Rolling the Dice

I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite things about traveling (besides the actual traveling part, of course) is scoring great deals on everything from flights, to hotels, to rental cars. I get such a rush when I see that the flight I’ve been eyeing has dropped hundreds of dollars over night (this has happened quite a few times). Saving my family hundreds of dollars each trip ultimately means that we can go on more trips in the long run, and who doesn’t want that?

As I’ve mentioned before, I usually track prices through Kayak.com (for flights) and Hotwire.com (for rental cars). When it comes to a rental car, I’m not picky about the company I rent through, I just want the cheapest rental available, so Hotwire works perfectly for me.

I’ve been following prices for a few months now and a few weeks ago prices for a rental car were as high as $39 per day for an Economy car (that’s the cheapest category offered, and in my opinion, that’s an incredibly high price per day). As I continued to check prices over the last week they kept falling, falling, falling, now down to $15 a day. In fact, I could now book a convertible for the same price as an Economy just a few weeks ago–don’t worry, that temptation hasn’t gotten the best of me…yet.

I’m no rental car expert, but I assume that as the reservation date gets closer, the rental car companies want to clear out their inventory, thus slashing prices. So if you wait, you may save hundreds. Pretty cool, right?

(Of course, as always, there is a risk of inventory selling out which could put a damper on your vacation–always do what works best for you and your family.)

Do you like to roll the dice on prices? Or do you like to reserve right away so your plans are concrete?