Sam sent me this interesting was of cutting one way car rentals. We have remeoved the name of the US based company, but they are not trying harder, if that helps. And his follow up email gives an even more intriguing idea of pitting one country location against another countrys site for best rate guarantees.Thanks Sam
Rick-
I read about your frustration over rental car drop charges-they drive me nuts too. I have been chasing a reasonable price for a 4 day rental from Boston to EWR in November but everything was nuts-the best I found was $380 with National for four days. Hertz was over $700.
I read about your frustration over rental car drop charges-they drive me nuts too. I have been chasing a reasonable price for a 4 day rental from Boston to EWR in November but everything was nuts-the best I found was $380 with National for four days. Hertz was over $700.
I came here to France a few weeks ago and when I went to one of the travel sites (I forget which one-like Travelocity or Expedia), it took me automatically to the French version-like travelocity.fr instead of travelocity.com. I entered my Boston-EWR rental dates and-bingo-a major US rental car company showed up with a very good fare. I jumped to the xxxxx France site-www.xxxxx.fr (not) and tried to book my trip. Bingo-It came up cheaper for a full week (which is better for me) than National’s 4 days. I even entered my AAA discount code and got the AAA 10% off. However, when I entered my xxxxx #1 number, the whole thing reverted to US rates. So I started over, re-entered everything (including AAA), listed my real name, address, etc., a different email address from the one I use for xxxxx #1 (just to be safe), left out any xxxx #1 info and got the cheaper rate.
Two potential catches:
1. The France xxxxx website is in French (duh) but it mirrors the US site so if you’ve booked on xxxx.com, you should be able to book on xxxxx.fr. Or you can open a window on both and just mirror the US fields as you go along.
2. My email confirmation for the final reservation has language in French that they may ask for proof that you were overseas (like a hotel bill), and that if you weren’t in the country where you booked it, they can the void the reservation. I’m ok with that here since I am in that country (and I can prove it), and I’m keeping that National res open just in case. I did not read the warning language to say anything about continuity-I didn’t see anything prohibiting booking a xxxxx res now from xxxxx.fr for a rental I’ll pick-up four months after I get home. I’ll have my email confirm with me at pick-up and while my French isn’t great, it’s likely better than the xxxxx counter person in Boston.
1. The France xxxxx website is in French (duh) but it mirrors the US site so if you’ve booked on xxxx.com, you should be able to book on xxxxx.fr. Or you can open a window on both and just mirror the US fields as you go along.
2. My email confirmation for the final reservation has language in French that they may ask for proof that you were overseas (like a hotel bill), and that if you weren’t in the country where you booked it, they can the void the reservation. I’m ok with that here since I am in that country (and I can prove it), and I’m keeping that National res open just in case. I did not read the warning language to say anything about continuity-I didn’t see anything prohibiting booking a xxxxx res now from xxxxx.fr for a rental I’ll pick-up four months after I get home. I’ll have my email confirm with me at pick-up and while my French isn’t great, it’s likely better than the xxxxx counter person in Boston.
Another interesting side of this would be to see if any of the big US rental companies has a Best Price guaranty, then go back and work the outside US websites against the US ones. That’s maybe a bit greedy–nah, it’s just frugal, right?
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