Travel Tip - Priceline for Cars

Although I've had generally poor results with Priceline my car rental tonight went very well and saved me about $90. I've been looking for a few months for a good rate for our Philadelphia and Pennsylvania trip. We need to pickup and return at PHL and the best I've found so far was Hotwire at about $440. Kayak.com, my usual suspect for finding great rates, was about $600!

I started my priceline bid at $20 per day for 12 days and didn't get it, but the popup gave me another shot and my $22 bid (excluding taxes and fees) got accepted by Hertz.

Hmmm - in this case I knew the fees because I had them from the non-accepted 20 bid but not sure how Priceline informs you of fees if your initial bid is accepted.

As always you need to use *great caution* when booking cars because of these extra fees. Some services, like Kayak, include these in their "daily" quote but many car rental sites do NOT include the substantial fees until your final screens, and this can be confusing.

Your Offer Price:	$22.00
Total Rental Days:	12
Subtotal:	$264.00
Taxes & Fees:	$96.72
Total Charges:	$360.72

Here's the HOTWIRE Quote:
Rental days:

$29.95

Daily rate:

$359.40

Subtotal:

Tax recovery

$91.51

charges and fees:

$450.91