I know most of you already know about Autoslash, but my friends and family probably don’t, so this will be a primer for them. Has bowties written an article about this? Let me Google it. Aww crap, he has. So just PAUSE this post and go read his very thorough post. Then come back for my story. I’ll wait….
Here’s what I do to rent a car.
Step 1 – Don’t book on Hotwire or Priceline. Just go to www.carrentals.com and find who has the cheapest rate from a national carrier like Hertz, National, Budget. Don’t bother spending more time price shopping or finding cheap codes. I don’t even bother with shopping portals. That’s because #3 will take care of it.
Step 2 – Reserve the cheapest rate from step #1. Make sure you are not pre-paying and locking in your price at the time of booking. You want to make a reservation w/o paying.
Step 3 – Go to Autoslash and enter in your booking. THAT’S IT!
Then eventually, you’ll get an email like this (this was 3 weeks before my actual booking). So that’s why you shouldn’t waste your time with step #1 because Autoslash will eventually find you a cheaper rate and rebook you without you having to do anything. I’m actually 3 for 3 so far of them eventually finding me a lower rate than my initial booking.
Edit – Autoslash actually found this post (do they also MS?) and notified me that you can skip step #1 and just book from them directly at http://www.autoslash.com/quote. I agree with them sorta because if you believe step #3 will eventually get you the lowest rate, then step #1 doesn’t matter. However, they are not allowed to show rates from the big national companies, but they can re-book them via step #3. I like to do #1 just to see what the rates are initially. I’m not sure if Autoslash gets a bigger referral at #1 or #3, but whatever, I like them and trust in step #3, so will initially book from them going forward. p.s. If I didn’t make it clear, I get NOTHING in return from them. I’m just telling you about the tools I use when I travel.
This is interesting, were you able to find another quote on your own to see if AutoSlash came in lower? I wonder if it was significantly lower then trying it the traditional way.
During the first booking, I could not find anything cheaper than $70, and hence I booked it for $70. The thing with Autoslash is that it keeps checking daily(?) to see if there is a better rate and books you. There is no way I a) could have found $57 initially and b) kept checking daily rates to find the lowest rates. This works because the car rental industry hasn’t implemented ‘pay in advance rates.’ I wish there was a hotel equivalent for this too.
I’ve always been a little skeptical of AutoSlash, because I’m not sure what these booking flip-flops do with regard to things like free additional drivers or CDW that you might get with one vendor vs. another. That sort of thing has value, but isn’t reflected in the basic “price.”
I think if you value those items (additional drivers, CDW, loyalty program), then you are probably best off finding a discount code and using it directly on the vendor’s site. I think most people probably don’t care about those things and just want the cheapest rental; they’ll deal with those logistical items upon pickup of the rental (choice of card to use to get primary or secondary insurance.)
Fair enough … just mentioning that the “cheapest rental” equation changes pretty fast when you’re standing at the desk and find out you’ve gotta spring an extra $15/day so your spouse can drive. Probably won’t change the equation, but easy to overlook and worth consideration.
No, you make a good point. I guess if the extra driver is important, the person should check what the policies are with every rental company and maybe not use Autoslash if the “cheapest” also charges the MOST for that add-on.
Yeah it seems to me that they might sometimes apply coupon codes that I wouldn’t otherwise be eligible to use. I called once to confirm a booking with the rental company since the autoslahed-rebooked res didn’t show. They said the coupon was something crazy like a substitute teacher rate and that id need to prove it up.
I ended up cancelling that one anyway. I’ve never actually had a problem in practice… Only good things… but YMMV
Wow, that’s the first I’ve heard of them doing something like that. I thought they were only looking at public rates. Definitely a good watch-out.
I have even better news for you… You can skip the process of booking at another site entirely. Just go to http://autoslash.com/quote and enter your details there. In less than 30 minutes, you’ll get an email quote with the best discounted rates AutoSlash can find for your rental and it will include ALL companies. Hope this helps! 🙂