apollo_liumin

seems very good rental car deals here
but i do not know whether it is a reliable site or not

dracs

Have used it before but not too much and had no issues. But in my experience,it is comparable to what other sites offer.

Dracs

MrHalliday

I find it often has the best price,
unless hotwire beats it.

But carrentals.com is totally cancellable,
they have been 100% reliable for me,
and they don't even take your credit card.

dracs

Just remembered, you should try autoslash.com also. It's brianchild of FTe'rs and it will apply coupons automatically to reduce your rate.

No harm trying!!

Dracs

apollo_liumin

what a nice site, I found hertz here just 25$/day...what a surprisingly low price....

dd1612

I love autoslash.com ... great results from the site and the customer support is outstanding.
Here is the link to the discussion on FT.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...slash-com.html

MtStream

"RentalCars.com is a service mark of Lowestfare.com LLC" Lowestfare.com was purchased by Priceline in 2000. So basically it's priceline.

Tripit even interpreted my reservation as being booked through Priceline.

Evan!

I have been using autoslash.com and am amazed at how it beats the prices for every discount code I can find on the web (primarily Avis and Budget so far). I also can use coupon codes for bonus miles with no problem.

Colfax

The OP was asking about carrentals.com, not RentalCars.com. Similar names but they appear to be two unrelated websites.

MtStream

Good catch, sorry about that. Let's try this press release from 2008 instead:

BELLEVUE, Wash., March 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Expedia, Inc., the world's leading online travel company, today announced the acquisition of CarRentals.com, the premier online car rental marketing and retail firm offering a diverse selection of car rentals direct to consumers. Under this new agreement, CarRentals.com will continue to operate in its current form and will report as a business unit directly into Expedia, Inc.'s leading discount travel brand Hotwire®.

AutoSlash

Yes, Expedia owns carrentals.com and Priceline owns rentalcars.com. AutoSlash (my company) is independent.

AutoSlash differs from the other sites in a couple of significant ways:

1. After your rental is booked, we will look for discount codes and coupons that can lower your price. We will also look for alternate options that may not be immediately apparent, but that could net you significant savings.

2. We track the price of your rental right up until the day you pick up the car. Just like airline prices, car rental prices can change multiple times per day. This is especially true as the pickup date approaches. We track those price changes, and can automatically re-book you if there is a price drop to lock in the savings.

Even if you've booked elsewhere, we encourage you to try booking with us as well (no credit card is required). You may end up cancelling your other reservation when we beat the other price.

akballer

Literally minutes after booking a reservation on this site, I found some pretty horrific reviews on Advantage Rent a Car in Honolulu. Admittedly, I should have done my homework before booking the reservation, but it didn't happen that way, and I didn't want to risk a bad experience on my first vacation in Hawaii.

As a result, I decided that I wanted to cancel the reservation (within 20 minutes). I sent an email to customer service at Carrentals.com. I was impressed at how fast they responded, but they pointed out the "nonrefundable" clause in the agreement. Apparently, they are going to work to get me a refund, but I still need to pay a $50 fee. I'd rather pay the fee and make sure I'm getting a great customer service experience when I go to pick up the rental car than risk a bad experience with Advantage.

The $50 fee is understandable; however, in the email response I received from carrentals.com, they were very insulting, and even reprimanded me for choosing to cancel based on subjective internet reviews. Tip to carrentals.com: don't ever blame or insult the customer. I will never use their website again. On average, the reviews that Avis received in Honolulu are light-years better, so I'm going to book with them.

If you're wondering why I canceled Advantage, it's because the majority of reviews were complaining about 90 minute waits for the shuttle, long lines and wait times at the counter, and rude customer service. Sorry, I'm not going to risk it.

heraclitus

Carrentals.com is hands down my favourite car rental site. It is usally the cheapest site and if it isn't number 1 at a given point in time, it usually isn't far behind. The flexibility is great... I often book and then check back for lower rates as travel dates approach. Never had a problem cancelling and rebooking another reservation. It has been years since I've used hotwire for a rental car... in the cities I travel to they typically come in a few bucks higher than carrentals, and with zero flexibility for changes or cancellations.

Never had a problem with the rental agency either when making a booking using carrentals, although I am intrigued by autoslash. I'm going to check it out.

nsc168

I'm surprised by all the good reviews of carrentals.com here, because I recently had a horrifying experience. I'm refusing to ever deal with carrentals.com again. I found that their website is deliberately misleading in the FAQs, pointing out that if you need to cancel or make changes to your reservation, you just need to go to your account.

Well, when I tried to change my reservation a week before my trip), there was no such "modify reservation" button. I emailed their customer service as they direct you to do. They didn't get back to me until after my trip, and even then, they did not help me try to modify my reservation.

I tried calling carrentals.com and found that they didn't have a customer service number. I called Expedia to try to see if they had a number for carrentals.com. I reached three different representatives, each of whom tried to help me find a number. One of the representatives linked me to rentalcars.com, which is the wrong organization. It appeared no one had a number to reach a real representative. The only working number was one that instructed me to download the carrentals.com app in order to modify my reservation. I did that, then, surprise, no such reservation modification feature.

At the end of my wits (and after spending more than 6 hours total trying to modify my reservation), I ended up contacting my credit card company to challenge the charge and get me a refund instead of trying to change my reservation. My credit card company cheerfully took on the task, and the issue was solved in a few business days. No thanks to carrentals.com though.

I advise everyone to deal with Hotwire instead and not to take the sometimes slightly better rate that carrentals.com can offer.

heraclitus

In regards to the previous post, every e-mail confirmation of reservation I get from carrentals.com always has a link that you can follow to modify or cancel your reservation. I often cancel reservations as lower rates come up - it's never an issue. Granted things might get more complicated if you use the "pay now" option, but I personally never do as the cost savings over "pay later" are generally marginal at best.

Also, hotwire will not give you a refund if you cancel so unless your travel plans are 100% written in stone there is good benefit to using carrentals, where that is never a problem.