For trips when we needed to rent a car, I had become complacent while searching for the best prices. Although I had written about ways to find the lowest price, I had simplified my searches to just three steps:
- Find a baseline price with Kayak
- Submit information to Autoslash
- Make sure my corporate rate wasn’t lower
I then booked my car, usually with Autoslash. Of course, there were times during the pandemic years when my corporate rate was lower than any other price. And on a recent rental, the price from Kayak was lower than anything that Autoslash found.
PC: Nick Youngson / Picpedia.org via Alpha Stock Images / CC BY-SA 3.0
That got me thinking. Is my “system” working, and am I really finding the lowest price? The only way to find out would be to put in the time and check all the different ways to book a car and compare the prices.
The Methodology
While I wanted to find the “lowest” price, I wasn’t willing to spend hours on end checking every possible discount code. I needed a four-day rental from Atlanta, so my search was limited to a single search for a set date. I also wanted to pay at the time of the rental, so I excluded pre-paid prices from my search. I picked an Intermediate car for this search.
Searching for the best price
I started my search with Kayak. I also asked for prices from Autoslash. Both of them showed the lowest price, from a company we’d be willing to rent from, was with Thrifty.
My Autoslash email showed a link to Thrifty on Priceline for $233. This is the same price I found with Expedia. Kayak’s price was close to $280, so I closed that browser window.
Searching directly on Thrifty’s website showed a price of $248.
Then I searched on BJ’s Travel website. The price was a little lower than the other sites, coming in at $222.
Finally, I searched the AAA website with their discount code, and the price went down to $216. AAA claims to have an 8% discount with Thrifty, along with other perks. You can either book through AAA or with Thrifty and use the CDP code associated with your AAA branch.
Summary
My previous method of finding the best car rental prices may not have been as effective as I thought. By conducting a more thorough search this time, I was able to find a lower price through AAA’s website using their discount code. Moving forward, I’ll consider exploring different booking methods and discount codes to ensure I’m getting the best deal possible.
However, it took me over one hour to search all the different websites, and for all my work, I only saved $17 over the price I found with Autoslash. Since the price difference is so small, it might be worth my time to take the easy route. I’m still going to track the rental with Autoslash, in case they find any lower prices before the trip.
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