Rental Car availability?
 

I've heard that it's become very difficult to get a rental car at a reasonable price these days. Is that still the case? We are thinking of potentially flying to a few places in the southeast, staying and working there for a few days at a time, and getting a car. Should we reconsider? Potential locations are Savannah/Atlanta, Charleston SC, and maybe northwest Florida (Pensacola area).

Why think? Just price them out and see.

Supposedly the chip shortage is so ad the carentalcos are buying used cars to replenish their fleets.

Rental car availability depends on the market and location where you are renting. My insurance company provided a rental for 10 days starting the next business day after approving my claim request. Another customer had issues using a discount reservation service. Booking directly with the rental car company is the best guarantee for availability.

Due to the Pandemic, many rental companies disposed of vehicles to reduce their ancillary costs because the assets were not being used. As business starts to build back, they are slowly adding more back to the mix, but costs are high as they don't get the volume discounts they used to get.

My local Enterprise location used to have 300 cars "assigned" to them because they had that much volume. They are at around 120 now coming back from a low of 80 after reopening the location closed for 3 months due to mandated shutdowns last year. It was a little overwhelming when they were getting ready to open as we had to do maintenance to be sure the cars were ready after sitting idle for so long.

The answer will likely hinge upon what you consider to be a reasonable price.

I don't own a car. I typically rent a car locally or one-way within Florida about 6 to 10 times annually. Before the pandemic, I considered $30/day to be a great rate for an economy car. It was unusual to see rates higher than $60/day outside of the peek travel times (Christmas, New Year's, Spring Break, July, start of August).

Now, the cheapest rate I've found is $45/day. Rates of $80 to $100/day are common in many of searches for 2-3 day rentals in May and June.

(The above rates are from more "reputable" companies like Budget, Avis, Hertz, and Enterprise. I don't rent from places like Fox or Ace.)

I'm seeing $100 per day out of SFO for a monthly rental in August as being about the cheapest using brokers, and much more going directly to the main companies.

Rented at SBA a couple weekends ago. The only think bookable at any kind of remotely reasonable rate was a pickup truck from Alamo for $35/day. Economy cars were like $70+.

When I arrived I let the agent know I didn't really need the truck, and he was happy to give me a Camry instead.

Seems to vary widely by location. Had to go with Turo in PHX a couple months ago. Got an absolute piece of crap Nissan Sentra that broke down halfway through the rental. I do not recommend Turo, unless you're using it to rent an exotic car. (They seem to have two main markets at the extreme opposite end of the rental car spectrum.)

Pick-up truck availability is indeed often better and better valued than other car types at rental agencies. The new RAM type pick-up trucks in some of these rental car fleets are actually not that far removed from feeling like a big SUV for the driver + 4 passengers.

A sign of the times with rental car availability prices: the Amex offer for Silvercar rentals is $100 back on a $500+ rental. 20% back is nice, but the threshold set at $500 for triggering the $100 offer credit speaks to the rental car pricing scene this time.

Wife and daughter are flying to PHX for a post-graduation vacation next week. I priced out rentals when I booked - back in early April - and thought a net $445 for a week in a midsize was high, but booked it just in case. It rapidly rose to $500+, even at no-name rental companies, and has remained there.

A Kia Rio or Chevy Spark at $524 is the cheapest I see now.

I wonder how much the rental companies are using the excuse of the pandemic to artificially raise these prices? They were smart to eliminate overhead (vehicles) when there was no business. But now, knowing that demand is picking up, have been slow to expand their fleets as quickly. These means more profits in the short term, but consumers will eventually be driven to other transportation measures if they cannot get what would normally be more reasonable pricing they are used to.

This is all part of low supply and high demand of capitalism.

Try shopping for a new car. Dealership lots are empty compared to previous years because new cars are not available. Rental car companies cannot purchase new cars because the manufacturers have parts shortages.

Due to shortages of materials and labor there is a shortage of new car inventory. With low inventory, the car manufacture's aren't going to use the production capacity that they have for low-yield fleet sales when they can sell every car they can build at higher-yield retail process. Also a shortage of used car prices driving those prices up.

We just bought a 2021 Honda. Dealers near our house were holding firm fairly close to sticker price, as their supply is low and demand is strong. We ended up driving to a dealer about 3 hours away to get what we wanted at a price we were willing to pay. Ordinarily I'd never want to spend ~8 hours on this process but it was about a $3,000 difference...

The rental car agencies shedding a lot of cars within the last 15 months has its consequences too:

https://www.tampabay.com/news/2021/0...s-get-a-boost/

How has car-sharing facilitator Turo been at this time? It might be an alternative to rental car companies.

Turo, Getaround and Avail seem to be covered a bit in the article above. Getaround and Avail have a $125 or $150 daily cap on rates.