Online reservation for car rental through the easiest steps

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You know you want to book a car rental, and you want to do it online. The easiest steps to an online car rental reservation are to use consolidator sites. They’re also called aggregator sites, and they do anything but aggravate you. They search a whole collection of travel sites at once for you, and list the results in the order you choose.

Before going to an aggregator site, though, it’s best to have an idea of the dates you’re planning to rent, and the type of car. Yes, you can search for everything under the sun, but even with an aggregator site, the easiest steps to a successful search are to have an idea of what you want beforehand.

The Big 3 travel web sites—Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia—are consolidators, to a degree. They have all made deals with various travel companies, from hotels to airlines to rental car companies, and tend to not feature deals from companies who have not agreed to cut them a deal.

So you may find a great deal at one of these sites, but you could also be missing one or more deals because they’re offered by companies that the consolidator has not agreed to list.

Other true aggregator websites like Kayak.com, Sidestep.com, Farechase.com and Qixo.com function more like a search engine, but they only search travel websites. They’re really not finding any “hidden” rates, but they’re making it easier for you to find the best rates.

For instance, they’ll search not only the rental companies’ websites, but the websites of the consolidators as well, like Travelocity and Orbitz. The advantage to this is that you’ll find the deals that are at each car rental company, as well as any special bargains those companies have negotiated with the Big 3 travel engines.

You can input several searches for different options, or request a search for one day before and/or after your original search. Sometimes just changing your plans by a few hours or a few days can net you a much lower rental car charge.

With an online car rental reservation, using a credit card to book your rental is usually the best choice. Check with your credit card company to see what benefits they offer for travel. Many times you’ll find the card offers you car rental insurance, which means you can pass on the loss damage waiver typically charged by the rental companies.

Online reservations make car rentals easy; you’ll wonder how you ever made them before. Using aggregator or consolidator web sites makes the steps painless. Just don’t get caught up in the ease of use and forget to double-check your contract. Make sure you’re getting the deal you signed up for. And it’s always possible to ask at the rental counter if they offer any free upgrades. If they do, that’s the easiest bonus of all!

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admin @ February 22, 2008