I Saved 40% on my Rental Car… So Far

See my final update near the end of this post. Autoslash continued to look for lower rates right up to my trip.

I have an upcoming long weekend trip to Toronto where I’ll need to rent a car. Since I’m a points/miles/travel blogger I don’t need any help finding the best price, right? Wrong!

For this rental, I decided to try Autoslash for the first time. I’ve heard plenty of recommendations in the past, but for some reason, I’d never tried them. I’ve always felt I could just do better on my own. Well, allow me to eat some crow.

What is Autoslash?

Autoslash likens itself to a team of obsessive grocery store coupon-clippers. You know the type at your local supermarket, right? We’ve all been behind them on line at least once.

The folks at Autoslash scour the internet, whether manually or automatically, to find the best deals on your rental car.

They do this in two ways: finding the lowest price on a new rental; and alerting you to lower prices on an existing rental.

My Experience So Far

Let me start by saying that I’m not affiliated with Autoslash in any way. I’m simply an extremely satisfied customer–even before my first rental has commenced.

Next, some background. Since I’m top tier Executive Elite with National and President’s Circle with Hertz, I prefer to rent only with them. I like the “choose any car” and automatic upgrades that come with my elite status at these companies.

On to the booking process. My own egotistical, “I’m a travel blogger I can do this myself” search resulted in a mid-size car at National Car Rental for $225 USD. I could use the Emerald Aisle, and with my Executive Elite status, I could “choose any car” and drive away with a minimum of a full-size vehicle for that price. Not too bad. I reserved my car.

I fed the same search details into Autoslash. Within 15 minutes, I had an email with the results. There were some cheaper options away from the airport and with rental car companies that I didn’t want to use. But there was also a National Car option through Priceline for $205–an instant $20 savings for the same class vehicle. I reserved that car and cancelled my original booking. I’m already hooked.

Recall that the second way that Autoslash adds value is to monitor existing reservations for cheaper options. So I entered my new reservation details and waited.

Two days later, I received an email alerting me to cheaper deals. The same class vehicle was now available for $185 with Hertz. I reserved that car and cancelled the 2nd National Car reservation. I’ve now saved $40.

After another couple days came another email. My Hertz rental was down to $165. I reserved this one and cancelled the prior. Now, my savings is up to $60.

The most recent email arrived this morning. An even higher car class at Hertz was available for $135. The higher car class won’t mean anything since I’ll be choosing a car from the President’s Circle area anyway. But the $30 savings got my attention. Once again, I reserved this car and cancelled the previous.

Where I Stand Currently

My original do-it-yourself reservation was $225. that was about a week ago. I’m now down to $135 with Autoslash and I still have 6+ weeks until my trip. So far, I’ve saved 40% with little to no effort. There’s plenty of time for more price drops. To recap further:

• I’ll be getting full elite status benefits with my rental.
• I’ve paid nothing out of pocket so far–I didn’t even need to enter any credit card info to reserve.
• I’ve easily cancelled the reservations that I’ve replaced.
• Each reservation has instantly appeared in my Hertz and National apps.

I simply can’t find any downside.

UPDATE: Autoslash sent me one final lower price a week before my trip. A full-size Hertz for $105 for the 4-day rental. This was a final savings of 53%. Using Hertz Ultimate Choice, I was able to pick up an Infiniti Q50 out of the President’s Circle Zone.

Don’t be stubborn like I used to be. Try Autoslash for your next car rental. There’s really no risk that I can find and you might save a considerable amount of money. I’ll be using them for every rental in the future.