| I recently rented a vehicle at LAS. I booked the car in May for a late July pick up. Back in May, I was messing around on Autoslash.com and I wanted to see how much a Costco Club membership would save you on a rental car, so I punched in the info and said I was a Costco member. The results came back and sure enough, using a Costco membership discount got you the least expensive vehicle by quite a bit. Now, I didn’t have a Costco membership and the $60 fee would wipe out almost all of the savings, so I created another rental car request through Autoslash.com without using the Costco discount as an option. The day before the trip, I wanted to add my Budget Fastlane number to my reservation but could not do so online. I call the 800 number and I’m told that my credit card on file expired. Okay, easy fix to add a new CC to the file. Then he asks for my Costco membership number. I tell him I don’t have one. He then says my $258 rate for 4 days won’t be honored because that was booked under a Costco discount code. We go back and forth for quite a while. Finally, he tells me the only option is to cancel my reservation and rebook it. I ask him for the rate, and he tells $450 for an economy (we had a mid-size SUV). It is now 1 AM and I have a morning flight out. I tell him I will leave it as for now and see what happens. I go online and see a Costco membership for $60 with a $30 Costco gift card bonus. I sign up, get my number, and call Budget back. A different person tells me that I can’t add the Costco membership number to the reservation because that would be a modification and would cause the price to change to the current rate. I tell him it is not a modification since I am already booked on a Costco discount. We go back and forth, and it is now 1:45 AM. I write to Autoslash and explain what is happening, ask for advice and go to bed. I get up at 6:30 AM to see an email from Autoslash saying that they can’t help with the Budget issue, but they did go ahead and book me 2 alternate reservations for about $280. I thought that was cool of Autoslash to do that. When we arrive, I go to the counter, pick up my vehicle and no one even asks about a Costco membership. I had already cancelled one the additional reservations, so I decide to be a nice guy and walk over to the Thrifty desk and tell them I want to cancel. The service rep looks at me funny and says, “Don’t worry, if you don’t pick up the vehicle it will just get cancelled.” She doesn’t say when it will get cancelled and really didn’t care that I made the effort to cancel the reservation. What I think happened is when I made the second vehicle request through Autoslash, it treated it as a modification rather than a new request and somehow kept Costco as one of the discount options. Maybe because I had the same location, date, and time. For future, I will change either the pickup time or drop off time by 15 minutes to make sure it is a brand new request. Lessons learned: Changing any detail of a reservation will cause you to lose the rate you have. I used to be able to call the rental car company directly and make a minor change ( moving the pickup or drop off time by 2 hours or less) but that seems to be a thing of the past. To be safe, plan on any change causing you to lose the old reservation rate. Customer service for rental cars is a lost art. 10 years ago, there would have been a simple fix, especially for adding the Costco discount. You might want to investigate a Costco membership if you rent in Las Vegas more than once a year. It should cover the cost of the membership. When using a service like Autoslash, the other companies involved (in this case Priceline and Budget) don’t really want to help out with any problems. Autoslash responded to my email in about 4 hours, offered a very good solution and provided their usual great service. I wish Autoslash.com would start their own rental car company and run it the same way they run their current business. I would book with their rental car company every time, even if the price were a little higher. They do a great job of taking care of their customers. |
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You ask “Why?” Because they can. They know the demand is high for rental vehicles in Vegas because of the massive influx of visitors – add to that the taxi’s have once again raised fares, therefore, more people are renting cars .All of these rental companies and website rental agencies are colluding to keep prices high – and people are paying them. This will not change until visitation drops off as the economy tanks – which it will.
Is it really worth all the hassle to get a lower rate in the very last moment prior to travelling? If you’re going to Vegas then you know that it’s going to cost money. If you gamble smart and get lucky perhaps you get a full refund on your expenses.
From Switzerland
Boris
Boris – at the rates they quote, it is worth the wait. My last trip I booked a rental @ $468, cancelled it and then rebooked it 2 days prior to my trip for $362, same car, same rental outfit. It was well worth it to me.
My approach is to make the rental reservation at the moment I book a flight to Vegas then check the rate every day. I typically rent a car for a week. At the start the rate is usually over $400 but I constantly make modifications as the price drops. Final price is usually in the $250 – $350 range and it seems to occur a couple of weeks before my trip.
In Addition to Autoslash and Costco, I use carrentalsavers.com They are a search engine though which you can book and get an immediate confirmation from the rental car company with no fee and free cancelation.
If the rates are higher than expected I’d suggest using turo. They’re often significantly cheaper
Always use autoslash. THE best site for rental car discounts
I’f people try to sit in front of the computer and surf the web to find a better deal, that’s each one his personal liberty to do so of course.
Just by curiosity I typed in a search request for the same period that I booked for this upcoming November. My initial reservation was done in May. I have a 3 weeks’ rental and the same car size currently (3 months after actually booking mine) is now available at 40 Euros higher than what I booked my rental car. So I still believe that this constant checking and cancelling is not actually not worth my time. I go by my personal sentiment. If I find a rate and it looks attractive, then I’ll book it. I do not double check later on and try to modify if I find a cheaper deal. I’ve got other things to do in life than that. If I buy something in a store the deal is closed. I will not double check later on if I could have bought the same item cheaper anywhere else and then return to the shop to get a full refund and buy it elsewhere.
When I’m in Vegas I try to play smart and win money. Not going on tilt and saving the extra 200 or 300 on a bad day is worth a little more than a small savings on a cheaper rental car deal. That’s my opinion.
From Switzerland
Boris
David Miller,
Always a conspiracy angle. Okay, Taxis have raised fares. But Lyft, Uber and other ride shares have all given an alternative to rental cars. During Covid, rental car companies sold their fleets to stay afloat. When covid waned, they couldn’t replenish the inventory because car companies were selling vehicles to consumers ( high margin) instead of rental car companies ( low margin). Throw in the world wide chip shortage and the situation became much worse. They are still fighting to get their fleets to the correct level.
I rent cars a lot. Probably 200 times in my life. Las Vegas until Covid had incredibly low rental car prices. So this collusion must be a new thing. And if they are really colluding to keep prices high, why do they pay sites like travelocity to sell their cars? Doesn’t make sense.
Supply and demand issue.
Boris,
This situation was unusual. I booked back in May. I was just checking the reservation and discovered the issue and had to do last minute scrambling.
You can decide how much effort you want to put into getting a better rental car price. I have seen people rack their brains trying to learn some infrequent video poker play that will save them a couple pennies every couple thousand hands but pay an extra $100 for a rental car because they didn’t do any price comparisons.
Another reason I do this is so I can report out the results so others can make a decision on whether it is worth it to them.
I’d estimate I save $100 a rental using autoslash. I’ve averaged 4-5 trips to Las Vegas a year for the past 30 years. Autoslash has been around since 2010 so 13 years * 4 trips * $100 per trip is a lot of money. And Autoslash makes it easier to rebook. So, to me, it is worth a couple hours time to save $100.
Boris,
Your choice on how to save money. That is what I like about autoslash. I book a rental through them. Say I book it 3 months out. To get a new rate, all I have to do is hit the “click here to see your rates!” button on the email they send you. Save the email and click on it as often as you want. They will send you new rates. They do all the work for you. If you haven’t used them, I suggest giving them a shot. It might be different since you are in Europe and the rental car rules might be different. As mentioned in one of my other responses, I’d estimate I save $100 when I use autoslash. To me, that is worth the couple hours it takes me to change reservations.
Goose,
I’d be interested in hearing more about your Turo experience. I looked at them a couple of times and not only were they more expensive, you have the issue with pick up and delivery, often with an extra fee. Please reply back on this blog or email me at [email protected]
Second the comments on Autoslash, seems like an excellent company. Would say ditto on Turo but they put me on a not to rent list due to a disagreement on a charge they made. I cancelled the charge and they cancelled me. Turo is normally cheaper but you never know who you are renting from. The last one I rented from felt very creepy.
Walter,
I’d be interested in hearing more about Turo. How easy is the pick up /drop off? What happens if you have a dispute? How does insurance work , if you take the insurance. I am always looking for rental car options.
Turo is the best and all I use anymore. Go to the website, use Google, do some research. I can’t believe people are so lazy they ask questions here instead of just looking for themselves.