Negotiating With Enterprise Rental Cars
When I thought I was going to have to rent-a-car to get home from my US Air fandango, I followed my own advice and negotiated a $300.00 one way rental car down to $145.00
The Advice I took?
Skip The 800 Number:
If you call an 800 number your call goes to the rental car hub. The operators are hooked into a centralized computer and just hit the buttons. But, if you call directly to the rental car counter – and there happens to be a surplus of cars on the lot then you can play “Lets Make A Deal!”
And that is exactly what I did. I got online and got the phone number for the rental car counter in the Boston’s Airport. The price for any one way rental cars is painful. I only needed the car for 4 hours worth of driving and they wanted to charge me $300.00 dollars. At this point I was desperate to get home and actually thought about spending this outrageous amount of money so I could lay my head down on my pillow.
But then I remembered the last post I did on rental cars and made a phone call and talked the lad down to $145.00. Lucky for me the flight was canceled and Tracy my Hero got me a direct flight to Burlington and I didn’t have to spend and extra $145.00 or drive 4 hours in Boston’s rush hour traffic!
Have you ever negotiated a better price for a rental car?
September 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Wow you’re quite good at haggling lol
I work in the car rental business my self and let me tell you here (in Perth, Western Australia) it is more expensive to hire a bike for 1 hour than it is to hire a small car in the off season for one day.
That is very true to how you’re probably best to speak to the actual office rather than a central phone service. Car rentals are seasonal business and when its the quiet times you can really get your self a deal!!