In our tenacious pursuit of value in Hawaii travel. Hawaii car rentals to the forefront today with what just happened to us.
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50 thoughts on “We Saved Extra 25% On Hawaii Car Rental. It Wasn’t Costco”
In our tenacious pursuit of value in Hawaii travel. Hawaii car rentals to the forefront today with what just happened to us.
I use Autoslash all the time because you never have to prepay or enter a credit card. Always have the best rates for me. Especially since the coupons you get from Dollar, Avis, etc. never work on rentals in Hawaii or the Caribbean.
Hi Jeff and Rob! We were thrilled to hear that we were able to save you some money on your upcoming Big Island trip. I wanted to clarify one important point though:
AutoSlash can and will track your rental for lower rates, but that’s something the user needs to initiate (autoslash.com/how-we-do-it).
When we first started out almost 13 years ago, we had automatic tracking and price drops, but that turned out to ruffle the feathers of the industry establishment a bit too much, and we were forced to make it a user-initiated process.
That said, it takes 2 min. to set up and is the easiest way to ensure you’re getting the best possible deal. Sometimes rates drop last minute, so still worth entering your reservation for tracking.
Hi Jonathan.
There was nothing obvious to us in the rental process that would have indicated what was needed in order to have the reservation tracked. Beyond that, the rates changed by more than $100 in a five-minute period. The first time they were the same as a couple of days before. Then suddenly it went from pre-paid to post-paid and dropped 25%.
Aloha.
Thanks for the feedback. I guess we need to do a better job of letting people know that tracking is a separate process. We’ll definitely work on that as it’s clear, both from your experience, and the other comments here, that it’s less than obvious.
As far as the rates changing drastically so quickly, it can happen–especially this close to the pickup date as rental companies are typically jockeying to grab as much last-minute business as they can if they have vehicles available.
It could also be that your timing was just right, or that our system, for whatever reason, didn’t return the best available rate the first time around. We run 50-100 price requests for each quote to find the best deal based on each customer’s memberships.
Hi Jonathan.
Thanks for the feedback on our experience. Let us know if that get’s moved into the reservation workflow, as I’m sure it will be helpful to others.
Aloha.
Hey Autoslash! I have been booking via Autoslash for years now! I am a very happy customer and always recommend you to others on Facebook. Thanks for all the great rates and notifications of better rates.
We’re happy to have saved you money, Jan, and we sincerely appreciate you helping to spread the word about our service!
Thank you so much for this information, went on AutoSlasher and put in my dates for a trip to Maui (January 12-16, 2023).
Original Reservation I have was for a compact car thru Costco Travel for $468 with Dollar. Autoslasher took to me Priceline it was $371.10 for a Fullsize thru Thrifty. We always use Costco Travel for our Rental Cars but thanks to this article we will be sure to also check out Auto Slasher too! Mahalo for all the awesome tips and tricks!
Hi Albette.
Glad that it was helpful to you! You just never know where you’ll find the best deals any more.
Aloha.
Was that a pay in advance rate? I haven’t seen otherwise from AutoSlash.
Thanks in advance,
Tammy
Hi Tammy.
No it was not prepaid.
Aloha.
I use Autoslash all the time because you never have to prepay or enter a credit card. Always have the best rates for me. Especially since the coupons you get from Dollar, Avis, etc. never work on rentals in Hawaii or the Caribbean.
All I can say is i really Scored when I booked my car for 2023 through Costco. Like almost a $1000 less than the rates now.
Many people have asked, “When will the rates go down?” Why would they? They have a rope around our neck…..what are you going to do on any island without a car? I could not even get the grocery store let alone any beach on the Big Island. If the rates are $2300-$2800 for a month come 2024, I may have to skip my month in paradise. If everyone did that, and no cars moved, well
Autoslash didn’t email me about discounts on a car they quoted me either. I’ll be really curious to see what they tell you the reason was.
Hi Stacy, the tracking process is something you need to initiate for us to keep searching for lower rates. Anytime you book (whether with us or with another site), just enter some quick details about your reservation and we’ll continually search for better deals.
Prices change constantly, and you’ve got better things to do than to keep re-checking, so outsource the work to us. It’s a free service so not much to lose, but you need to remember to enter your reservation for tracking.
More info can be found at autoslash.com/how-we-do-it. I hope this helps to explain things.
Aloha! Autoslash *used* to be my go-to, but no longer. They say they’ll alert you if prices drop, but they don’t appear to do it reliably. They’re totally connected with (owned by??) Priceline, and so you always need to go through them. I book early, check every month for the first few, and then every couple of weeks as time gets closer. Lately Discount Hawaii has been the winner. Mahalo!b
Hi Betty, have you entered your reservation in our system to be tracked? This is a key step to be notified if a lower rate becomes available. It works whether you’ve booked with us or on a different site, and it’s free, so nothing to lose by trying it.
And no, we are not owned by Priceline. We work closely with them as a partner because we feel that Priceline has the best system available to search and book discounted rates. We also have direct-book deals that do not go through Priceline.
We’re an independent company of less than 20 travel hackers who are passionate about getting customers the best deal possible. We’ve been at it for almost 13 years, and we’re still owned and operated by original founders.
Aloha Autoslash! Thank you for your reply. I found the “track my rental” button. And it worked! I just rebooked saving about $500 for a 3 week rental. We’ve got a couple of months to go, hoping for more price drops! Mahalo!
My current low price for November 7th trip is through Alaska air. So remember to check the airlines – I never had in the past but it seems new tricks are necessary. The price could be lower still if I wanted to rent from Hertz/Dollar/Thrifty. I’m getting old – didn’t want to wait in lines for hours in Kona + then be reported for auto theft by Hertz to save $100.
In late September I booked a midsize car from Hertz, using Hotwire, for 1 week in late October, for $385.35. Checking every few days and found only higher prices.
Two other ways to possibly save some cash:
1) Try booking the car for a week instead of a few days. Sometimes the weekly price will be lower than the price for 4 days. Just be careful to look for early return penalties. I have not been penalized for an early car rental return. The
car rental agencies can rent the car out quicker and have already been paid for “the week.”
2) If booking a HI condo or house rental, check with the owners to see if they have a car rental discount code. I’m finishing up at stay on Kauai for a week and the owners’ code beat the price of both Costco and DHCR (and all other venues by a lot of $$$).
Aloha Guys,
I didnt know about Autoslash. Kayak I use for comparisons. I always use discounthawaiicarrental.com (as you know) for the final rental. Started looking when I booked my flight in Sept for an Oct week on Big Isle. Turns out it was Iron Man week! $1000 for 7 days!! By the time we went, after checking often before going- $667. Still not wonderful but soooo better. I love “dhcr” for their service! Local people always answer the phone and go above and beyond to help you in every way.