Just rented an intermediate SUV - a "Ford Escape or equivalent" - for two weeks exactly in the NYC area. As I went over rental offers together with my partner in Israel, we encountered the oddest shit.
I get that pricing varied significantly with airport vs non-airport pickup and drop-off of the car. Difference in total cost of $622 at a local car rental office vs $860 for airport pick up and drop off.
But what really floored and surprised me was the seemingly random inclusion - at some locations and on some models but not others - of "fees and taxes" and even more surprisingly of the LDW insurance from the car rental agency themself!
When it wasn't included in the price offered up through the company (Budget's) website, it varied from $26 to $33 per day as an option, both of which are ridiculous since it costs the car rental company about $4 per day and is available from independent insurers like Allianz at maybe $10 per day...
But for Budget, some cars showed up as "all-inclusive" deals (like for the Escape we selected) and others showed up much much cheaper but as "base prices" which quickly escalated to much more than the all inclusive deals once we progressed through the steps of reserving the car with insurance options...
And it varied A) from specific dealer to dealer (ie the pickup location) B) from car to car and C) from my wife's computer with it's IP in Israel to mine from my current location in California. She got the all inclusive offers for some (but not all) vehicles, I did not ever see them, even though I listed my residence as Israel and would have in fact been paying with an Israeli credit card.
It wasn't personal - since my wife booked the car in my name and with my cradit card (from her Israeli location) but I couldn't get the same offer from here in my name and with my card, presumably because of my IP address.
Fooking weird...
Picking up and one location and dropping at another is a “drop fee.” Usually there’s no fee if it’s a local drop at a different location in the home city, but there’s typically a drop fee airport to non airport location or one branch to another outside of the state. The issue is how much the drop fee is.
The price of the coverage you can purchase for any damage to the vehicle varies company to company, state to state, even airport vs non airport. At the end of the day it’s really about risk and how much dealing with the headache of some damages to the vehicle is worth to you.
If you have your own insurance make sure that covers rentals and your wife if she drives the vehicle. If so you’d typically be on the hook for your deductible if something happened to the vehicle and you didn’t have coverage through the rental company. If you don’t have any coverage and don’t purchase anything through the rental company, you could be on the hook for the total amount OOP if something happens.
If you do have coverage through the company, it’s supposed to cover any damage to the vehicle regardless of fault. This could vary company to company depending on how reputable the company is. Some people purchase coverage through 3rd parties when booking online but this can be dicey. Same with going through rental coverage on credit cards.
Prices are highly fluid, based in great part on customer demand at particular locations as well as cost of moving cars from low demand to high demand areas (when not returned to same place).
My strategy has been to make reservations where there is no cancellation policy and keep watching the rates.
Prices are highly fluid, based in great part on customer demand at particular locations as well as cost of moving cars from low demand to high demand areas (when not returned to same place).
My strategy has been to make reservations where there is no cancellation policy and keep watching the rates.
Well we already committed to a reservation with $50 cancellation fee, which I though was maybe a mistake on our part... But we got a rate more than $100 less than Hotwire's best for a similar car, so unless something would fall in our lap with a last minute deal, I think we did OK. With LDW from the car rental agents themselves, so it's a no nonsense drop-off when we're done.
Prices are highly fluid, based in great part on customer demand at particular locations as well as cost of moving cars from low demand to high demand areas (when not returned to same place).
My strategy has been to make reservations where there is no cancellation policy and keep watching the rates.
Yes — additionally from Memorial Day to Labor Day is essentially peak season for rental car companies.
I think there is something to the IP address theory.
a couple of years ago you could go on Priceline and completely low ball a rental rate and some company would take it
I remember getting a 7 bucks a day rental in LA.
seems like rental car companies got smart like airlines and are colluding on price
they all seem to have same price that moves up as the rental date gets nearer