Travel Deal of the Day (April 30, 2008)

If you are looking to rent a large, truck/SUV-style car as opposed to a smaller, more fuel efficient car, you are in luck – car rental companies cannot charge as much for these larger cars now because of high gas prices. So, if you actually want a large car, you can now find much more reasonable prices when renting these larger cars at many car rental locations and you may end up with a larger car when reserving a smaller car.

The Deal:
When renting your next car, be strategic about your car rental selection. If you want a large, gas-guzzling SUV-style car, reserve the cheapest car available. What – am I crazy? How can this be? Due to gas prices, more people are actually preferring to reserve small, more fuel efficient cars.

Actually, what I want you to do is make two reservations (since most car rental reservations have no cancellation fee). Make a reservation for the cheapest car available and make a separate reservation (can be with the same car rental company or a different car rental company) for your must-have car. If you reserve a small car (because it is available at the lowest price), you are very likely to end up with a free upgrade to a much larger car because of increased demand for smaller, fuel efficient cars. You may actually find that large, gas-guzzling cars such as SUVs may be available for a lower price than a small, compact car. So, my advice is to reserve the cheapest car available and inquire at the check-in counter about what kind of car you are actually receiving. If you do end up with too small of a car, inquire about a free or paid upgrade. You are quite often able to receive an upgrade to your most preferred large car at a significant discount to what the price would have been if you had reserved the large car in the first place. If the upgrade strategy fails, then rely on your second reservation – but in these days of very high gas prices, you will likely end up with a large car at a significant discount.