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Have you used Hotwire for car rentals?

S

shmoore

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Joined
Jun 15, 2005
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Location
Kingsport, TN
Has anyone used Hotwire for car rentals? It is lower than Alamo, but I wanted to see what kind of service you have gotten.

How about priceline? If I use them am I asking for a car rental with or without taxes?

Thanks guys.:hi:
 
Priceline/Hotwire Car Rentals

I have never gotten a car thru Hotwire, but I have used Priceline several times and when I got a decent bid it worked well.

As you go into the bid process you bid the car rental rate per day and their site will show what the total cost including taxes and fees will be. This occurs before you commit to a bid offer. Cars I have taken have been from major rental firms and have worked out quite well.

In some regions, I have found quite a bit better rates at the rental company web site than I could get at Priceline. Recently for a Salt Lake City rental I had a much better rate directly from Enterprise than for numerous bids that Priceline rejected. I suggest first using www.sidestep.com to see multiple rates at the particular airport or city and then use that as an idea for Priceline bidding.
 
I thought that the newer models were almost impossible to hotwire!
 
Recently did a Hotwire car rental at MDW in Chicago. The fulfilling company was Avis. Substantially lower than the rates through the majors, and much much lower than the quote directly through Avis (go figure). I had no problems at all.
 
Thank you for your information. They were $100 cheaper per week on Maui than Alamo. I thought something must be wrong. Now I can smile and figure out where I really want to spend that $100.......maybe on the Warren and Annabelle show.:clap:
 
I have used Hotwire a number of times at the Seattle airport- they only use "alamo, avis, and hertz" - always been cheaper than the other sites- and have always recieved good cars, and never felt I got less service than booking through the companies directly. But when we went to Florida- National was the cheapest- and it was a great price a comfortable van- just shows with all travel it pays to go the extra step to do research.

Ruth
 
We've only used them a couple of times but, both times they've been considerably less expensive. The first time was in Chicago and the next is for our upcoming vacation where we'll fly into Fort Lauderdale. Both times the rentals have been through Avis.

The main reason I haven't used them for every rental has been that we belong to most frequent renter programs that allow us to bypass the line and just pick up our car. I guess I should sit back and think if the time spent in line would be worth the money saved on the rental. In most cases that would probably be a yes.

Keep in mind that the full price of the rental is paid when you make the reservation through Hotwire and changes can't be made once you've booked. For that reason, I don't think I'd consider Hotwire until it's pretty close to the time to travel.
 
I've used Hotwire to get an idea of the lowest published rate for a car rental. Then I go to Priceline and bid lower. It took me a while, but eventually, I got a significantly lower price on priceline. This was for both Vancouver and Maui.
 
We have used Hotwire several times this year, Hawaii, LA & Phoenix. Gotten Hertz each time. Got a great price and service.
 
Just thought of something while reading about bidding on priceline. If you win a bid for a price you put in and the airline changes the flight times will it affect the car rental. A few years back I had a flight postponed for approx 20 hours because of a hurricane and the car rental company (Alamo) would not honor the seven day rental reservation. I had to pay for a 6 day rental at a much higher rate.
 
I just got a great rate for a Caddy in Maui for 12 days, $578 using an entertainment book coupon. that is $200 less than Hotwire, and Priceline wouldn't accept anything near this price.

And I don't like the way the way PL makes you change the car type and price, and then doesn't put it back in the list of available cars again.

I am very excited about my $578 rate, because when I first started looking, it was in the $900 range, and the best I did with the Marriott/Hertz discount was $782 for a premium car, not Luxury, as the Caddy is.

Regards.
Joe
 
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