Rental Cars & Reservations...

jsstevens

jsstevens

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jsstevens
I rented a car today for a trip my wife & I are taking in August. I used Kayak to find the car, which came from Enterprise. I went to Enterprise's web site to see if the deal was better and they claim no cars are available at that location to rent. But Kayak, via Priceline, rented me a car from Enterprise. I've used Kayak before and never had a problem with not getting a car but this leaves me puzzled. Does Priceline pre-reserve cars somehow?
 
Rental cars in certain areas are almost impossible to get right now. The industry is a mess, from what I read. Trying to book at car in Orlando and it's always booked.
 
The rental companies liquidated inventory into a scarce supply used car market and the manufacturers have short supply due a a chip shortage.
 
Clip4 said:
The rental companies liquidated inventory into a scarce supply used car market and the manufacturers have short supply due a a chip shortage.
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And there's a chip shortage because people are using them for Bitcoin mining. And people are mining Bitcoin because car makers (namely Tesla) have been buying Bitcoin.
 
Were you reserving at an fbo or in town?

The Enterprise website will say no cars available if you pick a location the system doesn't like. It's especially a problem with fbo locations, and they have an older website that works better for fbo's.

Also, some locations are temporarily closed. I tried to get a car from the south Champaign office and got the "no cars" message. Found out the south location was closed and being serviced by the location on the other side of town, and reserving a car there was no problem.

Locations with limited hours will cause the same error. The Champaign airport location is only open a few hours around when the regional jets arrive. If you try to reserve outside those hours you get the no cars thing again. Their website is kind of a pain.
 
Try the Turo app, or something similar. Usually cheaper with nicer stuff.
 
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I reserved at Missoula airport. We’re flying (sh!) commercial.
 
Heard today that some hotels are adding additional 1-2% for using a credit card.

Gonna get worse before it even starts to get better.
 
I was traveling last week and all hotels said they will hold a reservation only until 6pm. I asked what was the sense of me making a reservation.??
 
Maybe the system didn’t update with the third party sites. I’ve had good luck with calling the location even though online it says they have no availability. They’ll get you a car. I transport cars for Hertz. We do a bunch of runs to get cars to different locations based on their needs. I just dropped off a soft top Wrangler to Southampton because some guy wanted to rent one for the whole summer.
 
wsuffa said:
Heard today that some hotels are adding additional 1-2% for using a credit card.

Gonna get worse before it even starts to get better.
Click to expand...

Some airline terminal restaurants are adding a 3-4% COVID "fee". Must be nice to have a virtual monopoly.
 
jsstevens said:
I rented a car today for a trip my wife & I are taking in August. I used Kayak to find the car, which came from Enterprise. I went to Enterprise's web site to see if the deal was better and they claim no cars are available at that location to rent. But Kayak, via Priceline, rented me a car from Enterprise. I've used Kayak before and never had a problem with not getting a car but this leaves me puzzled. Does Priceline pre-reserve cars somehow?
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Have you tried letting the FBO make the arrangements? They will usually have the car on the field for you then.
 
Piles of rental cars at MSP this week.

Not sure if this is a rental car or a roller skate though. Ha.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Have you tried letting the FBO make the arrangements? They will usually have the car on the field for you then.
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We're flying commercial, so no.

And I have a confirmation number, etc. What I don't understand is why Priceline can get a car from Enterprise when I couldn't.
 
Flew down to Destin (DTS) a few months ago and reserved a car through Go Rentals. They tracked our flight on FR24 and pulled the car right up to the plane when we landed. Awesome experience.
 
jsstevens said:
We're flying commercial, so no.

And I have a confirmation number, etc. What I don't understand is why Priceline can get a car from Enterprise when I couldn't.
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I think that yes sometime of these companies have a pre-defined block, like they do with hotel rooms. Not 100% sure about the cars though.
 
Now watch out for the price for rental cars. I've got one reserved for a couple weeks in September on Kauai for just over $2000. We'll see if I can get a better deal elsewhere. And then last month I called Hertz to rent a car for a couple days in Scottsdale, AZ and they quoted me over $600. For 2 days! I told them I wanted to rent it, not buy it. We took Uber, instead. Much less money.
 
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