Saturday, August 31, 2013

I'm a bit tired of being fleeced

Priceline was going to charge me $200 for a compact rental car for a week - and almost $90 of that was "taxes & fees" (!).  Don't think so, Scooter.

A quick trip through the search engines brought me to Booking Buddy, which has a clever search where it pops up 3 or 4 windows, each of which use a single travel site (Expedia, Hotwire, etc) to look for deals.  I got an Intermediate car for $122 for the week, which includes $65 in "taxes and fees".

But dang it all, I'm more than a little bit ready to just check out of the whole travel scam - a movable Galt, if you will.  I don't have a choice on this trip, but this is just example #4,982 on why I don't ever want to go anywhere that's not on my own wheels ...

3 comments:

Dave H said...

I read a suggestion somewhere that clearing your cookies or using anonymous mode on your browser can get you lower airline fares. I wonder if that would work for car rentals too.

B said...

Skip the online bookers. You can usually get a better price (or at least as good) from the car dealer or hotel websites. They'd rather give you a discount that give the online retailers the 20% cut.

Chris said...

Get yourself an Avis preferred card, I have NEVER had any problems and that includes getting a car for a one way trip in Orlando at 3pm on a week day. I think I get rates of under $25 a day any time I rent.