 24 hours at this location before, and both Budget and Hertz allow for booking a day-only rate (charged as a 24-hour rental). Since the vendor's sites allow reservations this short, I assumed Autoslash would as well.

For now it seems a workaround is to just search for a 24 hour period. In the future I would suggest informing the user of the error or automatically adjusting the rental period upwards to a 24 hour minimum.
baliktad is offline  
Old Jun 29, 2010, 8:50 am
  #64  
Company Representative - AutoSlash and HotelSlash
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: autoslash.com | hotelslash.com
Posts: 5,643
Clearly the international off-airport address feature still has some issues. :P We'll have to look into it more.

As for your rental from Parix to Bayeux, I think your only option is Hertz. Hertz is the only major rental company in Bayeux. Here's a link to the location. It's in the Total gas station on the way out of town. I confirmed that Hertz will do a one-way rental.

In this case, it looks like your best bet is to book directly at Hertz.com for this one. See this page for a code that should net you a good discount in Europe.

Hope this helps!




Originally Posted by Efrem
A great tool. I especially appreciate how rapidly you're improving it and how responsive you are to comments in this forum!

I'm trying to book a one-way rental from Paris to Normandy. As you posted earlier, off-airport addresses outside North America now work - thanks!! However, I ran into two problems:

1. I couldn't specify the city of Bayeux as the drop-off point, even after entering its postal code or the street address of the Hertz office there.

2. The error message "There are no car rental locations located close to your search address" doesn't say if it refers to the pick-up or drop-off address. This is fine if you return the car at the pick-up point, but for one-way rentals it would be helpful to tell the user which of the two addresses needs attention.

Thanks for your help with this!!
AutoSlash is offline  
Old Jun 29, 2010, 9:01 am
  #65  
Company Representative - AutoSlash and HotelSlash
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: autoslash.com | hotelslash.com
Posts: 5,643
Originally Posted by baliktad
I found out the problem. Because rental cars and parking are so expensive in Honolulu, I only ever rent cars for a single "daytime period" (eg, 8A-8P) at a time. It appears Autoslash does not like rental periods this short, so when I use an off-airport location combined with a 12-hour same-day rental period, it rejects my query and offers rates from HNL instead.

I have definitely reserved and rented cars for less than 24 hours at this location before, and both Budget and Hertz allow for booking a day-only rate (charged as a 24-hour rental). Since the vendor's sites allow reservations this short, I assumed Autoslash would as well.

For now it seems a workaround is to just search for a 24 hour period. In the future I would suggest informing the user of the error or automatically adjusting the rental period upwards to a 24 hour minimum.
Thanks for figuring that out. Yes it definitely is a bug, and a rather curious one at that. We'll see what we can do to get it resolved, or at least inform the user of the problem.

In the meantime, as you pointed out, the workaround is to make sure the pickup and dropoff are on different days for non-airport rentals.
AutoSlash is offline  
Old Jul 2, 2010, 5:46 pm
  #66  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: LNK
Programs: US,PC
Posts: 742
Just tried for today's date for 3 day rental at LNK,NE from 9pm to 9pm on monday.

Avis doesn't show up which is coming out to be 93$( US airways 3000 miles promotion code) as compared to Autoslash options where the cheapest is 103$

Any reason? I thought US airways is pretty hot promotion to go under the radar.

Just a feedback.


Dracs
dracs is offline  
Old Jul 2, 2010, 6:22 pm
  #67  
In Memoriam, FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Southern California
Programs: DL: 3.8 MM, Marriott: Lifetime Titanium
Posts: 24,575
Thumbs up

I was "auto-slashed" yet once again as I slept last night.

My PHX rental had gone from $120 something to $90 something and now it's $80 something.

This as compared to a $160 something I would have normally, blindly, paid to Hertz.

Thanks, folks!
Cholula is offline  
Old Jul 2, 2010, 8:47 pm
  #68  
Company Representative - AutoSlash and HotelSlash
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: autoslash.com | hotelslash.com
Posts: 5,643
Originally Posted by dracs
Just tried for today's date for 3 day rental at LNK,NE from 9pm to 9pm on monday.

Avis doesn't show up which is coming out to be 93$( US airways 3000 miles promotion code) as compared to Autoslash options where the cheapest is 103$

Any reason? I thought US airways is pretty hot promotion to go under the radar.

Dracs
I can confirm that we did have Avis and Budget on our site initially, but we have temporarily removed them for now. We hope to have them back on the site in the near future. Discussions are ongoing.

I will say that as per our How it Works page, we do check all rental providers. If we find a rate that beats what we can provide on AutoSlash, we will email the customer to direct them to an alternate site where they can book it, even if it doesnt generate a commission for us.

Were 100% committed to providing our customers with the best deal possible. We believe that if you do right by your customers, success will eventually follow. Not everyone in this industry buys into that theory, but then again, were happy to be different.
AutoSlash is offline  
Old Jul 3, 2010, 1:35 pm
  #69  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: LNK
Programs: US,PC
Posts: 742
Originally Posted by baseline
I can confirm that we did have Avis and Budget on our site initially, but we have temporarily removed them for now. We hope to have them back on the site in the near future. Discussions are ongoing.

I will say that as per our How it Works page, we do check all rental providers. If we find a rate that beats what we can provide on AutoSlash, we will email the customer to direct them to an alternate site where they can book it, even if it doesnt generate a commission for us.

Were 100% committed to providing our customers with the best deal possible. We believe that if you do right by your customers, success will eventually follow. Not everyone in this industry buys into that theory, but then again, were happy to be different.
Hello baseline,

If I understood correctly Avis has been deliberately removed from the list for time being and will show up in future?

I have tested your results before and it provides cheaper rates for sure but again , yesterday because of the above mentioned reason rates were more.

Do you intend to put a small notice when they will be included on your website?

It will caution the user to explore other options till you add those.

Thanks,

Dracs
dracs is offline  
Old Jul 5, 2010, 3:12 pm
  #70  
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Washington DC USA
Posts: 2,571
No comments, just a note of thanks. Used this to make a reservation for my friend. $63 all in for 3 days was, I thought, a superb rate. But when they returned the car it turned out to be even cheaper! $51 for 3 days including all taxes from an airport location...very nice. autoslash is now bookmarked
crhptic is offline  
Old Jul 7, 2010, 5:52 am
  #71  
Company Representative - AutoSlash and HotelSlash
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: autoslash.com | hotelslash.com
Posts: 5,643
Originally Posted by dracs
Hello baseline,

If I understood correctly Avis has been deliberately removed from the list for time being and will show up in future?

I have tested your results before and it provides cheaper rates for sure but again , yesterday because of the above mentioned reason rates were more.

Do you intend to put a small notice when they will be included on your website?

It will caution the user to explore other options till you add those.

Thanks,

Dracs
Yes, Avis & Budget have been removed for the time being. We hope to have them back on the site soon. Unfortunately I am not able to provide any further information on this right now. We are not planning on changing the site UI at this time.
AutoSlash is offline  
Old Jul 9, 2010, 5:55 pm
  #72  
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: In the corner plotting world domination
Programs: 1K
Posts: 1,122
Used Auto Slash last night and got a much better rate than I was able to find previously for a rental at YYZ (airport fees are a killer)! All previous attempts at using coupons or discount codes were fruitless so it's fair to say I'm quite pleased with A/ .

Something worth pointing out, however, is that before completing the reservation, my quote was in USD. Once the booking was complete, the rate changed to CAD. No big deal but it initially gave me pause to see the rate change. While I don't know if this is something their software can overcome, it's certainly not a problem - it's just good to know why the different rate comes up (the folks at A/ were very quick to respond to my query and even got me hooked up with a category upgrade ^).

I'll be back in the future - you saved me untold hours of hunting for a better deal. Kudos!

DD
Daringdoo is offline  
Old Jul 9, 2010, 6:21 pm
  #73  
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: In the corner plotting world domination
Programs: 1K
Posts: 1,122
dupe post
Daringdoo is offline  
Old Jul 10, 2010, 4:18 am
  #74  
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Australia
Programs: QF Platinum (OWE)
Posts: 380
Many thanks!

Made one reservation for 3 days out of CNS - saved $85 compared to what I found without Autoslash - and then cut automatically by a further $40 overnight!

One of my new must-visit travel websites
^^
WillR is offline  
Old Jul 14, 2010, 12:17 pm
  #75  
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador: World of Hyatt
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: NJ
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, Fairmont Lifetime Plat, UA Silver, dirt elsewhere
Posts: 46,917
Try as I might, I can never seem to get into the site.

I get this error

Notification codes: (1, GATEWAY_TIMEOUT, www.autoslash.com)
Mary2e is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.