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Rental Car Prices through the roof

Macklemore

By Macklemore
in Food and Travel

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Macklemore

Macklemore 2872

Posted
Posted

What the fuck is going on with the price and availability of rental cars. Tried to rent a car at the airport in Miami in April and there were no available cars. Traveling to Atlanta for Memorial Day weekend and just a handful of choices not less than $200 a day. What happened to the days of $30 a day rentals. Did these companies sell all their cars to stay afloat during the pandemic?

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Neonmoon

Neonmoon 38129

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https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-the-covid-pandemic-led-to-a-rental-car-crisis-just-as-americans-are-ready-to-bust-loose/
 

Quote

Major rental car operators last year sold off more than 770,000 cars as the pandemic crushed demand and kept Americans home, according to Jefferies Group, an investment bank. More than 1 of every 3 rental cars that were in service before the pandemic are no longer available.

 

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3483

Posted
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2 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-the-covid-pandemic-led-to-a-rental-car-crisis-just-as-americans-are-ready-to-bust-loose/
 

 

This.  Also, Hertz declared bankruptcy about a year ago, and sold off a lot of its fleet for that reason as well.  And now that demand is revving up again, rental car companies can't augment their fleets fast enough due to auto manufacturing shortfalls because of computer chip shortages. 

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Grimas

Grimas 669

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See if someone will share their "corporate rate" ID code with you.  My Hertz card account is still tied to my previous employer and when I put in my gold card number, I got a weekly rental at the corporate price...  (I'd share but the code tied to my account no longer works when I just plug in the corporate discount code without my card...) I guess the are honoring the corporate discounts and they are charging whatever they want to non-corporate renters...

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RPM

RPM 26321

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2 hours ago, South Austin said:

Stupidly or not I prepaid for my rental car thinking it would better secure the reservation. It cost $530 for a week on 30A. Hope I’m not out that money and still doing the Seinfeld arm-flailing.

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PencilPusher

PencilPusher 454

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Experienced the rude surprise when I tried to rent a car in Tampa mid-March to find that nothing was available until the third day of my trip due to many of the reasons listed above. I have also found that there are a lot of car companies that are no longer doing unlimited mileage and the fleets that they have are generally older (just rented a car for a trip to FL that had 50K miles on it-that is/was unheard of a couple of years ago.). As long as you book early, you should be OK and the rental car companies are doing a better job repositioning their fleet to where demand is (like Florida). It can be challenging to get around in cities right now due to lack of rental cars and Uber/Lyft drivers working stranger hours and in some cases not working airports. I think that should abate now with the dam open on re-openings though.

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lemonlime

lemonlime 5503

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/25/us/hawaii-u-haul-tourist-rental-trnd/index.html

Quote

U-Haul trucks are unexpectedly getting a new look in Hawaii.

While the trucks are usually used for moving, tourists are now renting them because rental car prices have skyrocketed with the rebound of the tourism industry.
The cheapest rental car in Maui in March ran for $722 a day, according to CNN affiliate KHNL-TV.

 

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Js1

Js1 85337

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Yeah this shit is crazy stupid.  Looked into renting a car to drive back to Texas from CO due to my stepdad being in hospice.  Wanted to avoid leaving the dog for a few weeks and unsure how long I'll be there. 

One way rental was $900 (so $1800 to drive to Houston, stay in Houston and then drive back to Denver)

Two week rental with a pickup and return in Denver was like $1600. 

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NoRagrets

NoRagrets 1125

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I usually use Hotwire. Did the blind deal. Saved $15 off per day on their advertised discounted price. Then they let me upgrade to a shitty crossover for free. Then at the kiosk I negotiated the counter guy to $10/day additional to upgrade to a Jeep Wrangler.

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NoRagrets

NoRagrets 1125

Posted
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1 hour ago, Carl Spackler said:

I haven't used Priceline directly, but I do sometimes use AutoSlash, which includes Priceline rates in its analysis/survey.  

Priceline is kind of dying. My go to is Hotwire now. Just used them for my trip this weekend.

Also got my hotel on last minute travel.com using google somehow (just kind of fell into it). That deal was nuts.

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3483

Posted
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1 hour ago, NoRagrets said:

Priceline is kind of dying. My go to is Hotwire now. Just used them for my trip this weekend.

Also got my hotel on last minute travel.com using google somehow (just kind of fell into it). That deal was nuts.

For car rentals, I typically use AutoSlash or Costco.  I've found that they are usually substantially cheaper than going through Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire, etc. or the rental company sites.

I reserved a car a few weeks ago for a trip in late June.  For grins, today I checked rates just to see if there were any better deals.  The total rate has gone up $100+ for the same dates, category of vehicle, etc., since I made my reservation.  AutoSlash and Costco had the lowest available rates of the websites I checked out.  

 

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CooterBrown

CooterBrown 18012

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See if someone will share their "corporate rate" ID code with you.  My Hertz card account is still tied to my previous employer and when I put in my gold card number, I got a weekly rental at the corporate price...  (I'd share but the code tied to my account no longer works when I just plug in the corporate discount code without my card...) I guess the are honoring the corporate discounts and they are charging whatever they want to non-corporate renters...

You’d be surprised at how many hotel chains the IBM corporate rate code is “IBM”. I’d try that.
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RexWilson

RexWilson 1347

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I just made a reservation in Denver using Turo. It was cheaper than the agencies. Hopefully it will be a good experience.

Neighbor was just in Miami and was trying to get a rental. His experience was a reservation didnt mean shit unless you prepaid. If you prepaid they held a car. The non prepaid customers were waiting for cars to get returned/cleaned.

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bluto

bluto 4929

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Turo is hit or miss depending on airport location I’ve found. And my buddy has been using a major corp code for years, about 50% discount every time. Trips me out using a corporate code for telluride or Caribbean.

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deadshank

deadshank 24653

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I reserved a plain brown wrapper Camry-type rental in Denver for 6 day jaunt right after Independence Day so I can catch up with my wife on her rodeo circuit. 
 

It was quite expensive to the tune of 5x compared to the suburban I got a month ago in Bozeman.  
 

Contemplating just driving the whole route in my own truck from Houston to Estes to Casper to Nampa and back. 
 

I do love out west road trips. 

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wood

wood 11225

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Posted
On 5/14/2021 at 5:48 PM, Gil Bang said:

Costcotravel.com is the best I found by a mile. 

I use Costco too, but Budget's been the best for me lately. Just rented a Cx-5 through them the other day for mid-June. About $58/day. Not crazy cheap, but not crazy expensive like some of the crazy shit I'm seeing in this thread, either. Dropping off in a drifferent place, too.

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Borachio

Borachio 416

Posted
Posted

I just booked a one way rental in late August from Minneapolis to Portland, OR. for about $1,200 for 11 days. Ford Edge SUV with XM radio. 

I guess not too bad for a one way.  Will check the prices again once the trip gets closer. 

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Blotto

Blotto 23511

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Posted

was talking to a customer (field tech) who travels for a lot of equipment installs. He's currently in amarillo driving  a uhaul truck because there were no rentals at the airport. He said thats not that uncommon for him these days as he gets deployed on short notice a lot.   

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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 25958

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36 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

So when I go to the website it doesn't recognize any European cities. Maybe I need to create a travel account first or log in with my Costco membership. 

Yes, you must log in with your membership.


Forget the european cities, use the airport code.  That's what I did. 

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Zepol87

Zepol87 9186

Posted
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On 5/15/2021 at 9:53 AM, CooterBrown said:


You’d be surprised at how many hotel chains the IBM corporate rate code is “IBM”. I’d try that.

Motorola used to be Moto. Not sure if it still works but worked for a long ass time after I left 

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  • 5 months later...
torre

torre 1285

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Car rental companies are making a fortune and we are the victims.   Not sure they want this vehicle/chip shortage to end. (excerpts)

 

 

The return of leisure and business travel this year as more customers were vaccinated for Covid-19 have helped Avis Budget rebound from a dismal 2020. Shares rose about 6% in after hours trading Monday.

Hertz has made a lot of headlines lately thanks to its deals with Tesla and Uber. Wall Street has noticed, too. But rival rental car company Avis Budget is doing even better.

Hertz stock, which currently is listed on Nasdaq's bulletin board and hopes to return to the regular Nasdaq through an initial public offering, is up almost 30% since the company emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year and began trading again in July. Still, that's nothing compared to its rival's stock.

Shares of Avis Budget (CAR) have surged more than 110% since July and are up almost 380% so far in 2021. The company reported its third quarter results after the closing bell Monday. Needless to say, expectations were high — and Avis Budget surpassed them.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/investing/avis-budget-earnings-stock/index.html

  

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Doug E. Fresh

Doug E. Fresh 452

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On 11/2/2021 at 9:02 PM, Gil Bang said:

www.autoslash.com

Way cheaper than costco.  I just got a car at MIA for $16/day.

Will have to check that out. Headed to Houston next week and have been debating Uber vs. car. At $85 per day, I was leaning towards Uber but will see what I can get on this site.

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stc

stc 1462

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19 hours ago, Chewbacca said:
On 11/9/2021 at 1:17 PM, stc said:
i have found turo to be way cheaper than traditional rental places. it's like airbnb but for cars. 

I've thought about that but have never used it. It's it easy to use?

faster than picking up a rental car in my experience. find one that has good reviews. 

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  • 4 months later...
Hagbard Celine

Hagbard Celine 10864

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Posted

okay so we do have a rental car thread

hertz is fucked - between closing the mccarran counter at 9pm and the website being a constant cluster i need to know what's the best gold program?

- national

- avis

- budget

etc.

#1 requirement is a gold service with a board with the names next to the stalls and no lines with kettles and kids

2nd of course is price

what say the surl

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