Will be in Sarasota, FL from April 4 through April 10th.
What’s the cheapest and/or best way to rent a car? I have heard about Priceline and I’m sure there are other sites like Xpedia, but I’m sure there are also other methods of getting a good deal.
Any suggestions?
Will I get any responses if I don’t limit the answer to Sarasota?
What’s the best on-line site to get a deal on a rental car for a week? Has anyone any experience with such a site?
Is it better just to go to the rent-a-car places at the airport? Is there a particular company that is cheaper than the rest?
Any helpful suggestions?
steal it.
I’ve had good luck using Hotwire.com for rental cars.
The deal is kinda like with their airline tickets: you put down where, when, for how long, and what types of car you’ll accept. (They provide a listing of what the types are, and what kinds of cars are in each type.) They’ll look around, and retrive back the rates for the dates/types of cars you’ve specifed. So you can see that a ‘compact’ would cost you X for that time frame, a mini-van Y, etc.
The catch is that you don’t know who you’ve rented the car from until after you reserve the car, so if you want to use any discount coupons or you have a preferred place to rent from (or some place you refuse to rent from) you’re up the creek.
The past couple of times I used Hotwire to rent a car in the San Francisco area, I got a nice Impala (sun roof, leather seats, CD player, etc.) for just about the same rate as a ‘regular’ car would have been had I rented the car via the car rental agency’s site.
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I posted this in another thread.
I recommend Enterprise. Call your local office, get them to book you through their corporate website. If you let them do it, they can fiddle around and get you a better deal than if you book it yourself. Ask a LOT of questions so you don’t get hit with any surprises.
I just paid about $250 for a standard 4-door; we had it 5 days and unlimited mileage, just to give you an idea. When we ended up having to take a surprise 2.5 hour detour on the way home, that unlimited mileage thing came in handy. Don’t be afraid to ask for a free upgrade or unlimited mileage – the worst thing they can do is say no, and keep in mind they’re making money by putting you in the car. Out of the $250 we paid, a good $100 of that was insurance, which is how they make most of their money, I suspect. (They’re self-insured.)
Enterprise is the cheapest out of all the other major ones that I know of, but that might only hold true for my area. I do know they’re the only major rental company that will deal with you without a credit card.
Hertz is listing a Grand-Am for $150, unlimited mileage. You should be able to get a better deal than that through one of the budget outfits. Link to Hertz
You only need to purchase their insurance if your insurance doesn’t cover you. Since I rent so often, I get a special rider on my car insurance that offers coverage in any vehicle I drive. It’s a couple hundred a year.
My insurance agent says I really don’t need the rider, since my normal policy will cover occasional use of rental cars, but I’m not an occasional user, so I don’t take chances. Check with your agent to be sure. It will probably be cheaper to get the special rider from your insurance agent than pay for a week of insurance on the rental car, plus you’ll have the coverage for 6 months.
Is there a reason you use Hotwire, as opposed to Travelocity (someone suggested them to me yesterday) or any other sites?
Was this cheaper than any on-line sites, or just cheaper than going in person to another rent-a-car agency?
I’m afraid the chiropractic bills from me constantly looking over my shoulder for the cops would be more than the savings. Thanks for the suggestion, though. 
They were the cheapest in my area and also cheaper than anyone else’s site I saw online.
YMMV.
The timing is not the best but not the worst. Sort of just on the edge of Spring Break. Should be nice weather. If you can get a car for a week for $150 (as mentioned from Hertz) you are doing well. Do take into account that Florida puts a lot of strange extra taxes on rental cars. These are designed to extract revenue from tourists. So $150 probably equals $200, once you add in the airport tax, higher than normal sales tax, battery tax, etc. Ask what the real total, including taxes, should be, then compare that with Priceline or whoever. Sometimes those include the taxes, so can be a better deal.
Yep – $200:
Note that full insurance (liability & damage waiver) would more than double the cost.