Cheaper Rental Car Rates With This Hidden Feature

For a recent rental car search, I did my typical search with various discount rental car codes.

Here is the results list:

Demo of Hidden Feature to Get Cheaper Rental Car Rates
Cheaper Rental Car Rates: McCool Travel

Usually I find a satisfactory rate on a midsize (intermediate) car and reserve it. These rates are higher than I expected so I did a little more looking around.

Cheaper Rental Car Rates With This Hidden Feature

At the bottom of the screen there is a Display All link. Hertz, in this case, typically highlights the Intermediate class vehicle because it is what I usually book.

Demo of Hidden Feature to Find Cheaper Rental Car Rates
Cheaper Rental Car Rates: McCool Travel

Clicking Display All showed all available vehicles instead of the subset in the first results list.

Demo of hidden feature to find cheaper rental car rates
Cheaper Rental Car Rates: McCool Travel

On this complete results list, note that many of the vehicles do not show the rate. Instead, the user has to click the Select for Quote button.

I did this for a couple of the vehicles and found a substantially lower rate.

Of course I started with the convertible but that daily rate was over $100. The economy and compact cars were much less expensive than the intermediate rate.

I reserved the economy car for a total of $260 versus the intermediate rate of $380.

With my Hertz Gold membership, the likelihood is that I will show up and probably get an intermediate class car anyway.

No matter which car I get, I will have saved $120. That will likely pay for the gas and a couple of lobster rolls!

For more information on how to find cheaper rental car rates, please see the following posts:

McCool Travel note: these screen shots and this scenario are from Hertz.com. Features vary depending on the rental car company’s website. Your results WILL vary but this is a great feature to use to potentially get cheaper rental car rates.

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2 thoughts on “Cheaper Rental Car Rates With This Hidden Feature”

  1. Hello, Charles,
    Thanks for this. It’s good to know about the request for quotes. Have you ever done this type of comparison for european car rental companies?

    • The few times I have rented cars in Europe, I go through much the same process. I would definitely make sure I was looking at the entire inventory before making a reservation. I would also be sure to check European vendors (like Sixt) as well as any local or regional companies.

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