7

I know there are comparison rental tools like Kayak and Expedia, but I'm specifically thinking of a tool similar to Google Flight's flexible date matrix, where they'll show you the lowest prices for a matrix of different combinations of start and end dates.

I've found that with car rentals, the prices can change drastically just by booking a day earlier or later, or sometimes even just hours apart, to the tune of 50% price reductions, and doing this all manually is pretty time-consuming and error-prone.

To be clear, since this was closed out as a duplicate the last time I asked: I know car rental price comparison tools exist, but those only compare prices between agencies for a specific start-end date combination. I'm asking about whether something similar to Google Flight's flexible date tool exists, where you can get a sense for price changes across multiple start/end dates/times and durations, like so:

| improve this question | |
1

I don't think it exists, and probably because there is little need / support.

Car rental prices are typically constants per day and per week, with the price for the week being about five times the daily price. With that, it is relatively easy to do the calculations - shifting the start day has zero effect, and increasing the length gives every sixth and seventh day no or minimal price change.
On top of that are of course some company specific 'specials', those have all kind of rules that change all the time, and they are typically limited in duration. They are not always known in advance, so it is difficult to predict them.

So a matrix comparison would be often of little interest, and the specials are not accessible in any automated way (like for flights). Also, most people are bound with their dates from the flights they book.

| improve this answer | |
  • 3
    "shifting the start day has zero effect" - I actually have not found that to be the case at all, at least with National, even without advertised specials. Shifting the start/end dates 1 or 2 days, or even to different times within the same day, have led to massive price differences in my experience, on the order of 20-70%. – Johnny May 16 '18 at 18:12
  • 1
    +1 to Johnny. In particular, weekend rates are often wildly different from weekday rates. – lambshaanxy Jun 14 '18 at 6:35
  • 1
    As with @Johnny, my experience is that shifting the start-date can have a very significant effect. However, I've experienced a much wider range of rate differences, of up to 300%+ (Hertz), depending on start-date. There are often blocks of days which have a significant premium. If you avoid those, or more creatively schedule your start and end dates, you can get a significantly better rate. So, if you have the luxury of being able to adjust the day, and sometimes the time of day, you may be able to get significantly better pricing. – Makyen Sep 14 '18 at 17:12
0

No, such a tool does not exist as of 2018.

| improve this answer | |

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.