The Best Car Rental Sites

Rental car sites can save you a lot of money on your rental vehicles, but with so many to choose from, it can be hard to distinguish one from the other. Therefore, it has been broken down for you below. Keep reading to discover prices, varieties of selections, and each site’s ease of use.

In regard to prices, Phoenix, AZ was consistently chosen for rental cars to give a fair assessment in comparison of prices.

Orbitz

The layout for Orbitz is serviceable, as the colors chosen for the landing page aren’t as bright and contrasting as others. The trade-off with this is that car prices are lower than on other car rental sites. Orbitz offers a “reserve now, pay later” option, and they also allow for free cancellation. Orbitz exclusively listed Enterprise as the car rental company to rent from for their selections, except for a few other options. For the lowest economy car to be picked up and dropped off in Phoenix, AZ, for a week, cost $29 a day. If you choose day by day, the price for an economy car is roughly $40.

Orbitz offers around 20 vehicles to choose from within each category of vehicle: economy, compact, mid-size, standard, full-size, premium, luxury, convertible, minivan, SUV, pickup, sports car, and other. All these options seat four to five people, but the difference amongst the selections is in room within each vehicle, storage capacity, and luxury features. Every vehicle choice except for minivans, sports cars, and convertibles were priced $50 and lower, which provides exceptional wiggle room for a variety of features and options. The “other” category on Orbitz includes Jeeps, SUVs, and “specials” with discounts that are not viewable until you have made a reservation.

Priceline

The layout of selections, prices, and features on Priceline makes choosing the right selection for a vehicle easier. Bright colors and adequate spacing between graphics make Priceline highly engaging. Priceline shows many other options for places to pick up a car nearby and their prices to provide another way to increase economical choices. Priceline shows a listing of rental cars from several car rental companies.

With Priceline, the lowest priced car doesn’t necessarily mean an economy-sized car. Upon a recent search, a mid-sized vehicle, which seats five as opposed to an economy car’s four seat availability, cost $33 a day. Priceline offers roughly 20 vehicles of each category of vehicle offered by Orbitz, with the exception that they also offer full-sized vans. In a recent search, full-sized vans were priced at around $120 for a day. Luxury cars, convertibles, full-sized SUVs, mini-vans, and full-sized vans cost upward of $65 a day. The rest of the vehicles were priced between $30 and $50 a day. “Deals” are not separately distinguished. They are just listed as the lowest prices from the selections available.

Kayak

Kayak is particularly helpful in showing a map with several prices of rental vehicles that are available. Kayak outlines each size of vehicle and the price they start at above the selections that are displayed on the left. Kayak has a special alert showing an increase or decrease in price reduction, which lets you know whether you’re getting a good deal and possibly wait for one if prices are at an influx.

Upon recent research, prices of rental cars were lower by 28 percent. If you want a car for a full week, you can get a far better deal than renting one for the day. For example, a small-sized car for a week averages $240 for the week, which works out to roughly $34 a day. If you rent a car for one day, a small-sized car runs for about $50 for a day.

While Kayak has a smaller amount of categories to choose from, they showed an average of 400 vehicles to choose from these categories: small, medium, large, SUV, van, pickup truck, sports car, and convertible. Kayak does not distinguish their “deals” apart from prices.

Rentalcars.com

Rentalcars.com provides similar results with other sites. A small-sized rental car from Phoenix, AZ for a day costs roughly $39. The layout of the site is visually pleasing, and it’s easy to navigate. Several selections and their prices are listed at the top of the page, and you have a map that you can look at, if you choose. While Rentalcars.com offers a wide selection of vehicles to choose from, all vehicles are supplied by Enterprise, so it lacks in providing adequate price comparisons amongst different rental car companies. They offer “book now, pay later” option and provide free cancellations.

Rentalcars.com listed their car types as small, intermediate, full-size, SUVs, vans, special cars, and luxury cars. With the exception of luxury cars, special cars, and vans, all selections were priced between $39 and $58. Special cars included Mustang convertibles, Volkswagen convertibles, a Dodge Challenger, and two BMWs. Rentalcars.com showed far more vehicles for usage from their other categories, which averaged around 40 vehicles to choose from in each category.

Ladybug.com

If you want to kill multiple birds with one stone, be sure to check out Ladybug.com, which lists several rental car quote sites in one central location. The site’s appearance is a bit busy, but it’s still easy to navigate. All you need to do is choose the sites you’d like to compare, along with your information on the day, time, and place you’d like to rent your vehicle. You’ll see a side by side comparison of the information you’re looking for amongst the sites you’ve chosen. In this mode, you can still modify your filters and view the best possible deal. The only downside to this site is that it’s difficult to search for non-airport locations because they seem to be automatically included, despite not being chosen. If you have reservations about renting from an airport, you will have to pay special attention to this factor.

Ladybug.com showed 177 vehicles to choose from. Their categories include economy, compact, standard SUV, standard pickup truck, mid-size and full-sized vehicles, standard, premium, standard convertible, luxury, mid-size SUVs, special, and standard elite vehicles, which included vehicles similar to the Ford Explorer. Premium SUVs included vehicles similar to the Chevrolet Suburban while the standard SUVs were similar to the Hyundai Santa Fe.

Everything is priced between $34 and $250 a day irrespective to their individual categories. The higher prices were attributed to extras and insurance costs.

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