Why is car rental in the US so much cheaper when booking from outside the US?

10/9/2012 4:01:42 PM

Note: simply booking on the rental company European website is usually cheaper than the American website. First you get liability insurance automatically included (while in California for example it is not included if you don’t ask), and the final price is cheaper than what you would pay on the American website.

I cannot tell if European residency is required (how strict they enforce these rules) since I used a French ID and driver licence to pick up the car.

Also, I think it is still cheaper to go through a broker.

10/9/2012 12:38:46 PM

Car Hire 3000 are a broker, not a rental company. You’ll end up with a car from a regular car hire company.

The way that Car Hire 3000 (amongst others) work is to do opaque deals you won’t know. You won’t know from which company you’ll get the car until you complete the booking. It might be from someone big like Hertz or Avis, or it could be from someone small, you just don’t know*. Much as with a lot of the opaque brokers in the travel industry, they get good deals because they allow companies to sell off surplus rooms/seats/cars/etc without affecting their regular pricing. The downside for you is you won’t know who you’re buying from until you’ve bought, only the basics of what you’ll be getting.

* If you ring up Car Hire 3000 to make the booking, they may let slip which rental company it’ll be, during the call when running through the different options. For smaller locations, you can also often work it out by deduction – if Car Hire 3000 offers pickups from Downtown, Airport and Station, and the place only has one company at each, then you can work it out that way!

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

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.

Search Posts

Latest posts

Popular posts