Have seen three cases so far this year where rental car rates across the board before tax were $60/day and up on WEEKEND days from car-rent companies at airports.

One was at MSP on a weekend back in May, one is at PDX this weekend (granted, 4th of July, but still...) and one is HNL in about two weeks (despite getting a 1* hotel room at $39 all-in and the reduction in visitors to Hawaii because of fewer flights).

I know a lot of this is supply & demand, but I haven't seen across-the-board high rates or apparent sellouts like this in places like those in at least 10 years, even on holiday weekends. Makes me wonder if the car-rent companies are aggressively trying to limit supply or are just colluding. With the country in a recession and travel hurting and car makers not able to sell cars you'd think the rates would really fall. I remember 3-day weekends back around the 1991 recession at $39 or so all-in for a midsize.

(The high rates aren't everywhere. I had a Priceline bid in MCO go through at $10/day for an economy on a 3-day weekend this month). For the really high-rate situations I'll try to "work the codes" and Entertainment coupons and the like.

Any ideas what's going on? Is car availability being reduced like flight availability is?