Jamie Reidy responds to car rental companies’ “offers.”
I had just booked a flight on the Virgin America website when these unsolicited offers from Avis and Budget rental cars popped up on the confirmation page.
Am I buying the fucking car or renting it for 72-hours? For more than $1100, that three-day weekend rental better come with a threesome with Chicago Bulls cheerleaders.
And how about Budget’s somehow looking good in comparison at “only” $769?
Holy shit, people, we’re in a recession.
Obviously they know you only want the most premium of Premium SUVs for your weekend. And, based on your last rental, they’ve taken the liberty of including the full damage waiver.
absolutely bizarre prices. is there a major event on at the time of the bookings?
still the good thing about the net now, is that you can hire a much cheaper car from a local rental firm online. even 5yrs ago, it was only mostly major players who had online booking facilities
Somebody in e-Marketing is getting a tongue lashing right about now. It has to be a database glitch somewhere. Should be $70-$85 per day for a standard.
Update: Just heard from Budget’s customer service.
Apparently, Avis does not try harder than Budget!
Those prices are weird. Just last month I did a 5-day rental in Los Angeles at Hertz (for a nice car) for about 300$ + gas.
Exactly. I knew it had to be some sort of mistake. I tweeted at both @Aviswetryharder and @BudgetRAC, so we will see what their response is!
One thing I’ve noticed when renting cars in the US recently is there’s often a big jump from the “standard” car to the next one up. Getting a just-a-bit-nicer car can be really expensive.
LOL Yikes! And here I was *JUST* about to rent a car to drive down to Austin from Chicago 🙂 May as well fly huh!??