I was about to book an Automatic rental car with AC for one week through one company who were charging only 195Eu total. I went to book it and the increased their price to 320Eu for the same thing. OUCH. I see on other sites, they are charging 280Eu.
Do you think I should wait and hope to get a better deal or should I book now before those other rental sites go up too? I'm going to fly over to Ireland in 3 weeks.
Thanks!
Some will say this doesn't work but I had the same experience with a car hire company, Hertz, whereby I checked the price, did a search on other companies and then a couple of days later went to book the Hertz one and it'd shot up in price.
I decided not to book it at all. But the same day, for a different reason I deleted the cookies on my computer then changed my mind and went to book the Hertz one.
This time it showed the original price, so I booked it straight away.
I can only put it down to the cookies. Maybe it was something else but I'm not sure.
Try to delete your cookies and then try it again and see what the price is. Maybe it'll work for you to.
I've been to the same website on 3 different computers, so I don't think it's the cookies. That would have been great though! :-)
Opting for an automatic will nearly always inflate the price. Try a consolidator such as Economy Car Rentals
You really pay more for an automatic, sometimes up to 50%. So if you can drive a manual, save yourself a few pennies.
I'd also recommend going with a manual if you are comfortable driving it.
Automatics are more expensive by between 20 and 30% normally but as the supply of automatics is more limited in Ireland the gap widens as you get closer to your travel dates in summer.
Try a travel agent also, they sometimes have fixed rates that can then be better value if the online price is getting very high
With 3 weeks until you fly it is a hard one to call. Cars in the rental market in Ireland are in short supply this year. I'd shop around for a day or two more and then probably take it.
A couple of things which may bring the price down:
virtually all cars in Ireland are manual, if you feel comfortable driving a manual car, go for it
Air con is not really required in Ireland, it never really gets that warm :-(. If AC happens to be in the car then great, but I certainly wouldn't pay extra for it.
happy motoring