Those of you who know me know that I'm a cheapskate and am all about saving every penny that I can. A cheapskate and a pack rat. That said, I'm normally the type of guy why would use a company like E-Z Rent-a-car. However, over the holiday weekend, they were the last online company to still have cars at the airport, they knew it and raised their prices. Having studied economics (both macro and micro), I understand supply and demand and would not have been too upset had they raised their prices with supply dwindling. Even doubling their prices, I can understand that. Maybe even tripling. But multiplying them by 7! That is an outrage! That is price gouging, which I thought was illegal, but apparently not in every state. Unbelievable. In fact, no one that I told the rate they were trying to charge actually believed me that they had set their rate that high. In fact, it was so high, that for only an additional $25, I could have gotten a limo service instead. I obviously ended up not getting a car from E-Z Rent-a-car and now never will. That's right, because of this absurd attempt at price gouging, you'll never see me in a car from E-Z. So, how much were they trying to charge? 100/day? Nope. Would have considered it. $150/day. Not even close. $275/day the first time I looked! And it increased to $284/day over the next 12 hours. And that was for an economy car! I'm inserting a screenshot just because I know you would never believe me otherwise. I want to know who is renting an SUV for $500/day. For the prices they were trying to charge, I was strongly considering buying a car and then selling it 5 days later. I figure there is no way I'm taking a loss of more than $100/day on the buy/sell deal. Ridiculous.
That said, I did pay a doubled price from Enterprise and although I was relatively pleased with the rental itself, I have to say "We'll pick you up" is a complete marketing lie. On the commercials, they show them driving through the countryside to pick someone up, nope. Not true. And whereas I expected there to be a relatively tight pickup range, the range is actually only "10" miles. But not really. The range is also territorial and they will not cross into the range of another Enterprise. So, for example, in a Downtown area where there are 3-4 Enterprise locations, the effective range is more like 4-5 miles before they are into the next Enterprise range. And they won't pick you up at the airport, so you are flying into somewhere and need a car, hope you like riding in a taxi.
