Originally Posted by
USirritated
Also, in the case of cars, if 90% of standard cars are reserved already, but 80% of premium cars are not reserved already, the price of standard cars would be increased in order to push rental prospects into the next car class so as to insure that class of cars also gets to a higher level of reservations too.
Finally, right now, smaller cars are almost at a premium, because people want to save on gas.
Possibly, but in the vast majority of cases, it's the result of an automated computer program glitch. It's very rare to do this intentionally, since despite the claims of some people here, the vast majority of people are far happier being involuntarily upgraded to something larger than being involuntarily downgraded to something smaller. In other words, if someone books a fullsize and they're out, they'll complain less about being given a premium than if someone books a premium and is given a fullsize. Thus, it's far less problematic for a rental agency to overbook on smaller cars than larger cars, meaning it's not generally in their best interest to encourage people to book larger cars by pricing them lower.