Are Costco car rental discounts reallly that good

I've been watching and re-booking for Chicago Midway (MDW) at Easter. Started out in the upper- $300's for a 5 day rental :ignore: Then, 2 or 3 weeks ago it started coming down, $20 or so at a time. I re-booked 7 or 8 times, the last at just $171 (full size) Yay! It levelled off, and was still at that price yesterday. Today? Best price is $382 !!!

I've seen some wild swings with Costco rentals in the past. But 123% increase in one day? Yowza!

-Bob

DavidnRobin said:

I have been looking at Costco and have not seen a drop below $300/wk for both OGG and LIH from mid-Aug to early-Sept for a basic car.

This is much, much higher than this time last year. Any hope for lower car rental prices?

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That's about what I'm seeing in that time frame, though I've currently got Alamo Premium car for $375 for 11 days. I expect it will be less in the next couple of months.


Sent from my iPad

I think there is a good chance for Maui to go down before your trip.

We booked the best deal, a standard SUV, Ford Edge or similar for 3/7-3/21, and it was $424 with taxes included through Budget/ Costco. I have little hope of a lower price because some of the car types are no longer available through some of the agencies. We really enjoyed the SUV on the Big Island in August. Rick took it off road a few times.

I have found Kauai to be a little more lately. It will be at least a year before we go back to Kauai, unfortunately. I am waiting for Wyndham Shearwater for any two weeks in 2016.

After looking for months the price finally dropped for my two weeks on Kauai
Starting May 6th. It was $390 total for an economy and today it dropped to
$270 total for a standard car. First time Enterprise was cheapest through Costco
For me.

I find just about anything affiliated with Costco to be a good deal. Gas, return policy, gym discount, RX prices, etc.

Yes Costco deals are better than anything else I have found.

Rented a minivan through Costco this past January. Three weeks in Palm Springs, airport pick up and drop off. $1245.00 all in.

Originally this was significantly cheaper, but unfortunately we had to change our dates about a month before departure. Following the advice on this thread I monitored the site daily but never saw a better rate then the two I booked. Both prices were significantly better than anything else I could find, including using my II platinum membership, Priceline, or any other web sites.

For next years trip I have booked 1 day from airport and the rest of the 3 weeks I have rented a 2nd van from an in town location. We will pick up the van on arrival at the airport, get to our timeshare, unpack, do a grocery run etc. then the next day we will rent a different van from a downtown location and drop off the airport unit. When we fly home, I will drop the gang at the airport then drive the minivan to the in town location and cab it back to the airport.This will save over $200.00.

Chris

costco

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to revisit it. Earlier I booked a trip and indicated that I got a better deal from autoslash than costco. So now as i am planning yet another trip to OGG I tried them both again. The best price I could get from a mid-sized from Costco/Alamo was $330 for my rental period. Autoslash got me Avis for $217 and since they check the rates daily it is possible it could go lower. Remember whatever the intial quote is from Autoslash is, it is just a preliminary quote. If they find a lower price, they will offer it to you. The thing I like about Costco is they offer a spouse as a free driver, but since I am an elite with most rental companies, I usually get that anyway.

ChrisandBeth said:

Canadians please note; Log onto Costco.com not Costco.ca.

The Candian website only offers Hertz and Avis and these are not great prices

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costco.com will work for canadian memberships?

Yes, am1, it does work. We used to use Costco a lot for car rentals, but we are no longer members. We do most of our rentals these days from Southwest. I book and rebook each time the prices drop.

Dori

I have used Costco but in the last couple of trips have received better deals with RCI and II. Recently I have used the Costco code for a couple of trips to Mexico by going to the Avis website and placing the code in the awd.

Our upcoming trip to Maui has RCI with the best rate as of now.

Bill

Interesting you get better rates from II and RCI. I use Costco for almost every trip and 99% of the time they have the bast rates - by far! I had a week in Orlando booked for this Thurs with them at $156. Just rebooked it at $105.

The car rental price listed in Costco website, at Kalispell airport still very high ($540) for 1 week rental .

Yes that is suitable in many cases. I completely agree with you on this point.

On our upcoming trip to San Diego the Costco price has not budged, up or down, since I booked it. For the first time, we will not be using them, unless something changes. Got a better price with Autoslash.

We've always used Costco as well, but the price for our upcoming Kauai rental likewise has not budged in months. The current prices at Discount Hawaii Car Rental are no better. I've never used Autoslash before, but am thinking of trying them out. For Autoslash, is it no charge to book and then cancel a reservation entirely (as opposed to rebooking at a lower price) -- in the event Costco's rates finally come down and beat Autoslash?

PDXGolfer said:

We've always used Costco as well, but the price for our upcoming Kauai rental likewise has not budged in months. The current prices at Discount Hawaii Car Rental are no better. I've never used Autoslash before, but am thinking of trying them out. For Autoslash, is it no charge to book and then cancel a reservation entirely (as opposed to rebooking at a lower price) -- in the event Costco's rates finally come down and beat Autoslash?

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With autoslash they will continued to monitor the rates for you, so if they go down again you should get that lower rate.

The way I did it was give them the information on the rental I'd booked with Budget through Costco. That was what they monitored and found a better price with Budget.

I'm 99.9999% sure you can cancel an autoslash reservation (since it's actually made through the car rental company) with no penalty. There is no charge until you return the car.

Thanks, Luanne. I went ahead and obtained a quote from Autoslash and it's currently about $145 less than the cheapest price on the Costco website! I am pleasantly surprised. And the email providing the quote confirms: "Reservations are free, and can be changed or cancelled at any time, for any reason, without penalty."

Price finally came down today from Costco for our July Maui trip. Was $329 for 9 days, now $250. I can live with that. Be sure to keep checking for lower prices.

Thank you for the autoslash suggestion. I need a car for Atlanta for july and prices are 250 an up... I just found that Expedia has great rates, if you use their services. On costco the car was 163 a week, on expedia I got it with 113 the day before I need it. Saved 40per.

iulika

Costco Canada vs. Costco US Site Car Rentals

My parents are in town visiting and are traveling to Calgary later this summer. I was telling them about booking through Costco as they do have a Costco membership in Canada. It wasn't easy finding the car rental link thorugh Coscto.ca, but we did find it and it takes you to https://www.carrentallocationdauto.ca. Where Costco.com takes you to www.costcotravel.com

We looked up the rates for their rental in Calgary on both sites. The Canadian site had a rate over $700 for their 10 day rental where the US site had a rate of about $500CAD. Why the difference? The booking engines look very similar but might be different. The price on the US site does have CAD listed by the rate and after booking, checking the Avis website also shows it as CAD $500. We were thinking perhaps it was a currency conversion issue, but it seems pretty clear that both rates provided are in Canadian dollars.

I was able to set them up for an account on costcotravel.com and after registering and logging in it does recognize and show my mother's full name at the top of the screen just like it shows mine when I am logged in to my account. So it recognizes her membership as when you register you only provide your last name.

So I am wondering why the difference in price? Is the US site perhaps applying some additional discounts that the Canadian site is not. The US site does spell out that it is applying a $30 coupon as well as up to 25% off where the Canadian site does not. It just does seem odd that it is giving different rates.

I don't know, but I'm guessing that the negotiated rates by Costco in Canada aren't as good as in the US so the US travel site is able to pass through the savings. I'm glad you were able to find a much better deal and take advantage of it.

Double check that the lower rates on the U.S. site are not in American dollars.

Dori

My week in Palm Beach just dropped $180. Glad to see it started dropping, I'll
Keep watching and hope it drops another $70. I have a mid-size reserved now.

Dori said:

Double check that the lower rates on the U.S. site are not in American dollars.

Dori

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We considered that, but both sites list CAD next to the price.

I have been tracking (daily for months) Costco auto rentals for 2 weeks (late-Aug to early-Sept) in Kauai and the prices are not moved. In the past there has been at least some movement.

I see above people are suggesting AutoSlash - while AutoSlash shows better rates (with ability to cancel). Any down side? Like showing up and not having reservations?
At least with Costco - I have a reservation in hand, but just show up for an AutoSlash reservation?