For the first time in my experience, bidding for a rental car on Priceline.com did not return the best price. The price offered on Orbitz.com turned out to be better by about 20 percent. Lesson learned: Don’t depend on one site to always provide the best price.
When bidding for a rental car in Orlando, Orbitz listed a price for EZ Rent a Car of $16.28 a day plus taxes and fees. I assumed that EZ Rent a Car was off-airport and decided to bid for a car from Priceline.com.
After several experiences in Orlando and my penchant for getting to the airport at the last minute for my departing flight, I have always booked with a rental car company that has a presence at the airport. I have normally stuck with the major car rental companies that have desks at the airport rather than being faced with a bus ride from a distant lot back to the airport and opening times that are not convenient.
Anyone who has read my columns over the years, knows that I am a big fan of Priceline.com. I had no doubt that I could beat any published price by bidding for a lower rate.
In order to get the in-terminal convenience I was willing to pay a bit more. All of the majors (Alamo, Avis, Budget, Hertz, National) had listed prices of $33+. I bid $18 a day for the car through Priceline.com.
Amazingly, my bid was refused! I blinked, then changed the type of car and bid again. Again I was refused! They offered me a rate of $24. I decided that the convenience was not worth the additional $50+ over a three day period.
I then went back to Orbitz and discovered that EZ Rent a Car has an in-terminal location and was open 24 hours per day. I went ahead and confirmed the reservation.
Everything went smoothly and my EZ Rent a Car experience so far has been flawless.
If I were a betting man, I would have lost money on a bet that a Priceline bid would have yielded the best price. Sometimes the price on Orbitz beats anything you can find elsewhere on the Web; sometimes not.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,I just want to state a few inaccuracies in your report.Priceline participates with only 5 major rental car companies-Alamo,Avis,hertz,budget , national.
It does not participate with EZ link.So not fair to say that PL did not have the lowest price.
An analogy is — Southwest Air.It doesn’t participate with PL ,,so even though it can have lower rates than PL–we cant say that PL did not have the lowest rate.
In this case-You should have the checked the rates of the 5 rental companies PL has links with.Then you could have bid and got a reduced price on those 5 companies.
You should have compared only companies that have links with PL–be it either airlines/hotels/rental cars.
Thanks a lot for your info,news and opinions on travel.Learned quite a bit from your website.
The price is the bottom line. Priceline did not have the best price period. There may be lots of reasons or various compaines, but their bidding process which has never failed me in the past, failed this time.