Pugsly

I just went on line to book a car for a trip to Florida between Christmas and New Years and holy cow have they ever jacked the rates. Even Enterprise who we always rent from away from the airport was nearly $100/day. I would greatly appreciate any ideas in the Ft Lauderdale area.

gail

Seems it is because it is Christmas week. I just went to a couple of sites, including Expedia and entered that week and a random week in December and one in January. Christmas week was $500-600/wk while Jan week was $130/wk and December week was $160/week. So the WOW appears only to ba an issue for the holiday week - when everyone else wants a car as well.

They charge what they can get - and appears this is what they think the market will bear.

EmilyC

Yep, it's bad. I spent quite a bit of time for our rental for the same time period - ended up using Hertz at the Harbor Beach Marriott.

Some folks have discussed using Auto Europe for rentals in Florida because they give excellent rates. I have not used them but I have seen some recs on this board. You may want to check them out

Orlando_Vic

This http://www.carrentalsavers.com/ is an excellent site for rental car coupons and promo codes.

joan

This is what I have done in the past:

Book the car at the best price today.
Then, twice a week or so, check expedia, travelocity, and the individual rental car sites, which can be cheaper because they often run sales they don't have on the multi booker sites. Also, become a member of the their free clubs, and check the weekly email specials. If you are a AAA member, Hertz often has member only specials.

As you get closer, it may get cheaper. Even if it does, re-book, cancel your original, but keep checking. This has paid off for me lots of times (along with bidding on Priceline, but I doubt you'll be successfull over the holidays....)

gail

Alamo had a deal I used a few weeks back - if you prepay you got a percentage off - and the cancellation policy was fairly liberal with limited penalty - I might check it out to see if it applies to a car in this location for those dates.

divineMissM

You need a good discount code or coupon code, try posting at TripAdvisor where members can private-message you. (When they post these things in public forums, so many people take advantage at once that the car companies catch on.) I remember a car rental code posted on the DisneyBoards, after a few weeks the car company removed that discount code from their system because so many people started using it.

Pugsly

Thanks everyone for your help.

EmilyC, I don't know where you got the AutoEurope scheme but it is pure genius. I went to the AutoEurope site and I just got a 1 week rental for a fantastic price compared to any US rent car company.

irishk

We've booked a car (from Ireland) at Fort Myers airport for 14 days starting 20 December. We made the booking from an Irish site on 24 September last and out total cost is $350 for the 14 days. We think that's great value! However, don't know how you could get the same rate from your side of the world!!

EmilyC

That's great - I read about AutoEurope on this forum but I have never used it. Please post how your experience was after the rental!