A year ago I shared my favorite travel hack – Autoslash for car rentals. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is basically a service that will track a car rental for you and when the price drops, it will either automatically rebook you at the lower rate or notify you so you can rebook at the lower rate yourself. I wanted to share the results I got from a year long tracking – check out this more detailed post on how to Autoslash works.
The Rental
Our family takes an annual ski trip out west each year and to get the ski in / ski out resorts on points, you have to book almost a year in advance. So last February 2017, I booked the Westin Whistler for President’s Day weekend 2018.
After securing flights to Seattle, I did a quick booking on Enterprise.com for a full size SUV (definitely needed for all of the ski gear). After heading over to Autoslash.com and entering the Enterprise details on the track rental tab, I let it do it’s thing. I don’t even remember what the Enterprise booking amount was – something like $600-$700.
Baseline Cost
Autoslash comes back pretty quickly – within a day or even a few hours with a lower price. The next day (April 8th) I received an email alerting me that a full size SUV with Sixt was $455.71. I quickly booked this and used it as my baseline price.
The initial email from Autoslash has more than one option so if you don’t like using a certain car rental company, it’s easy to avoid. I usually will avoid rentals that I need to take a shuttle offsite to pickup the car – but in this case at Seattle you have to take a shuttle to a complex that houses all of the car rental companies. I had used Sixt once before and didn’t have any issues.
Spring & Summer 2017
Nothing happened for a month until a got another email on May 1st that the same full size SUV with Sixt was down to $415.81. Autoslash automatically rebooked me at the lower rate since it was the same company.
Again nothing happened for two months until July and August saw a flurry of changes and lower prices. On July 8th, I got an email that Alamo was at $393.64, then July 14th Alamo had dropped to $367.32, then two weeks later it had dropped another $65 to $303.96.
A few days later on August 3rd it dropped again with Alamo to $276.05. Four days later on August 7th it again dropped to $260.70.
WOW was I impressed, I had started out at $455.71 and four months later I was down almost $200 to $260.70!
Fall 2017 & Winter2018
Nothing happened in September, October, November, December. I didn’t think it would go down anymore since it was getting so close to February and on a holiday weekend, but I was wrong. On January 14th, 2018 I got one more email that the price of my rental had dropped $25 down to $236.33! This ended up being my final update before our February 15th trip.
Total Savings
- 4/8/2017 – $455.71 (Sixt) – Baseline
- 5/1/2017 – $415.81 (Sixt)
- 7/8/2017 – $393.64 (Alamo)
- 7/14/2017 – $367.32 (Alamo)
- 7/29/2017 – $303.96 (Alamo)
- 8/3/2017 – $276.05 (Alamo)
- 8/7/2017 – $260.70 (Alamo)
- 1/14/2018 – $236.33 (Alamo) – Final Price
I ended up with $219.38 savings with Autoslash doing all of the price tracking. Less than $50/day for a brand new full size full loaded Ford Expedition – HELL YEAH!
I did Alamo’s online check-in so there was no need to stop at the counter. We headed right for the cars in the garage and got to choice any of the available full size SUVs. There were 5-6 full size SUVs – mostly Nissan Armadas but a couple Ford Expeditions.
We ended up taking a brand new (only 280 miles on it) Ford Expedition and it was a sweet ride. There was plenty of room for all of the luggage and skis. Wireless charging pads for our phones and a navigation system helped out since our phones didn’t have service in Canada.
Need to Know
The last day of my beginner’s course is also the shortest since the only thing you need to know about saving on car rentals is: USE AUTOSLASH.COM
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I have used them for many years and MOST of the time my experience is similar to your article. Not always. Most recently I rented for 18 days in Tampa FL (airport) for Feb. (also encompassing pres. hold.) a few months ahead and never saw a single price drop. Actually found a better deal on my own using some strategy from SD/FW (is it OK to mention those here?).
SD/FW?
SlickDeals / FatWallet
Thank you so much for sharing.
I plan to use Autoslash for an upcoming trip in October to Tampa. Any tips on what rental agencies to include in the search. I have used National in the past with Emerald Aisle access. There seems to be less expensive options, but I do not have experience with these companies.
The initial search at Autoslash will give you a list of a few different rental companies to chose from so it doesn’t limit the search. Then when you get email notifications you can choose to accept a different rental company at a lower price or not.
I don’t mind paying a few extra dollars for a company that is located at the airport so I don’t have to take a shuttle.
I’ve never had a problem with any of the larger companies – Alamo, Enterprise, Budget, Hertz, etc. You will get a few options for some smaller companies such as Sixt, Advantage, Fox, etc – I’ve only used Sixt one time because it was a large savings and didn’t have any problem with them.
Don’t wait any longer, there is no cost to book a reservation now and let Autoslash start working – you can cancel at any time.