<p>There are two things about car rental could hit you hard。</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The taxes and fees, it could be as much as the rental cost. Especially if you accept the insurance waiver, you will be paying as much as the daily rental charge. I remember in Orlando, I was shocked about the “taxes” or the fees they charged on my bill when we got there. Call ahead and there might be differences in rental car companies.</p></li>
<li><p>As RobD has said, the gas, you could pay as much as $10/gal if you returned the car without filled up or without prepay. I never prepay for the gas, because I don’t know how much I will be using. I always fill it up before returning and give them the receipt. Make sure you have plenty time between returning the car and the flight take off so you can make adjustments. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I rented a U-Haul with half a tank to start, when we return the truck they argue the tank was not half and I had to drive to a gas station to top it off. I was not in a hurry, as I was staying in Chicago already.</p>
<p>Hotwire does not tell you which rental company you are renting with until you paid up. So, do your homework, unless there is a major difference in rates, you might be better off reserve directly. I usually make many reservations with car rental companies, so when I get there, if I have a problem with one (example would be late arrival and one rental company ran out of cars and force you take a van), I can switch to another.</p>
<p>Hotwire does not give you the option to switch.</p>
<p>My trip is getting closer! Been watching Hotwire for rental cars - had a price drop that I’m thinking of snagging - $147 (including fees but not insurance) for a full size car, Fri AM - Tues PM. Sound like a decent deal??? That’s $26.95/day + fees. Renting from the Portland Airport which seems like a prime location (as in, fees will not be dirt cheap at any point)</p>
<p>That is really good. Portland is very expensive if you rent at the airport - I haven’t been able to find anything that low. We have a reservation with an off-airport location, and it’s $147 for Saturday - Thursday … if we rent for less time (say, pick up Sunday), it actually costs more!</p>
<p>I came across a website that supposedly takes into account applicable coupons and discounts for rental cars. If you register for the site (which I didn’t do), you can even input your AAA or other affiliations for even more discounts. I found out about the site, zalyn dot com, from a NYT article. It helped me find a rental at the Charlotte airport which is also expensive.</p>
<p>We have rented from off airport locations with no issues. The rental companies we dealt with had a shuttle to and from the airport…so it was not a big deal at all. Many airports have car rentals at remote locations…not in the airport. As long as there is a free shuttle back and forth to the airport…book the best deal.</p>
<p>We need to rent a car for 6 days out of salt lake city in August. Guess we better book that!</p>
<p>Use Hotwire most of the time. No problems. To me rental cars are pretty much the same so good use of Hotwire for best price. I did have a real issue with National trying to charge me for an alleged scratch in the lower front bumper area–$1000!. Never using them again.</p>
<p>Man, I just got off the phone after also looking at Costco rentals - online it shows that I can get a compact car for $175 and then "based on availability " get a free upgrade to the next level, intermediate - thought that I might be more comfortable with the Costco deal if it was good enough, but the operator was not real helpful and sounds like there are no guarantees. Back to Hotwire I guess!</p>
<p>I have rented with Hotwire, but don’t like the commitment. In many places, as you are discovering, it really pays to rent off airport, and then you can pay $20 or so to drop off at the airport on departure. </p>
<p>You need a credit card to cover car rental insurance. My Delta Amex does this for $25 per rental, including overseas, and the United card does automatically. These are for fee cards, but saves me a bundle on car insurance. </p>
<p>Portland airport has very good public transport from the airport, light rail, street cars and so on. Google car rental Portland downtown, and you can find a number of places to rent that are probably easy to reach from the airport via light rail. I have rented at two of them, but can’t remember which two. Dropped off in Seattle. </p>
<p>Cannon beach and the Oregon coast are wonderful! Along with the Colombia river gorge.</p>
<p>This not so experienced traveler thanks you for all your advice!</p>
<p>I actually ended up booking off of Costco rental cars today - $123 including taxes for the 5 day rental - we took a compact car but they may give us one upgrade at the airport - plus we get an additional driver fee waived. Signed up for the AmEx insurance at $24.95 when we rent the car. Hopefully H will be comfortable with that instead of the rental car place insurance. The rental is at the Portland airport via shuttle , but on airport grounds (as opposed to another part of Portland).</p>
<p>Did end up booking our night before flight back hotel room near airport near Cascade Station on Hotwire. Think I’m done booking now!!!</p>
<p>I booked through Costco for a recent trip, and the price was great - I have been watching it for Portland. Glad to know it’s dropped for an airport rental. I also have the Amex extra coverage - it makes sense to me to have it.</p>
<p>When do you leave, abasket? I am thinking it’s before my trip … I will be in Portland 6/8-11, then Cannon Beach 6/11-13. We are taking Amtrak to Seattle, where we will stay until 6/16. I am getting excited! Just the car to book; everything else is set.</p>
<p>I have been using Hotwire for car rental exclusively for a long time now. It is a game of Chicken - the price could be decent about 30 days out. Then it will spike up around 2 weeks - many panics and place the order right then. But if you wait and the demand happen to fall, you can get a really nice price around 3 ~ 7 days before the trip. My best deal was around $12 a day for a mid size car at SFO. </p>
<p>Make sure you check the price from different computer because it is tracking your IP.</p>
<p>You actually are ahead of us Kelsmom - our wedding is June 15 and we will be at Cannon Beach 16-18 - right at the tail end of the sandcastle festival on the beach! Warm the place up for us!!! :)</p>
<p>I’ve found some travel websites only do the tracking through a cookie, so I always do my browsing through private tabs in Chrome or Firefox. It’s also really useful when I want to run a couple of different searches at a time (living in LA I have the choice of Burbank, LAX, SNA, and across different dates) and have all the results up at once.</p>
<p>I rented a car from the airport in SoCal once, $35 for the week! Yes, really. Sadly, snow at home closed that airport and we were stuck several more day…at $40/day :(</p>