As an Emerald Club member, I routinely comparison shop on sites like Orbitz and then book directly on nationalcar.com (where I find it easiest to put in discount codes, etc.). In dozens of rentals, I have never encountered a situation where the nationalcar.com website produced a higher rate than the travel agency sites.

Until today. I was booking a reservation at the Manchester, England airport and Orbitz produced a rate about 25% cheaper than nationalcar.com. In disbelief, I called the Emerald Club rez line. She confirmed that booking directly with National would cost me 25% more. She said this sometimes happens on int'l reservations. She also told me that National does not have one of those "best rate" guarantees for its own site.

Seems rather odd. Anyone have a similar experience?