4

Jun

Hotwire is still one of the best ways to get a cheap rental car, you can usually get cars a few bucks cheaper on Priceline even but Hotwire will tell you upfront what the non-cancellable/non-refundable pricing is from a major airport rental facility.

But you don’t always (or even often) want a prepaid rental, and sometimes there’s not a ton of savings to be had from going through prepaid channels.

I rarely use those myself, I’m too addicted to my elite status benefits. In my own case, one of the major chains gives me really good upgrades, very personalized service, and even market rate on gas when I don’t refill the tank (and I don’t have to prepurchase a full tank in order to get it).

With a good bit of nose to the grindstone work, trying out coupon codes found in the rental car forums of FLyertalk (or on Fatwallet, Slickdeals, etc) you can often save money. But it’s a lot of muscle at times for a rental car, not always worth it for a short-term rental of a day or two.

So I’m intrigued by a new website, Autoslash.

They search publicly available discount codes automatically and also apply coupons to your rental to secure discounts and upgrades. And they continue to search for better deals and will rebook your car for you at a lower rate.

I first saw it mentioned on Flyertalk by Evan!. I assume they’re basically taking the referral commission that you might otherwise get going through a site like e-bates and booking on your own. But certainly the savings can be worthwhile, and certainly the time savings relatively to searching out your own discounts should make this a go-to site, provided it works as promised.

I’ve shared the site with a couple of people so far, though I haven’t yet used it myself, and the results have been positive. Very positive, both in terms of initial savings and in terms of personalized followup for better rates as time goes on.

In theory it should even be possible to make a booking through this site and then go back and add your own coupons later as-needed such as for the current 4,725 US Airways mile offer on a 3-day Avis rental. But I look forward to hearing everyone’s experiences with that.

16 Comments

  1. Matt said,

    Thanks Gary. Found some good prices for trips I am planning.

  2. Bill said,

    So which chain is the one that gives you these great benefits? I am seriously giving up on Hertz.

  3. John said,

    Tried this site for an upcoming rental at SFO. It did better than Kayak, but returned the same exact results as Orbitz which were double the price of using my corporate rate.

  4. Jonathan Weinberg said,

    Matt–We’re looking forward to saving you even more money down the road. We’ll track the price of your rental and if we find a better discount or a price drop, we’ll notify you via email.

    Bill–You never know which company will give you the best discount. One day we find a great discount for Hertz and they can be the lowest cost option, and other day it’s Enterprise or Alamo. Many times there is no rhyme or reason to it. That’s why we created AutoSlash.com. We will be able to figure out the optimal discount regardless of how deeply it may be hidden.

    John–I was happy to see we beat out Kayak (which happens to be one of my favorite sites), but a bit concerned that we weren’t able to best Orbitz’s price. We apply coupon and discount codes to each rental, which Orbitz does not, so if we were matching them as opposed to beating them, then it means our pricing systems need to be tweaked. Would you mind sharing the pickup/dropoff dates/times of your rental here or via the feedback form on our website so we can investigate? I’m pretty certain that we can beat that Orbitz rate, and if we can’t I’m willing to send you a free AutoSlash t-shirt as thank you for helping us identify an issue. :-)

    Jonathan Weinberg
    Founder & CEO
    AutoSlash.com
    We automatically slash your rental rates!

  5. Gene said,

    I don’t see any savings at all. If I go directly the the rental websites, I can the same, and in most cases, better rates. Maybe Im doing it wrong?

  6. Jonathan Weinberg said,

    Hi Gene,

    When you search via our site, you will typically see a number of columns in the rate results display that have “Discounted” at the top. These rates are the ones that have coupon and discount codes pre-applied to them, so thus should yield better rates in most cases.

    There is a little bit of prediction at play here based on the dates and components of your rental, so it won’t be 100%, but typically what we do is that after a rental is booked, it will be further analyzed for additional savings, and you will receive an email if we can lower the rate further.

    Please email us at supportautoslash.com with the specific location and pickup/dropoff date/time and we can look into why you may not be seeing the best rates. We are still tweaking the pricing engine a bit.

    Jonathan Weinberg
    Founder & CEO
    AutoSlash.com
    We automatically slash your rental rates!

  7. wazup said,

    i used autoslash for a rental and their prices were horrible and their customer service was very nagging

  8. When Did Hotwire Start Offering Their Own Rebates? - View from the Wing said,

    [...] Hotwire is also a pretty good option for rental cars, albeit prepaid and you don’t get to use upgrade coupons or mileage offers. I’ll frequently see weekday airport rates in major cities that are quite high through normal channels, but much lower on Hotwire. You don’t find out which rental agency it is until you’ve booked, but on a booking this this who cares since it’s a major on-airport agency in any case. Not always an amazing deal, but definitely one for the arsenal in addition to the new AutoSlash site. [...]

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  10. Todd said,

    How can AutoSlash be ‘the best’ when it doesn’t include Avis/Budget?

  11. Gary said,

    @Todd I’ve definitely booked Avis rentals on AutoSlash. :confused:

  12. Todd said,

    @Gary I seem to recall they initially came up but now when I do a search neither Avis nor Budget come up (LAX, SFO, DEN, ORD, MIA, JFK, SEA). Also, if you go into Refine your search or Change your search>All search options>Do you have any car company preferences or discounts? neither are listed in the display grid/drop down menu.

  13. Jonathan said,

    I can confirm that we did have Avis-Budget on our site initially, but we have temporarily removed them for now. We hope to have them back on the site in the near future.

    I will say that as per our “How it Works” page, we do check all rental providers. If we find a rate that beats what we can provide on AutoSlash, we will email the customer to direct them to an alternate site where they can book it, even if it doesn’t generate a commission for us.

    We’re 100% committed to providing our customers with the best deal possible. We believe that if you do right by your customers, success will eventually follow. Not everyone in this industry buys into that theory, but then again, we’re happy to be different. :)

  14. tom d. said,

    I’ve tried many different search sites (I rent 50+ times per year)including Autoslash, and 90% of the time RentalCarMagic.com finds the lowest price for me. Tonight I tried comparing the two sites for a fullsize at ORD, 9/25-9/28. Rental Car Magic came back with $144 all in at National. Autoslash was 188 at Thrifty and did not even list National. You be the judge…

  15. tivoboy said,

    Seems that autoslash might be broken or that the booking engines are boxing them out. I get either ZERO or ONE company results for reservations I am trying, different cities, different dates.

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