Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well. A few weeks ago, I wrote PSA: Rental Car Rates are Sky High, Book ASAP where I talked about the crazy high rental car rates and how I use AutoSlash to find cheaper car rentals. On May 27, I booked 2 rental cars in Lihue and Kona, Hawaii and AutoSlash has already found me rates that are $400 cheaper (after only 2 weeks of searching). In this post, I will show you my rental car savings and share my best practices. For my first rental in Lihue, I booked with Enterprise and the rate was $1,018.59.
I plugged in the details of the reservation into the AutoSlash Track a Rental page and received this confirmation email on May 27.
Less than 24 hours later, AutoSlash found me a rate that was $899.95, or $118.64 cheaper. As soon as I received the email, I clicked on the link to book a new rental car reservation.
Here is my new rental car reservation with Alamo for $899.95. I then cancelled my old rental car reservation with Enterprise and plugged in the new reservation details on AutoSlash so they could keep checking to find an even lower rate.
For my second rental in Kona, I booked with Dollar and the rate was $899.12.
I plugged in the details of the reservation into the AutoSlash Track a Rental page and received this confirmation email on May 27.
Roughly 2 weeks later, AutoSlash found me a rate that was $614.13, or $284.99 cheaper. As soon as I received the email, I clicked on the link to book a new rental car reservation. As you can see, this email came at 10:53pm, so you never know when the AutoSlash emails will arrive.
Here is my new rental car reservation with Dollar for $614.13. I then cancelled my old rental car reservation with Dollar and plugged in the new reservation details on AutoSlash so they could keep checking to find an even lower rate.
With very little work (at least on my side), I was able to rebook 2 rental car reservations and save $400 (actually $403.63). I still have almost 2 months to go before I pick up my rental cars in Hawaii, so there is still plenty of time for AutoSlash to find cheaper rates. Here are some AutoSlash best practices:
- Track every rental! Even if you think you got the best rate ever, AutoSlash might surprise you with an even lower rate.
- Act fast! As soon as you get the lower rate email, book a new reservation right away before someone else snags the deal.
- Cancel your old rental car reservations so you don’t accidentally get hit with a no-show penalty.
- Update your AutoSlash tracking emails. Either update your existing rental tracker or cancel and submit a new rental to track.
- Print your final confirmation email and bring it with you when you pick up your rental car, just in case the rental car company tries to charge you more when you pick up your car.
If you have any questions about AutoSlash, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
How many days are these reservations for? I.e. what is the daily rate?
Hi HoKo, for Lihue, the rental is 6 days and the pre-tax weekly rate is $717.12. For Kona, is the rental 4 days and the all in price is $614.13 (Priceline is not showing the breakdown for this rental).
Thanks for this post, Grant. I had forgotten about the rental tracking step. We just arrived in Lihue yesterday. I booked with Hertz using Austoslash months ago and got a rate of $398 for 6 days, so I can’t complain. I was surprised to see people expecting to “walk up” and rent cars. I doubt that they will find any. We are staying at the Grand Hyatt. The place is full. As a Globalisit staying on points, they gave me an upgrade, but not much of an upgrade. I have a “pool view” on the ground floor, but can’t really see the pool. If we move the table on our lanai out a few feet onto the grass we can see the ocean. We are on the “shipwreck” side of the resort. The Club lounge is on the Poipu side, so it is a long walk to lounge.
Hi Gary, you got a great rate on Hertz! I had a pretty good rate until I changed my flights and needed to change my rental car reservation and that’s when I saw rates that were 2-3x higher. Sorry your Globalist status couldn’t get you a better room. What fun activities do you have planned / booked for Kauai?
Tomorrow we are taking the sunset dinner cruise with Lucky Lady (Kauai Sea Tours) out of Port Allen. Toady we went and saw Wailua falls, which is really cool. Tried to get into the free rum tasting at Koloa Rum, but they are operating on a first come first served basis, and we would have had to wait over an hour, so we will do that some other time. Also planning on bike riding along the coast near Kapaa, kayaking the Wailea River, visiting Waimea Canyon and Hanalei. We went to the luau last night at the Grand Hyatt, but it was not as nice as the one we had seen years ago at Lahaina on Maui.
Hi Gary, it sounds like you have a lot of fun activities planned during your trip. If you are looking for any other ideas, I highly recommend tubing down the old sugar cane channels (https://kauaibackcountry.com/tubing/) and off roading through Kauai (https://kiputours.com/utv-atv-tours/ranch-tour/). I will do some research on the things you have planned and see if we can do some of them. We will be spending a few days in Princeville, are there any activities up there that you recommend?
Grant, if you like to snorkel try Anini beach. I went snorkeling there for the first time in my life and loved it. A sea turtle swam right by me. As I was leaving, one of the locals told me about a spot where 5 turtles go to get cleaned off by fish. Schools of fish nibble the algae off the turtles. It is off the shore just slightly beyond where you can start to park.
I do live to snorkel so I’ll try to visit that beach :)
I agree! For our April 2021 reservation we saved $100 (on a $260 – 6 day reservation). But more significantly, in January 2020, we rented a full-size SUV for a month and the reservation started at $2000. But two days before picking up the car, the rate dropped to just over $1000 for that month. Thanks AutoSlash!
Hi Jeff, those are 2 great rental car deals! I’m glad AutoSlash was able to save you a lot of money :)
Hi Grant,
Is it possible to use an AutoSlash booking in conjunction with National’s Emerald Isle service?
Thanks!
Joe
Hi Joe, yes, I believe so. For Emerald Isle, as long as you put your National account number on the reservation, your reservation is still eligible for the Emerald Isle car choice.
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