I find myself renting A LOT of cars, always with National Rentacar. Frankly, they are outrageous compared to my lease payment. LAX has just imposed an almost 50 dollar tax per week on rentalcars. I’m going to be renting a lot of cars in the coming months, if anyone has any suggestions I am open to them. I haven’t used Turo or anything like that yet as I’m National Executive and they have pretty good service.
I’ve always used National. Good selection of cars, usually in great shape, and decent rates. Mind you, I’m not paying for 90%+ of my rentals so I rarely even look at the bill…
I’ve heard Turo is a mixed bag and not significant savings.
I have found renting thru Costco the smoothest experience and typically always the lowest overall price.
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If you know your travel plans are set in stone I usually do Priceline name your own price. Worked great every time.
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I’ve also done Hotwire. Sometimes it works out great…other times, meh. For example once I rented a full size sedan and they sold out, so Sixty gave me a Mercedes SUV. The other time I ended up in a rolling dumpster.
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National is almost without fail the best, especially if you have executive status. It is usually more expensive though, especially during the week. Costco rental deals are solid, usually Alamo ends up being the cheapest through Costco and their service is hit or miss. I normally only go that route if Costco is 25% cheaper than National. I don’t mess around with hotwire or prepaid rentals since I find the savings not worth the reduced flexibility and generally worse cars but that is totally personal preference and if you are booking last minute (say right before getting on flight flexibility might not matter).
As for LAX fees, only way to avoid that is to rent off airport. Take Uber to closest place or find Rental agency with location in a hotel that also has a free airport shuttle. Really all about value of your time. I did this when I was a poor student but would never do it now that I have a job and my time is worth something.
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+1 on Costco for lowest price. No penalty on no show which is also nice.
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I’ve been using Turo and wouldnt go back. The limitation is that they arent available in all markets.
silvercar is a good alternative
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Try Sixt, great selection of cars for the money.
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They can be most expensive or cheapest. Need to find their discounts, which is a bit challenging.
Another Costco renter here.
I second Sixt, sometimes you can get a really high end luxury car for the price of a corolla
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I’ll sing the praises of Turo.
I was in LA for 36 hours for a job interview this fall and rented myself a McLaren MP4-12C for my stay, and it amazing…Turo process, the car itself, everything.
I contacted the owner via text to see if I could rent it since I was 29 (said it required 30 years old) - he was cool with it. Landed, grabbed an Uber to where the car was, spent 15 minutes going over the car, and then I was off. I put on about 180 miles in the 36 hours, eventually dropped it off at the “Turo” spots near the airport and was gone. Some of the best $250 I’ve ever spent.
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Costco usually has really good deals, you can also search on Flyertalk forums and see if any of the codes posted there work. Sixt usually offers good deals and nice cars. Companies like Avis and Hertz are usually not competitive for normal consumers because most of their business is corporate.
+1 for Costco.
Also, i have added my name in Hertz friends and family program. (a friend of mine is Hertz employee)
That program has comparative prices(sometimes cheaper than Costco)
Do they do international? I tried and they did not show anything, just a message to call.
A recent travel blog did a comparison of the different rental car discounters. Represents, pretty close my experiences. Costco is good some of the time, but Autoslash usually wins out in the areas I rent.
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I’ve scored some nice deals thru autoslash.
cool! I’d never heard of autoslash but I’m definitely going to check it out!