The Deal Mommy

This is one of a series of guides I’m putting together on traveling more with less. Others in the series include Frequent flyer miles, and Disney. In this post I’m going to cover in detail the steps I take to ensure I’m getting the best deal I can when renting a car. I’m writing this with a deal novice in mind, and using a cost/benefit analysis to help you determine how much energy to expend to save a few bucks versus going whole hog and wasting an hour on the net to save fifty cents. I value time even more than money!

Before deciding what steps (and how much time) I’m going to take to save, I ask myself two questions:

1. Do I have the ability to rent off-airport? If the answer is yes, I go directly to Enterprise Rent-A-Car. 9 times out of 10, any savings I am able to finagle at other sites are eaten up by in-avoidable airport concession fees. They also have frequent sales, especially on weekends.

If I have to go to the airport, I ask:
2.Is my rental less than three days OR do I have to have more than one driver OR is there a chance I’ll need to cancel? If the answer is yes, I go directly to Expedia. It has an easy to read matrix sorted by car type and total including taxes and a rewards program.

I ask the question about drivers because with my next steps, Hotwire and Priceline, in the past I’ve been hit with extra driver fees.  Ditto with the cancellation as Hotwire and Priceline are final sale.   If I’m reasonably happy with what I see, I’ll book the best deal and stop here.

If, however, the trip is longer than four days, my dates are firm, and I’m flex for only one driver, there’s a good chance I’ll do best with Hotwire or Priceline. Note what I DON’T DO: bother with coupon codes, Entertainment books, or other random “loyalty programs”. The reason is in my close to 100 car rentals, I very rarely find the trouble I went to to locate a code that happens to match my specific trip to generate any savings over the big boys’ negotiated rates, so I let them do the work!  I also don’t go “no-name” with my car rentals.  I just don’t think it’s worth the risk.

So, after going to Expedia and seeing the matrix for my dates, I’ll head on over to Hotwire. After viewing Hotwire’s rates (and assuming they’re at least 10% lower than the big boys…if they’re not, I’ll just take Expedia), I’ll go to Priceline.

I happen to have a trip coming up at the end of January, five days in Las Vegas that I can use as an example. I have to go to the airport, so Enterprise is out. Looking at Expedia, I see that I can get a midsize car for four days with Budget at $16 a day plus fees, making the total $109. Hotwire is quoting the same price: $109 total for a mid-size. Normally I would just stop here and book with Expedia, but for this exercise I gave Priceline a try.

Priceline has it’s own blog post, but I’ll outline basic strategy here:

I’ll select “name your own price”, and bid 25% (assuming I have more than a week) or 15% (if I have less than a week) under the Hotwire price. You can only re-bid once every three days, which is why I include that caveat. Make sure you add in $5 for the Priceline fees. There are sites out there that tell you recent winning bids (and even Priceline will tell you), but I find that 25% under the Hotwire price is a super deal so I don’t bother.

Priceline will often pop up a screen at this point that tells you that you have a very slim chance of winning and that you should raise your bid.  Ignore it!  Submit your bid, and you’ll get an answer immediately.  If you win, you’re done!  If you lose, don’t give up, re-bid! Just select the next larger car class, up your bid by 1.00  a day, and submit.  You can repeat as many times as you like. Three days later you can do it again!

In my case, there was only a $20 difference between the Priceline bid and the Expedia price, so I just went with Expedia.  In the past, there has been a great difference…last year in Orlando I got a full size car for 7 bucks a day!