Question of the Day - 05 April 2021

While I always perform due diligence with rental rates Costco is almost always the lowest I find. Keep in mind when researching rates the Costco rate that displays is all in, it includes all taxes and fees.  Other rates that initially display will be without those add-ons but when totaled up is more than Costo.  YMMV.   

I made a trip to Texas in late March and I couldn’t find a rental car to save my life. I looked at the airport, near the airport, at the rental desk at my hotel, near the hotel. I looked for 1 day rentals, 3 day rentals and NOTHING! You could have literally held a gun to my head and I wouldn’t have been able to get a car. So I asked the guy at the hotels rental counter. He told me that it was due to the recent bad weather in Texas. That caused damage to vehicles and insurance companies had to come up with cars for people with that coverage. They had a waiting list 2+ weeks long for cars. So, I think it’s possible that rental companies moved a lot of their inventory to Texas to feed this massive demand. The cars would be snapped up immediately and they would collect an attractive corporate rate from insurance. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was impacting the Las Vegas market. 

I got a teaser in my email this morning from QoD:  Have you ever heard of a 7-card-draw game called "One-Eyed Royals"?

Instead, it's all about car rentals.  :-(

Autoslash has helped me find good rates but I haven't used it recently.

Found the same high price issue on car rentals for my Late April trip.  Staying downtown, as always, but for the first time ever, not renting a car.

Did some research and found the bus route for The Deuce".  For $20 I can get a 3 day pass to ride anywhere but will only be taking "The Deuce" to go to the strip.  I will be going to the strip ONLY to walk to Stage door ($1 beer) and Ellis Island (3/2 BJ),  NOT to get ripped off by the casinos on the strip.
I will see how The bus works out. it is about 10 stops from downtown to my stop at Caesars.  

Will take longer, and be inconvenient   I will also miss my trips to the Rampart and Southpoint but will save me over $300...that's a lot of food and drinks.

For the FIRST TIME EVER, since I will not be driving,  I will be able to use my LVA "three free drinks" coupon at Ellis Island.

Every cloud has a silver lining!

The answer states, "And when demand is high and inventory is low, prices soar."

This is a lazy answer. There is no "law" of supply and demand. There is a law of gravity (how fast an object falls in a vacuum) and there are laws that regulate and punish behavior (you can't murder someone). But there is no law of supply and demand. Rental car companies are charging more because of greed - it is that simple.

I will add my suggestion to the one already listed.  Try autoslash.com.  I have been very happy with their results.  They get you an initial reservation (usually through Priceline) but monitor prices to see if you can re-book at a lower price prior to your trip.  

Car rental rates have been on the rise in LV for several years. Before they started going up we could rent for $25-$30/day all in.  At those rates it didn't make sense to use a taxi if you did much running around at all. Now it's $60-$70/day and worse.

Strangely enough, recently we found the cheapest rates to be at hotel rental counters!  That's a reversal.  For our last trip we took an Uber from the airport to the Wynn and rented our car there, reversing the procedure on the homebound leg.

Unless we are planning to go to Laughlin, we are done renting cars in LV. At the current rates it's cheaper to use ridesharing services.

To be clear it's not just Vegas that has high rates.  It's everywhere. This morning I picked some random cities that I travel to and while Vegas was a lot higher than usual I found other cities even higher.   

The sad fact is that the consumer very often gets it in the shorts due to the whims of fate, companies' greed, etc. etc. How many times have we seen the price of something skyrocket, and we couldn't do anything at all about it?

I guess what annoys me is that everything has a certain intrinsic value and/or cost, and I think it's fair than any company charge that plus a reasonable markup so they can make a profit. Not eight hundred percent! Rental cars. Hotel rooms. Gasoline. Airline flights. These huge mega-corporations charge us whatever they want. Supply and demand actually has very little to do with it. 

So we have only one defense. If at all possible, don't buy the product, whatever it is. I've already scuttled plans to visit Vegas next month, because I don't want to enrich some car rental corporation. I'm NOT paying $1000 to rent a car for three days. Screw 'em.

So I realize some people like to rent right from the airport but if you can take an uber or cab somewhere once you arrive, The app Turo has great deals on rental cars. I have rented twice from people to drive to Vegas from San Diego. Mini Cooper one time and a convertible the other. Usually around $40-$50 a day. Check it out (although not sure how the prices are in the Vegas area).

As an add-on to my previous comment, I just did a search for this upcoming Friday thru Monday. Quite a bit of cars in the $40-$55 range, so please check it out. Some of these people may even meet you at the airport for an additional fee. Rented from Turo about 6 times now, never had an issue.

They posted a link to Facebook of the question for May 21.  The "See Previous" links go backwards day by day until this post.  What's that all about?  https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/one-eyed-royals

This analysis was spot on.  There aren't enough cars to cover the late demand.  In October 2021, you can get a 5 day rental for less than $300.  

So I guess Hertz going bankrupt means they're taking all their customers with them. Still the best name in the car rental business, give 'til it Hertz.

Costco does not charge extra for a 2nd driver like all other car rental companies I've shopped.