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Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 10:45 am
by Chip
Been watching the rental car availability at FCA. Today Thrifty has rental cars for the first week of August. I assume they must have imported them from Hawaii as total price for a week for a subcompact car is $2089. Isn't this price gouging ?

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:25 pm
by PeteE
And a Holiday Inn Express room with two Queen beds being $500 ?
Welcome to the 2020's "stagflation"...like the 70's version, only on steroids.

pete :wink:

Still smoky around Kalispell.
Really windy here which is NOT GOOD with the fires popping up around NW Montana. :(

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 1:04 pm
by Selkie
Chip,
This is a nationwide problem.
Unless you are locked into FCA, check GEG (Spokane).
Rentals are much cheaper there. Also try other airports.
Agencies sold off inventory last year and likely will not build back up until business travel resumes.
Also, there is or was a chip shortage, introducing delays in rolling out new cars.
Rentals at major destination airports are particularly in demand.
Rentals out of lower-demand airport facilities were much cheaper earlier in the year, then those facilities began moving cars to high-demand facilities.
Some folks are renting U-Hauls.
Good luck!

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:49 pm
by zozeppelin
Hi Chip,
I'm sure you did, but check National. They seemed reasonable when I checked a week ago and again right now. Dare I say normal when I enter my company code. If you (or any of your party) have a company code or affiliation (AAA, AARP, schools, etc) make sure to enter it. I have no experience, but many people vouch for rentals through Costco (not sure which company).

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:02 am
by TnTammy
We had a trip planned for late July/early August to the East side of the park, flying in and out of Great Falls.
Our rental car reservation (back in April) through Costco for the 2 weeks was somewhere around $1800. Am sure its much higher now if you could even get one. So we thought why not look into the U-Haul truck option and reserved one for about $800 less. Word of warning, they cancelled us in early June saying they didn't have enough trucks. If we had let the rental car reservations go, we would have been SOL.

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 2:19 pm
by zozeppelin
Word of warning - if arriving on the afternoon flights and renting with Alamo/National, expect an hour to two delay in receiving your car as they’re short staffed and cleaning the cars received from the outbound flight for what you arrived on. Evening pickup was no issue. Thankfully I didn’t need to get to Apgar prior to closing.

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:27 pm
by calicotraveler
We ran into this in mid July rental with Alamo. Arrived in the afternoon. Had to wait a little over an hour for our car. There was a guy returning a car just as we arrived and that was probably the car they gave us after then cleaned it (still wet on outside). We were happy to just be able to rent a car...really had to look around to find anyone who had any and this was several months before we traveled. Hopefully the rental companies will be able to restock before our next Montana trip.

Re: Rental Car Prices at FCA

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:13 pm
by Selkie
Slightly off-topic from FCA, though still relevant:
I returned a car to Bozeman. There must have been 50-60 cars in the Avis-Budget return area, none being attended.
The sole person in evidence was directing incoming cars to lanes.
My bill was ready 5 days later.
So lack of staffing may be contributing to the shortage of available vehicles --> high prices.