So you see, this is one reason to avoid Priceline/Hotwire for cars. If they are sold out of compact cars and can only offer you an SUV that gets 1/2 the gas mileage and you are going to put 800 miles on it in a week, that's another $50 or so added to the cost of yoru rental. So much for the money you saved.

Yes, if you get a car without Priceline the same thing could happen - but then, you have the option of walking away or going to the next rental counter.

Andrew

Yes, but to be fair we did get the rental several years ago before the gas problems when it was still considered an "upgrade". It was during the summer and the ticket counter was swamped, lots of people were getting upgrades that day. Someone nearby rejected the upgrade and they were told they can wait for another car to come in, not sure if they were PL customers or not and they were told up front they could be waiting for hours for a car. In any event I'm not 100% sure being a pl customer made any difference, Hawaii does run out of car rentals from time to time on the neighboring islands of Oahu. Hope this helps.

I just booked a rental car with Priceline for a week in August. Wow, I got a fantastic rate with Hertz, about 1/2 of Hertz's regularly advertised price - much better savings than the few times I tried similar airports a few years ago. I used Hotwire as a reference - I bid lower on Priceline and won the first time, saving about $25 total over the Hotwire price.

Special note: I checked cars on Hotwire over several days and noticed a sneaky little trick on their part. I was dismayed that their best rate went up $2/day from $17.95 per day to $19.95 per day when I checked again the next day. Out of curiosity, I checked again immediately with a different web browser (Internet Explorer not Firefox) and suddenly again, I was offered $17.95 per day! Back to Firefox, check again - still $19.95. Looks to me like Hotwire tracks the fact that you visited recently and jacks the rate up on you, maybe figuring that will book it this time before the rate goes up yet again. Just something to watch out for.

Andrew

It's often suggested that you clear your cookies before checking on airfares--maybe that would work.