Car Rentals

The big name in discount car "bidding" is priceline (dot) com. You can name your own price to rent a car on a certain date, of a certain size in a certain city from a number of the top national car rental companies. You will get an answer in about 60-seconds, and you can save up to 25-percent, and then of course you have to pay by credit card in advance. Prices do not include all taxes, surcharges, etc. However, there are some complaints that sometimes you do not do so well with Priceline, because they also charge you an additional amount, they are not doing their "price bidding" service out of charity. There are a lot of smaller rent-a-car operations. The disadvantage is they are not going to be available at airports, and often are not available in downtown areas either. However, if you are in an area and need to rent a car for several weeks, it's worth it to pick up the yellow pages and call the local "rent a wreck" office (which are local franchises) or other local car rental companies, for a better deal than the big national companies. Other discount car rental and travel "wholesalers" include hotwire (dot) com and travelocity. Airport car rental charges can be quite high. It may pay to either take a taxi to your hotel and rent a car there, or look for a car rental that can pick you up at the airport. This will still cost money, but at least not straight to the airport surcharge fund. Plan in advance, because rental car companies like other travel companies want to have as full a booking at every time as possible. They want to plan when to move their cars to different cities and when to have scheduled maintenance on their cars. Weekly rates are often the best rates when renting a car, the 6th and 7th days are usually free. There are various trade-offs involved when you rent a car as well as anything else. If you rent a new or almost new car, with unlimited mileage you will usually pay top dollar. The exception is if you have various types of discounts with your car rental. They could come from your Automobile club, your credit card, your company or even frequent flyer or frequent hotel guest programs. And don't forget, car insurance, taxes and surcharges can raise your bill considerably.