ORD Chicago Premium Alamo

[herb2000]

Needed larger car for several people traveling to weekend college football game.

Bids turned down:

Luxury for $35

Mini-van for $35

Premium for $25

Full for $20

Was able to bid again for premium, choose $30 as mid-point of prior luxury and premium bids and got that bid via Alamo

Not the greatest deal -- Although $10 less than Alamo's $40 list, the Priceline fees and taxes are $5/day higher than Alamo and therefore only saved $5/day. Also Alamo uses the smaller Buick Lucerne in their premium category while other rental agencies (Avis, Budget, Hertz) use the larger LeSabre and Crown Victoria for their premium category at roughly $50 to $55 a day.

[thereuare]

Thanks for the info!

[herb2000]

Found out this week when renting another Alamo car that they charge $10 more a day for an additional driver regardless of relationship. I checked their policies as well as other major renatl agencies. All of the agencies including Alamo allow spouse and certain other drivers for no additional fee. But Alamo has an exception for "prepaid" car renatals, i.e. priceline, where they charge an additional fee. I will not have an additional driver for this rental but if I did the total rental cost would be $5 more a day than if I just went directly to Alamo. This makes it difficult to bid since I now know it costs about $5 more a day in fees per prior post and could be another $10 a day if Alamo takes the bid and there is an additional driver.

While it is understandable for additional charges for certain items but the additional driver execption is just a penalty applied by Alamo for priceline customers. Since it is not a standard held by other agencies it makes bidding through priceline more unpredicatable.

[thereuare]

All of the agencies including Alamo allow spouse and certain other drivers for no additional fee.

Not necessarily true... see MY REPLY to your other car rental thread on this topic, as well as this Car Rental Additional Driver Fee thread.