MIA Miami Minivan National

[Visioneer_one]

Been searching for weeks! Everything I looked at in MIA was well over $70/day at the published rate.

9/22 - $25... rejected, with a counter of $77. Unsurprising.

9/23 - $29... rejected, with a counter of $74.

9/24 - $35... rejected, with a counter of $72.

9/25 - $37... rejected, with a counter of $72.

9/26 - $42... rejected, with a counter of $72.

9/27 - $46... rejected, with a counter of $74. What?

9/28 - $51... rejected, with a counter of $76. $*#*@#& !!

Gave up.

The cheapest thing I was able to find was through Alamo - picked up at FLL and dropped off at MIA, for $506.75 (using a coupon code from American Airlines) $56/day, before taxes. I'm flying into MIA, so I was planning to take a shuttle van service from MIA -> FLL, at a cost of $30 per person.

Used that as my backup reservation.

- until today.

Took a look at HOTWIRE this morning... price listed was $294.87, or $28.95/day.

Immediately used your PRICELINE link - and got the following result:

National Car Rental

Pick-Up Date: October 12, 2010

Drop-Off Date: October 19, 2010

Your Offer Price: $25.00 (per day)

Total Rental Days: 7 days(6 days and 23 hours)

Subtotal: $175.00

Taxes and Fees: $99.18

Total Charges: $274.18

Lowest Published Price: $748.26

Total Savings:* $474.08 (You saved 63%)

I should have offered Priceline less. :)

Seriously, though. I usually make these sort of reservations months in advance, assuming that I'd get the best price possible. What would cause the price to crash like this?

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your success!

The rental company may have hit a point where they had a lot more cars on the lot then reservations on the books and decided to drop rates to attract last minute customers. For a different set of dates the opposite could take place too... the rental company could have few reservations far out and have low rates, but as the dates draw near they begin to get fully booked and offer little/no discount.

This is why we suggest booking a cancellable back-up (as you did) and continuing to bid, and not overbid too early in the process.

Thank you for sharing your win and using the PRICELINE links on the board to begin your bidding.

Have a great trip and glad to see these last minute savings come thru for you.