Rides ain't cheap in America
October 17, 2016 10:14 AM   Subscribe

Does anyone know why car rentals cost about $50/day in the States, on average, and cost about $30/day in Canada?

For instance, in Winnipeg, you can rent a car for $13/day (post-tax) on the weekend. I realize it's more expensive in Toronto and cheaper in Florida, but I'm wondering if the government has anything to do with this? Or is this purely a market/business strategy thing?
posted by kinoeye to Grab Bag (15 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I don't think your premise is correct - I book car rentals all over US all the time and it varies wildly, from $15 to $80 and up. Even the same city can vary by that much based upon time of year; out of curiosity I checked my home city on two upcoming random weekends. The first one was $44/day and the second was $17. It's all supply and demand.
posted by something something at 10:30 AM on October 17, 2016 [12 favorites]


I think it's where you're renting and when. I just had a rental Subaru Forester SUV from Friday to Sunday for $42 total including tax in Southern California.
posted by cecic at 10:43 AM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well if you're looking at US car rentals one thing to consider is that when you rent from an airport location you're paying an extra surcharge. The same car from the same company will be cheaper if you rent it from an off-airport location. (And I don't mean when the airport's car rental center is situated slightly away from the airport proper. I mean a location not directly associated with the airport.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:47 AM on October 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


Does anyone know why car rentals cost about $50/day in the States, on average, and cost about $30/day in Canada?

I rent a car approximately twice a month all over the US and at least twice a year in Canada - I think your basic premise is flawed and you're not comparing like for like. For instance, I could rent a car from downtown Toronto (same company, same car, same duration) for just over a third of the price of renting one from the airport (Pearson). It's all supply, demand, peak times/locations and the exchange rate. And I have been able to rent at similar rates as people above in the US (ie very cheap and very expensive).

Also, don't forget that prices in Canada are comparable on dollar for dollar, so the exchange rate makes them look cheaper if you are only looking at USD numbers.
posted by Brockles at 10:58 AM on October 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


I live in Canada and generally must budget, at a minimum, C$75 for car rental, after tax. Where did you get the C$30 deal???
posted by My Dad at 11:34 AM on October 17, 2016


Enterprise has weekend rates*—economy/compact cars are $9.99/day, Friday through Monday, i.e., $29.97, plus taxes, etc for 3 days. This includes 100 miles/day. (The per mile cost after 300 miles is pretty steep.)

*Iirc, does not apply during the summer and some holidays.
posted by she's not there at 3:21 PM on October 17, 2016


Your premise is faulty. You may be looking at a particular location that charges $50/day for a particular type of car, but I don't think I've ever paid more than $30/day in my life of renting cars all over the US, and there are lots of places where I'll pay half that.
posted by MsMolly at 4:52 PM on October 17, 2016


Response by poster: Hmm okay, I might have been comparing just Manhattan/Jersey City/Boston/Portsmouth and Winnipeg, not other areas i.e. I didn't do a systematic search. I still don't understand how a random search yields USD$72-88 for 3 Boston locations for a weekend in March 2017, while most locations in Winnipeg are never above CAD$13 on weekends. The market can't vary THAT much. It would be way more profitable for there to be more cars in Boston, and less in places like Winnipeg.
posted by kinoeye at 5:06 PM on October 17, 2016


The cost of storing the cars would be way higher in Boston, though, right? Boston is an older city with the space and infrastructure to match, so it's harder to find land to make into a big parking lot to store the cars in when they're not in use. I'm assuming Winnipeg is a lot more like Houston where there's oodles of sprawl to build giant parking lots, and where renting a car is comparably cheap.
posted by MsMolly at 5:13 PM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also you might want to try Priceline, because here are cars for $23/day on a weekend in March in Boston.
posted by MsMolly at 5:16 PM on October 17, 2016


A bunch of factors already mentioned, but here's what I've found impacts the car's price:

- demand for your dates
- local taxes (can be very high)
- port / airport surcharges
- price tiers (e.g. daily / weekly / weekend)

Note on price tiers: I've noticed cases where renting Fri-Sun was actually cheaper than Sat-Sun which made no sense. A friend who used to work in the travel industry told me that my 3-day trip was likely priced at the Weekend rate, and the 2-day trip was 2x the much more expensive Daily Rate.

Also, once you get the the confirmation screen for renting a car, you should see the taxes and surcharges broken out.

Personally, I've gotten the cheapest rates from Priceline Name Your Own Price (very inflexible), and the most reliably good rates from Costco Travel (flexible).
posted by reeddavid at 5:42 PM on October 17, 2016


Why wouldn't Winnipeg be dirt cheap compared to Boston? As someone who has been to both cities, yeah, Winnipeg should be cheaper. Boston has far less space and everything costs more. I also find it costs more if you book really close to your dates and if you try to rent from a location with a smaller stock, like trying to rent somewhere other than an airport. I'm not a huge expert by any means, but those are my observations. I've never paid $50/day to rent a car. I feel like $30 or less is normal.
posted by AppleTurnover at 6:06 PM on October 17, 2016 [3 favorites]


Dude, Winnipeg. Do you know anything about Winnipeg? You can't compare Winnipeg and Boston.
posted by GuyZero at 6:59 PM on October 17, 2016 [4 favorites]


About to say what GuyZero did. Winnipeg?

Car rental prices are based on demand, real estate (storing a fleet of cars in downtown garages or at an airport garage is more in denser and richer cities), and insurance rates (bigger cities cost more).

I've rented in major US cities for $15/day at weekly or weekend rates from Alamo/National. I've been back to the same cities on busier weekends and the same car is 4x the price.

Winnipeg costs less because they feel sorry for you having to visit that city.
posted by spitbull at 7:22 PM on October 17, 2016


Let me bring in some numbers - annual tourist spending in Winnipeg is $635M CAD ($485M USD). Annual tourist spending in Boston is $12.2B USD. The tourist industry in Boston is 28x Winnipeg's. This translates to much higher demand for cars and even with an increased supply it's just a much more popular place and has higher prices.
posted by GuyZero at 7:26 PM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


« Older Podcasts That Make You Feel Smarter   |   How can I find a good therapist in San Francisco? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.