Has something changed with renting a car through Costco? I haven't rented from them for about a year, and the prices I am getting aren't discounted at all. I can get the same prices through the car companies websites. Is Costco no longer the best place to rent, or am I missing something? It doesn't ask for my member info at all, seems like it used to.
No one place is the best. Check other rental discount code sites like rentalcodes.com . Also before you book, check rates on hotwire.com . Once you've found what you think is the best rate, throw a bid in on priceline.com that is LOWER than the best rate you found. You never know, some real low rates come up on there from time to time.
casey81 said: Has something changed with renting a car through Costco? I haven't rented from them for about a year, and the prices I am getting aren't discounted at all. I can get the same prices through the car companies websites. Is Costco no longer the best place to rent, or am I missing something? It doesn't ask for my member info at all, seems like it used to.
I'll reply to the original post . . . yeah, I had the same basic problem. Last December (2011) we needed to rent a number of cars in Northern California, over the period of a few weeks and from different airports, and every single time the Costco rate blew away the others. They were always lower than Hotwire -- yes, I know we could try and Priceline it -- and always lower than CarRentals.com. This year, the prices we were getting from Costco were significantly higher than the other sites. I don't know if it's because they're a little limited in terms of which car companies they use -- Dollar blew away EVERYONE else on a couple of one-way rentals we needed -- or if it's the limitations of their offers, but we consistently find lower prices either through CarRentals or the actual company.
It's too bad 'cause we were always getting our Alamo rentals -- second driver no charge -- through Costco but it's not the same.
So, yes . .something's changed. WHAT's changed? No idea. But we are experiencing the same thing.
I've needed to rent a car on weekends at least three times so far in 2013. Costco handily beat everyone else's deal for me. Of course, this has to do with dates, locations, etc. They were applying a free weekend day coupon and a 25% discount on Avis rentals and those were the best prices I could fine.
For one particular weekend, Costco had the highest prices the first time I searched. Two weeks later, they were the lowest. As Travelingalot said, try various sites. Revisit on a regular basis. In Vegas, the price dropped by half between my original booking and the one I eventually ended up using. That rate came up the week of the trip.
Thanks to all. Nice to know its Costco and I'm just not screwing it up. It's a shame about Costco though, used to be so easy. They were always the lowest. I will keep checking and try the other options suggested. I agree that Budget is the only one on Costco that seems to be at a discount.
I rent cars through Costco all the time. I am renting twice in the next month through them. I find that they ususally offer the best prices when you book really early. There are also some markets that are cheaper than others "ie" I rented a car from 12/27-1/5 in Pensacola and returned it in Orlando for $395. Had I booked the same car in Orlando for the same amount of time the price was double. Prices also fluctuate. If you don't like the price they offered; check back it may change. I have always found their prices cheaper than going through the car companies themselves.
Thanks dhorber. Thats the problem I was having. Originally tried for a car from Ft. Myers returning to Orlando. It was almost $900! I could buy a car for that. I've given up on that and am now just staying in Orlando. Cheaper but still no deals. The Costco prices seem the same as on the car rental sites. What company did you have from Pensacola to orlando
In general, I find the Costco partner deals not as good as they make them out to be, and the ones that seemed good (Capital One savings) go away. I looked at their air conditioner deal a few months back, and you had to buy top of the line models and fancy thermostats to get them, spend a LOT more money in total to get small savings.
mrlemm said: its really hit or miss with Costco, their promotions change every 2 weeks. Sometimes they have great deals, sometimes they dont.
Also, keep in mind, when you book in advance (30 days or more), the rates are always cheaper.
Not necessarily.
My rates always seem to drop in the days before a rental. On a Florida trip I booked a few months out. Rates went down almost $100 in the two weeks before the trip. I checked every couple days and would cancel and rebook at lower rate. Sometimes they dropped a couple times a day.
Try this website http://www.carrentalsavers.com/ .couple of times, I got a better rate on this site ,than the usual Priceline and Hotwire where they are not going to tell what company etc...
IDK - I was in Vegas 02-05FEB13, booked Alamo via Costco directly through costcotravel.com. My price for an Intermediate for that period was $54 & change while others were $30 more expensive.
Costco Car rental rates are outrageous for my trip.
MIA two weeks drop off MCO FL...
Costco are charging over $350 MORE, but using the same codes directly on ALAMO I got a discount off the existing cheaper price of another $40...
So what we have is either Costco has messed up the site, or they are jacking up the rates much higher to make a strong profit off a few sales instead of a small one off lots of sales.
$998, through Costco ALAMO $602 through ALAMO using Costco codes (they just dropped it forty)...
evilcart said: So what we have is either Costco has messed up the site, or they are jacking up the rates much higher to make a strong profit off a few sales instead of a small one off lots of sales.
You are giving Costco too much credit; they are at the mercy of the promotions offered by the car rental companies.
If you have been paying attention, the economy is getting better, more people are traveling, there has been further consolidation in the car rental business (Hertz now owns Dollar-Thrifty; Enterprise owns Alamo and National; Avis owns Budget), allowing rental companies to increase rates - simply because they can...
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