If you can find a car at all. Many cars were sold off last year when travel was way down.
In the last few weeks, airfare skyrocketed to Florida at least. My dentist was telling me this earlier this week. Though there are still some bargains to cheaper destinations like Fort Meyers. Orlando is crazy expensive currently and I’m sure the actual Spring Break locations are as bad.
Not that I’ll be willing to fly in 2021.
Some folks (in Hawaii but possibly elsewhere) have rented u-hauls because they are cheaper than car rentals.
Brian
going to alaska and got a decent rate for a car. $100 per day which is way lower than I expected
Wow, this is a disaster for me! I have a very competent and trustworthy mechanic in another town who used to be able to provide a loaner car. But it became increasingly unavailable, and he told me he was considering getting rid of it altogether because of the exorbitant insurance cost. So my standard routine whenever I had my car in for maintenance was to just rent something for a day or two and consider it part of the cost of car maintenance. It was no big deal – I believe the full retail cost of renting something like a VW Jetta was around $35 a day, and there was always an excuse to get that knocked down a lot.
So $300 a day – and $100 a day being considered cheap – wow!! I’m just so glad that my 16-year-old Chrysler Sebring is so reliable. It’s needed no maintenance other than oil changes since long before the COVID pandemic.
We almost decided to drive our own car to our destination instead of flying, in part because of the rental cost and in part because of the resurgence of COVID. If we could have gotten a full refund on our tickets we probably would have.
On the other hand I expect the shortage is responsible for Hertz and Boston-Logan just handing out the first available car to the next customer in line. We’d booked a small compact and got a Chevy Trailblazer.
Rates are still crazy, for sure.
For fun, I just looked at costs to rent an economy car for a week starting this Saturday (hypothetical only, no travel plans). The cheapest was 455 for a week. Which isn’t as bad as 100 a day but isn’t far off.
Then I tried for a week in December (mid-month) and the cheapest was 545. Even looking at hypothetical dates next spring, it’s close to 500 for a week.
We tend to rent intermediate cars or small SUVs, just because they are more comfortable. THOSE all start at 100 a day. I’m glad we got our new car last fall - at least we have something available for road trips now.
Talk about short term ideas selling off most of your rental cars during a single slow year.
Well, the chip shortages leading to new car shortages were kind of surprise for most people. If new car prices and availability hadn’t been affected, that would probably have been a very cost effective move.
Are high rental car costs here to stay? Once chip availability catches up–Or is that unlikely?–won’t supply increase and eventually catch up with demand? Would that bring down prices for rentals and new cars, or will rental agencies continue to charge high prices because they can get them? At what point do exorbitant rates for rental cars price people out of the market?
This is a huge question in my mind, and I have yet to find informed opinions. Prices right now are ridiculous. I mentioned renting a Jetta a few years ago for about $35 a day when my car was in for maintenance (that was full retail price). I just checked the same place and it’s now over $132 a day. This changes my whole approach to how I do car maintenance. At $35 a day or less I could just consider it to be a small premium on the maintenance cost. At over $132 it’s a non-starter, especially for work that takes a couple of days.