Is there something like a matrix car rental search engine?

6/8/2014 5:48:42 PM

Here’s a list of sites that I know of. None of these are anywhere near as good as the flight search or hotel aggregators. For example, I recently tried to book a car from Dublin, Ireland and I had to search separately for each rental location in Dublin (i.e. Dublin airport, south city centre, north city centre etc) – there were over 15 locations, and I had to manually plod through each one. This is ridiculously inefficient! I’m really amazed that no smart developers have spotted this gap in the market. Also I’ve only seen one search engine that allows you to filter on extra like Free Additional Driver, Fuel return choices etc etc (www.economycarhire.com).

www.Kayak.com
www.skyscanner.net
holidayautos.co.uk
arguscarhire.com
www.economycarhire.com
expedia.com

Hope this helps

6/30/2012 5:22:41 AM

Most of the major travel websites such as Expedia and Travelocity will allow you to search multiple rental car companies in one search. My personal preference is Orbitz who display the results in a clean table of company v’s car size.

Where rental cars differ from airlines (and thus services like “matrix” that you’re referring to from ITA Software) is that they work far less on published prices, and far more on discounts, “corporate” codes, and coupons. The rates you’re going to get from any of the search engines above are generally not going to be as good as those that you’ll get directly from the rental car company using a discount code or a company code for something like AAA (if you’re a member), your airlines Frequent Flyer program, or even just a promo code or coupon listed on the rental companies website!

Personally I will normally use Orbitz to get a general feel for which of the rental companies is cheaper for the dates I’m after, and then head to those companies website and see if any coupons/AAA discount/etc will make the rate shown even cheaper.

And remember, most rental car companies do not charge to change/cancel bookings (except for pre-paid rates), and prices do change over time, so re-checking your rates as you get nearer to the booking can save you some real money!

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Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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