adnil1962

Just wanted to share an interesting pricing detail on a rental car in SF for 3 days over Thanksgiving as the prices seemed to be pretty high over the holiday...

The cheapest I could find was in the $50-$65 dollar range. I called Dollar directly to get a price. They offered $29/day if I took the car for 2 days but $62/day if I wanted it more than 2 days...

The Customer Service person told me to book it for 2 days at the $29 price. She said that I should then call the morning of the second day and ask for a 1 day extension.

She said that they would then extend the rental for $29 for the third day....

Kind of a pain and a crazy policy but something I thought I would share just in case someone runs into the same issue....

DebitNM

I would get that extension in writing otherwise you might find yourself paying a lot more than the $29. And they might even retro back the increased rate.

I am jaded, I do not take anyone's [especially a telephone rep] word anymore -- in writing is my motto.

Hope this helps...
Debi

adnil1962

I agree, I am kind of a skeptic as well but we figured that worse case we could return the car after day 2 (since we are renting/returning right at our hotel at the Sheraton Fisherman's Wharf...then we just do another 1 day rental someplace (or take the BART....). Hopefully it just works!!

Keith

Why not book a one day safety reservation with Dollar? It can be cancelled if the terms haven't changes when you call to extend.

Keith

Betsy

Just checked at Hotwire (hotwire.com). Put in 11-23 thru 11-27 dates. Mid-size is going for $19.98/day. We use Hotwire all the time. Never a problem.

adnil1962

Keith great idea - I hadn't thought of that.

We just returned from SF and everything worked out fine. We called and asked for an extension and they honored the $29 price.

Also there was a rental car return right in the hotel lobby (Sheraton Fisherman's Wharf). We were concerned about getting the car back before they closed as we didn't want to pay the hotel $39/day parking fee.

Turns out that they have an after hours drop off. This may be a good option for anyone going to the SF area. You could rent and return each day you were in the city you needed a car (BTW - the front desk advertised $29/day, every day) - and then walk, take a cab or cable car back to your hotel. That way you avoid the steep hotel parking fees...

diart

I have a tip to share that I came up with when we visited SF but would work anywhere where the parking fees are so outrageous (more than the price of the car rental!!). We also did this in Boston when we wanted to drive up to the cape. We knew we could get around SF pretty easily without a car but we did want to get out of the city at least one day to drive to San Jose & of course to make the trek across the GG bridge. I went online and located the car rental places near the hotel that we stayed at. I found a few within walking distance. I made a note of their operating times (something like 8 am to 6 pm) and just rented a car for the day. We were able to do what we wanted & had the car back by closing time so we did not have to pay $45 extra for parking overnight. We could have done that everyday if we'd wanted -- provided that we would have the car back in time each time.