Bidding to rent a car pays off

By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff, 01/05/03

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Priceline and Hotwire, two of the most popular discount travel sites, have always been associated with an unacceptable level of uncertainty for many travelers.

The two Web sites cater primarily to flexible travelers, those who can purchase an air fare without knowing the airline or the flight times, or those who can book a hotel room without knowing the hotel or its exact location.

For families particularly, the potential savings from an incredibly low air fare were often outweighed by the risk of having to take off as early as 6 a.m., or arrive at a destination as late as 12:30 a.m. There was less risk associated with booking rooms, but still you were never quite sure what you were going to get.

With rental cars, the situation is quite different. You select what type of car you want, where you want it, and when. Both Web sites deal only with the major rental car companies, the only uncertainty being which one. Since a Hertz compact car is pretty much like an Alamo compact, what have you got to lose?

"That's the point," said Jon Douglas, news editor at Smarter Living Inc., a Cambridge travel information company. "Sites like Hotwire or Priceline scare a lot of people away because you have to give up some flexibility, but you don't have to give up much with rental cars."

What you do give up is the ability to cancel your reservation without penalty. As soon as you book a car with Hotwire or Priceline, your credit card is charged, and the reservation cannot be canceled or your money refunded. You also get no frequent-flier miles.

The best way to approach a car rental is to start with Web sites like Orbitz and Travelocity, which allow you to check prices at many car rental companies at once. I checked prices for a 15-day trip to Florida in March, and both sites listed Thrifty as the lowest-cost option for a compact car.

Both sites quoted a price of $189.75 a week plus $38.75 for the 15th day, but that didn't include taxes or fees. Travelocity promises total car pricing, so you know exactly what the total cost of the car will be before you book. I couldn't get that to work, however, so I went to the Thrifty Web site and was quoted a price of $543.51, including taxes and fees.

My next stop was Hertz.com. The price for a compact for the same 15-day period was $630.47, but a much more attractive $436.55 with my discount from the American Automobile Association.

I didn't have access to any other discounts, so I went to Hotwire.com and submitted my travel information. The site quoted me a price of $449.33 for the 15 days, which wasn't as good as the Hertz price with an AAA discount. (If the Hotwire price had been one I wanted, I could have accepted the deal, had my credit card charged, and then been told which company I would be dealing with.)

My last stop was Priceline.com. I fed in my travel information and then was asked how much I wanted to bid in dollars per day. I knew the discounted Hertz price was just over $21 a day, except for the 15th day, which was $25 a day. So I submitted a not particularly aggressive bid of $18 a day.

After less than 15 minutes, I checked and was told my bid had been accepted by Hertz, with the total price, including taxes, fees, and a Priceline processing fee of $5.95, coming to $375.79. That was nearly $168 less than Thrifty, $73 less than Hotwire, and nearly $61 less than Hertz with my AAA discount.

I immediately wondered whether I should have bid even lower.

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Golf bags OK

After a recent column about new baggage policies, Bob Sweeney of Hudson e-mailed me wanting to know whether golf bags would incur an $80 oversize fee because they are bigger than 62 linear inches (height plus width plus length added together).

For Sweeney and his wife, who take two to three golf trips a year, the fees would have added an extra $320 to a single round-trip golf trip. "I would think the airlines would be concerned about a loss of business with such policies," he said.

Sweeney is right. The airlines all appear to make exceptions for golf bags. American Airlines, for example, says golf bags are free in place of one of the passenger's two checked bags. Other items exempt from the oversize restriction include backpacks, bicycles less than 70 pounds and 62 inches, boogie boards, snowboards, skateboards, ski equipment, hockey sticks, and fishing equipment.

Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.