Priceline Car Rental-Advice/Warnings?
 

Have had great luck with hotels but new to car rentals-Whats the lowest bid we can give for rental of SUV or Convert. for FL. Any experience with car rentals on PL would be appreciated. Thanks!

Rasnes5,

Go to the website www.biddingfortravel.com and look under Florida Car Rentals. This will show you how low the bids have been at different Florida cities for Priceline rental cars.

Duane

Duane-Thanks-I checked it out and got ranges-looks like one day they will take a bid amount and the next day they won't. I'll give it a whirl!
R5

Don't expect great savings with Priceline car rentals if you are spoiled by saving a lot on PL hotels. I managed to rent once from Priceline, and I saved almost exactly 20% off of the best rate I could get elsewhere. Actually it was 20% off the total rental cost (after all taxes and Priceline fees were figured in). Based on my one rental, a number of other unsuccessful bids, and other postings on BFT, don't expect to save much more than that.

20% isn't necessarily worth it in my view unless that is 20% off a long rental period. The less you save, the more the "non-changeable/non-cancelable" thing becomes a factor. My last trip I did not even try Priceline and just rented with Dollar (great price, but not in the same league with Hertz, Avis, etc. whom Priceline uses).

Andrew

Andrew

Be sure to look at the rental car websites themselves for discounts, also. I messed up by checking with Hotwire and placing a bid at Priceline - then going to the actual rental website and finding out I could've gotten it $6 a day cheaper. I didn't do my homework!

I agree with ccolor, play around with discount codes on the rental sites. Rental rates change frequently, but since you do not prepay, it's very easy to cancel an existing reservation and rebook should the price become lower.

Be careful with what they suggest you bid. One time, I bid around $16 and it got rejected and said the going rate for that time period was $40/day and suggested I rebid. I checked Alamo and they were $16/day "rack rate". I've found Alamo to be cheap at MCO but I've never gotten an SUV from them.

Thanks everyone! I did shop and compare Alamo,Thrifty & Hertz and as I needed the car for 8 days it turned out cheaper on PL. For a mid-size/intermed. car the 7 day weekly rate was o.k. but the $37.95-42.95 single day rental for the 8th day brought the avg per day higher on the individual websites. My 3rd bid of $18/day was accepted-total is $194 with taxes from PL. So I saved $50-70. (22%)I can use on gas! Thanks again-the research really paid off considering that expensive 8th day!!

If you have a Wal-Mart Supercenter near you stop in the travel dept and pick up a free discount card. It lists a number of car rental firms and hotels which offer discounts. Just plug the numbers into the AWD places on the rental webpages and it will figure the discount in for you. Wal-Mart does not charge for the card and you can make your own reservations.

Just make sure you try MULTIPLE codes, and don't make the assumption a "discount code" automatically equates to great savings. I always come across so-called discount codes that result in HIGHER rental fees than the rack rate (no code)! Biddingfortravel forum has a great listing of potential codes, try them ALL!

I have saved as much as 50% using PL on car rentals. I usually go to Hotwire and get a quote so I know how much the taxes are going to be on the total package--something you can't always know from Orbitz or car sites. And yes, you do have to shop all the sites to be sure you do the best. Alamo can be cheap--and also a pain to deal with.

Hey Stevecat-
I went to Bidding For Travel and cannot find the list of discount codes that you mention. Could you tell me where these codes might be listed? I looked pretty thoroughly and couldn't locate them.
Thanks,
Paul

Paul,

On the main page, scroll down to the Rental Cars section, then choose the forum group "Websites for checking car rental rates". Click the very first message in this group , "Car rental agency discount codes" for the listing compilation; click the other respective messages in this forum to see other current offers.

Thanks Stevecat - on my way there now!

I've been playing with the various codes here, Stevecat. Amazing that some codes actually bring up more expensive prices than no codes at all. Yes, other codes do bring up less expensive rentals as well. I can't use Priceline as they make you pickup and dropoff cars at the same location. I plan on picking up a car in SFO and dropping off at LAX. Thanks for the code info though - I am able to save about $75. Thanks!

For a quick and easy way to see prices for all of the major rental car companies, go to http://www.carrentals.com

This should give you a good comparison to work with for priceline.

That's an interesting list, Bluedevil, but don't ever assume the lowest rental prices are going to be found through there. You seriously need to go to each rental car site and input codes as I mentioned before.

For example, this site gives me a lowest rate of $100 for a weekly rental on an economy in LAS for my upcoming trip. However, during my code inputting quest, I was able to grab a rental on a compact car (1 class higher) for $75/week. And that's a regular reservation -- no upfront nonrefundable fees like Priceline. With this in mind, I'll still try Priceline but I doubt Priceline will be able to beat my lowest price attainable especially after considering the service charge they render.