I dunno. Starbucks charges $1.55 for a tall. Imagine if you showed up tomorrow and it was $4.75? That's what prompted this thread. Yes, you'd think that if they just had rental cars sitting on the lot, they'd lower the rates at the last minute to move them off. Guess what, they use to do that (in PDX as an example), but now the rates remain the same regardless of when you re-check. You can walk the floors of the rental complex for the major rental cars in pdx, and see the cars lined up that are sitting there. Don't get it. You can go off site to Thrifty and also see cars, and their rates are no different. Still waiting for a plausible explanation, and no, don't do the conspiracy thing. Just the facts. Nothing wrong (cough) with $300/wk for an economy car...except it happened overnight and bears no relationship with past rental history during this time of year and is across the board with all companies. Now where's my medication...
Originally Posted by
WChiCC
This is an interesting thread. I have a couple of questions for the "conspiracy" folks:
1. Why would you expect a 10-20% rate hike versus any other amount? What is that based on?
2. If there truly so many cars just sitting on rental car lots, then wouldn't it make sense that the revenue management system of those companies would lower the rates at the last minute to sell it, like some have noted?
It makes good business sense to charge the highest prices people are willing to pay. Sometimes that means renting less vehicles at higher margins. And like some FTers have said, if the prices are truly higher than the consumers will pay, either a new company will come in and undercut the majors or the majors will see such a large decline in business that they will re-adjust their pricing. No?
I'm not trying to be rudely argumentative, just a little conversational.
