I had a 6-day Preferred compact rental at MCO over Christmas week, booked months ago. Back then they told me the all-in was estimated at just over $450 (with a standard AA AWD and bonus miles coupon), base rate was $378, or $63/day). "Test booking" a number of times afterwards showed about the same, and showed one-day bookings all coming out at the same rate (I had been considering shortening the booking many times because of the high cost).
But as the time grew very close, I decided it might be convenient to have the car the whole time, so decided to bite the bullet, despite it straining my budget this month.
So imagine my surprise when the Avis check-in attendant gives me my receipt and it shows just over $190! I look up at the detail, and they only charged me $25/day for 6 days (and thus base rate was $150)!!!
Now, I'm happy how it all worked out and all, but I had almost cancelled this reservation because I though it was going to cost more than twice that much! Was this a mistaken original rate, a mistaken final rate, a discount they couldn't have told me about ahead of time, or what? I realize booking-time total estimates are "only estimates", but it'd be nice to know whether they're in the right
order of magnitude, no?
(FWIW, any time I looked up my reservation on the Avis website in recent months, it wasn't able to give me my estimated total at all. I was only able to tell that from the confirmation email they sent me when I originally booked.)
Anyone else had something like this happen?