Posted by Best Car Rental Companies
What is a Car Rental Booking Site?
The concept of car rental booking site is quite simple. It is a website that facilitates the booking of car rental services. This service has been made possible by the increase in demand for cars due to various factors, such as an increase in population, an increase in the number of people travelling, and so on.
There are different types of websites which offer this service. Some websites will offer only one type of vehicle while others will offer all types of vehicles for renting purposes. The rates offered by these websites are usually very competitive with other services that offer car rental services.
How to Choose the Best Car Rental Booking Site for Your Needs
When you are planning on renting a car, there are several major things to consider. These include where you will be traveling to, the type of car rental company, and the type of vehicle.
Choosing the best car rental booking site for your needs involves determining these 3 things:
1) Where you will be traveling to
2) The type of car rental company
3) The type of vehicle needed
Where Should You Start Your Search for the Best Car Rental Websites?
There is a huge variety of car rental websites out there that offer accommodation for every budget and need. But, how do you know what site offers the best deals? Well, we can help you with that!
We have made a list of all the features and prices offered by the most popular and well-known car rental websites and let you make your own decision on which site offers the best deals!
What’s the best website to use when you want to rent a car?
There’s no one best car rental booking website, but there are plenty of really great ones worth looking into. The best one for you will depend on what you’re after.
Determining the best car rental deals is different than most other travel purchases because you can’t just rely on one booking site. You can, however, expect to find good rates with rentals in big cities like New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
When it comes to car reservation sites, the process seems similar across sites with no one standing out as especially easy or difficult. My comparisons are mainly based on how easily I can get to my booking with each site.
Top 10 Best Car Rental Booking Sites for 2021 (Best Deals)
Here are the Best Car Rental Booking Sites for 2021:
- Rentalcars
- AutoRentals
- Expedia car rentals
- Hotwire
- Priceline car rentals
- Auto Europe
- Sixt Rent a Car
- Rentcars
- Kayak
- CarRentals
1. Rentalcars.com
This company provides car rental services for leisure and business travelers. They provide services in over 230 destinations across the world. The company has won many awards, including the Travel Weekly’s “Best Web Site” Award, the Travelocity “Best of” Award, and the 2014 iMedia “Best of Show” Award.
Rentalcars.com consistently offered the best prices for my searches and even won some of the time. It’s a great website that allows you to find rental cars in over 160 countries worldwide.
Pros: Just like Auto-Rentals.com, Rentalcars.com is a metasearch provider that can make it easier to compare offers. It may offer you opaque rates for less if you don’t mind not knowing the exact car type
Cons: We work with a lot of booking sites, so sometimes you may see some unfamiliar rates on some of them. Fortunately, the site also lets you rate those sites so that renting from them is as safe as possible. There are some great AI writing assistants out there, but unfortunately, you can’t expect all of them to meet your needs. Many of the offers on page one had an average rating of just 5.9/10, for example.”
2. AutoRentals.com
AutoRentals.com was founded in 2010 to answer the need for affordable car rentals. they are a team of avid travelers who know that the best way to explore a country or city is by car. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
The company has grown exponentially in recent years, with its headquarters now located in Houston, Texas. AutoRentals has also come up with an innovative new platform for travelers to explore all of Europe by renting cars from any city. The company aims to make the European continent more accessible and affordable for people traveling across borders.
We recommend using a meta-search website for your rental needs. Sites like autorentals.com allow you to conveniently compare prices on more than 25 different vehicles from several sources, including other metasearch websites. The price display will show you both the posted daily rate and the all-up cost for the requested rental location. The screen also indicates which locations are “off airport.” This matrix feature is especially useful in comparing options!
Pros: Huge worldwide coverage. Once you select an option to check, Auto-Rents links you through to the vendor’s web pages so you can finalize your booking straight away. It includes complementary services like various rental companies and search systems to suit all needs.
Cons: Reports of “the best deals” can often be misleading. In some cases, taxes and fees are not included in the total price – for others they’re either nonrefundable or come with a cancellation fee. This information is disclosed very late in the booking process and until then, you need to search for it.
3. Expedia car rentals
Expedia is the world’s largest online travel agency. Car rentals account for a significant portion of its revenue. Roughly 30% of Expedia’s revenue comes from car rentals, which is much higher than the industry average of 10%.
Expedia’s car rental business has been profitable, but it may be susceptible to changes in the competitive environment.
Compare rates from Expedia and Priceline to Rentalcars.com and see which one offers the best deals. You might have a good chance of finding a price that’s at least the average or even lower than what you’re currently seeing, unless it’s a really popular travel option. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
Pros: In the vast majority of cases, rates were obtained from this site match or exceed those from the rental company’s own system. And if you use this site for hotels & flights, renting a car is just an additional step.
Cons: The transparency of Expedia’s rates is the only downside if you’re looking for something extra.
4. Hotwire
Hotwire is the world’s largest travel site. Hotwire’s advanced search engine offers travelers the convenience of searching for vacations, car rentals, flights, hotel rooms and local destinations in one simple search. Hotwire is owned by Expedia Group.
What are your thoughts on this?
The company has expanded their services to include everything from booking hotels to booking flights. The company has also expanded to offer various types of vacation packages that are tailored around the user’s needs. The company uses a bidding system where you can bid on an offer that meets your preferences while still maintaining transparency on the price you will be paying for it.
Tests in the US showed that Hotwire offered some of the best car rates with “opaque” rates. This means you pay for your reservation without knowing what company it is with. However, the similarity in cars means you stand very little chance to be disappointed with an opaque rate.
Pros: We’ve checked the AutoRentals matrix and Hotwire always shows up as one of the best bets for low rates.
Cons: I did not find many opacity rates for Europe on Hotwire.
5. Priceline car rentals
Priceline is one of the most popular travel booking websites in the world. The website offers a wide range of travel services from air, hotel, and car rental to vacation packages. Priceline provides a variety of services with different amenities and features at different prices. Customers can book their vacations online at any time from anywhere in the world, while also having access to more than 30 million hotels around the globe.
Priceline car rentals are available for all international travelers visiting the United States. Prices are determined by various factors including vehicle size, fuel type, pickup location, destination address and date of trip return.
Priceline offers on site service for drop offs at airport locations in the US only (Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), New York City-JFK International Airport.
Hotwire & Priceline offer rates that are unclear in most cities. Hotwire had lower prices more often, but sometimes Priceline was cheaper. So if you’re looking for cheap prices, it’s best to try both websites. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
Pros: The chance of it having the lowest price in stock. If you use this site to book hotels or flights, it’s easy to add on a car again with the other online travel booking sites.
Cons: I couldn’t find any opaque rates in my Priceline search for Europe.
6. Auto Europe
Auto Europe is the leading car rental company in Europe. The company is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium and has offices in 35 countries across the globe.
The company offers a variety of cars which vary depending on what you are looking for. They have cars for all kinds of needs whether it’s a family vacation, an airport transfer, or business class rental.
Auto Europe also has a mobile application where you can book your rental car anywhere at any time. You can either book online or use the mobile app to find out more information about different vehicles and book your vehicle right away via their mobile app.
The company was founded in 1981 by two Belgian entrepreneurs with an initial investment of €1 million euros which helped them to launch their car rental service in Belgium before expanding to France, Germany,
In Europe, Auto Europe tends to be competitive when it comes to pricing. They’re like the Amazon of European car rentals.
Pros: I’ve used Auto Europe in the past and found that their customer support is top notch. They can also help you with more unusual rentals, such as finding a rental agency in Ireland that accepts drivers over age 70. They make it easy to start any rental process, whether it’s for Europe or elsewhere!
Cons: AutoEurope.com is one of the biggest car rental booking sites in Europe and we’ll usually get you a better deal than if you booked the same product locally. We also offer rentals in America and other parts of the world but these often won’t price as competitively low.
7. Sixt Rent a Car
Sixt Car Rental is a leading car rental company in Europe with over 1,000 locations in some 130 countries and more than 30,000 employees. It was founded in 1912 by Robert Sixt and remains one of the oldest rental companies. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
Sixt Rent a Car provides customers with the opportunity to rent anything from small cars to luxury vehicles and has more than 100 different brands. With its fleet of cars, it offers all types of transportation such as sedan, SUV, luxury cars, sports car and even vintage cars – all at competitive prices.
For European cities, the Sixt booking website is evidence that some higher-end companies occasionally offer better special rates. At the time of my search, the German company was running a “special” that was cheaper in some cases, but
Pros: Find the lowest prices in just a few clicks with price comparing site HotUKDeals
Cons: The loud black and orange color scheme on the results page is not very pleasant to read.
8. Rentcars.com
Rentcars.com is an online car rental company that provides customers with a wide array of cars to rent. This company has been in operation since 2011. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
Over the years, Rentcars.com has grown significantly and it now employs over 1,000 employees across the world.
Rentcars.com is another metasearch system which, like the search engines I tested, finds good deals for you.
Pros: This app will scan more than 100 rental companies and display the best deals first.
Cons: As with many other sites, the best prices it finds are sometimes pay-in-advance. However, this comes with full or partial nonrefundability, which means that unless you’re sure that your plans are concrete then you need to know upfront to cancel in order to get a refund.
9. Kayak
After testing a few different car rental websites, I found that Kayak had some of the best prices. In addition to airfare, they also offer pretty good rates on car rentals. This button doesn’t really offer much in terms of what you might be getting, so why not go with the option that has an exact idea of what it is?
Pros: The website has lots of useful filters, one of my favourite is the pay now button. This means that I can select a parking space and go straight to the payment terminal without having to queue for ages (showing only hybrid vehicles).
Cons: Kayak works with a lot of different booking sites, meaning that sometimes you may end up on a site you’ve never seen before. Do your research and read reviews first to be sure they’re trustworthy.
10. CarRentals.com
The company was founded in 1998 and has grown to be the #1 car rental site in the world.
CarRentals is a one-stop shop for a variety of rental options, including cars, trucks, vans, and more. All customers can enjoy a simple and convenient booking process with low-rate prices on all products.
CarRentals is one of the first companies to offer instant online quotes on all rentals as well as 24/7 customer service. CarRentals.com shows similar results to Expedia, but they’re different enough that you might want to compare them for your travel needs.
Pros: The website has some cool filtering features, including the ability to leave feedback on your chosen car’s cleanliness, friendliness of staff and much more. You can also reserve without a card if you are in the US or Canada.
Cons: Automatically signing people up for emails without an opt out option is not only unethical, but it’s bad for business. It’s common sense that nobody will want to continue receiving these emails without any control over them.
11. AARP Partners
AARP Partners is a partnership health insurance program specifically for people 50 years of age and older. Launched in January 2018, it is the only Medicare Advantage program that will offer customers the option to have Prescription Drug Coverage, which is not offered in most Medicare Advantage programs.
The program is available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia with no out-of-pocket cost to enrollees who are on Original Medicare Parts A and B. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
If you qualify for AARP’s car rental services, then you can get 30% off when renting from the Avis Group (Avis, Budget & Payless). This is not offered anywhere else!
Pros: In the age of rising premiums, you can save a lot of money with AARP.
Cons: Shopping around might find you a better rate, don’t get roped in by low offers.
12. Low-Cost Car Rental Booking Sites
Rental car booking sites have been around for a while now and they have not just made it easier for people to find cars, but also enabled them to find affordable rates as well. Low-cost car rental booking sites are becoming increasingly popular with travelers who want to explore the world. These sites offer competitive rates and options that suit every budget.
The best thing about these sites is that they allow you to compare prices and save money on your next trip. Their list of available vehicles is so extensive and covers every type of car from small sedans to big family crossovers, which means that you can be sure of finding the perfect vehicle for your needs no matter where in the world you’re going.
Typically, the cheapest car rental at the end of the day tends to be with Alamo, Payless, and Thrifty. These top 3 companies tend to have lower prices–sometimes hundreds less–than other big name rental outfits.
Pros: The obvious benefit is that you’re saving a lot of money. But…
Cons: The downside is that they generally don’t provide the same amazing rewards programs as corporate loyalty schemes. I also found lower rental rates on metasearch sites such as AutoRentals.com or Rentalcars.com than I did when booking via the low cost car rental booking sites.
13. Autoslash
The Autoslash site is a one-stop shopping site for discounts that people can use to do their searching for them. They will collect information about the different programs and memberships you’ve signed up for and link you to all your options. It is one of the Best Car Rental Booking Sites in 2021.
Pros: The app can search all rewards programs and discounts to help you find the best offers. If you’ve booked elsewhere, enter your booking confirmation number, and they’ll tell you if there are any better deals available.
Cons: You may need to make a small, non-refundable deposit upfront, but you’ll still get a great deal. You’ll have to book with a company that isn’t the biggest name in the industry though.