Rental cars from Priceline & Hotwire

[sfwilshire]

So ... I leave for Vancouver a week from tomorrow and haven't booked the rental car. I have all sorts of excuses, but won't bore you with them. Let me just say that this is tops on my list of things to do for the next day or so.

I'll be exploring all the options and checking all the codes I can find. I already looked a bit on National's website (where I'm Executive) and see that I can save a heap by renting a full size car instead of a van and picking the car up in Richmond instead of at the airport. That fits nicely into our plans and won't be a major inconvenience (at least that's the way I'm thinking).

My question for the group is regarding Priceline and Hotwire rentals. I've seen several posts about how good they are, but I got burned once on a cheap rental in the US where the rate rules didn't allow me to take it out of the state (Colorado). Am I likely to run into any similar restrictions about going from British Columbia to Alberta? If so, I'll just pay more and not worry about it.

Thanks,

Sheila

 

[DeniseM]

The rules for taking a car out of state are set by the rental car company, not Priceline. So the first thing I would do is find out if the major rental car companies allow the trip you want to make.

 

[SuzanneSLO]

One disadvantage I find with priceline or hotwire rental is that you will not know in advance if your spouse is a free additional driver. Some companies always allow it for free and others charge for it. As a National Executive member, the OP's spouse is free if booked directly with National. Of course, this may not be an issue for the OP. -- Suzanne

 

[sfwilshire]

One disadvantage I find with priceline or hotwire rental is that you will not know in advance if your spouse is a free additional driver. Some companies always allow it for free and others charge for it. As a National Executive member, the OP's spouse is free if booked directly with National. Of course, this may not be an issue for the OP. -- Suzanne

Suzanne,

It is an issue, but I'm also not sure if spouse is free in Canada. I know he is in the US, but we were charged in Great Britain. More research to do. DH drives about 90% of the time anyway, but all the memberships and credit cards are in my name.

Since rules vary from company to company, I guess booking with Priceline wouldn't be safe unless I checked the rules on going province to province with every single company first. If all allowed it, Priceline would be safe. What a pain!

Sheila