Orlando Car Rental Prices are UP!

Edited: March 9, 2018, 12:19 PM

We are booking our annual vacation in May and I am in a bit of sticker shock with the car rentals.

Usually we book with Alamo and we get a Full or Premium car for nine days....

So we did the usual checking around for prices BJ's wholesale car rental also tried using employment company discount codes and they are all really high...

Last year around the same week in May we paid $260 for nine days premium car at Alamo. Same car type this year is over $500.00 And the Full size is $460.
For the Standard or Mid size it is $380.

I do enjoy renting a premium car since I am on vacation and I want something better than my daily drive.

We understand supply and demand but these are huge differences.

We have also looked at other rental companies and same thing, very high this May.

Anyone else having the same issues?
Thx...

Replies (4)

March 9, 2018, 2:42 PM

I have noticed, yes. I have memberships with all companies, I used to automatically use dollar. Now I look around.

March 9, 2018, 3:59 PM

Brian, we are planning a trip for next Easter,2019, but have taken a look and they do seem higher then what I expected. I use a slightly different approach to what I am planning on renting in that I try to get something I would consider as my next Vehicle purchase. This allows me a 9 - 10 day test drive with a good mix of city and highway and gives a good idea as to how thirsty its going to be.

March 10, 2018, 8:13 AM

Without trying to get overly political, this is partially how FL gets away with not having a state income tax. Revenue needs to be raised to pay for services used by Floridian and visitor alike. FL is a huge state so they have to get the money from somewhere.

Unfortunately for visitors (fortunately for Floridians), they have high taxes and fees on tourism. I am not saying that they should or shouldn't, but this is how the state collects revenue.

Edited: March 12, 2018, 9:06 AM

Anthony - I agree that Florida often takes budget issues out on the Visitors.

But I keep the last few years of screen shots of what we booked and paid for Hotel, rental car, tickets....

I was a bit shocked to see I paid $260 Premium car last year at Alamo to the $500 same car type this year...

I did find do other car rentals in Orlando (MCO airport) that are more reasonable but that all have really bad reviews on trip Advisor. There was one called Fox and one called EZ rental... The Fox one has some horrible reviews plus you have to take a shuttle off site...

We have always had great luck using Alamo and the have decent cars. Adversely is the past 11 years going to Orlando we have used Dollar and Budget. Both of them gave us some small issues like the car had 40K miles and tires needed to be replaced real soon...

We have been looking to offset some things like leave one day earlier.
The flights are cheaper to leave the day before we were planning, plus that is one less day at the Sheraton Resort which is another -$180.. And of course, one less day of car rental for a total of about $450 in savings...

Trying to talk myself into staying that one last day but I can't ignore this above mentioned saving's to stay one extra day...

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