For those traveling to away games

[meangreenfaninno]

Car rental prices are through the roof in Vegas right now.  I am probably going to try a ride sharing program due to the cost.  This was a good article on why it is happening.

Why It’s Impossible to Rent a Car Right Now

Three June days exploring the roads around Rome in a rented Fiat 500: $276. An SUV for a long weekend in July in Orlando: $455. A week in August touring the Algarve in a family-friendly automatic: $845. But costs aren’t the only problem—there simply aren’t any cars to rent in some destinations.

What happened? The pandemic, the chip shortage, and the war in Ukraine, for starters. But this isn’t just a short-term shock; the car rental market could be changed forever. That’s likely to mean permanently higher prices, an influx of electric cars, and the appearance of Chinese brands—and perhaps even the rise of peer-to-peer car sharing as a mainstream alternative, if enough people are willing to share their cars with strangers.

Things started to break down in early 2020, when lockdowns around the world resulted in the car rental market falling off a cliff. Almost two-thirds of Avis-Budget’s rental business at airports vanished, with revenues company-wide sliding 41 percent year-on-year in 2020. At Europcar, 2020 revenue was down 42 percent, and Hertz's revenue fell 46 percent before it filed for bankruptcy—though it has since restructured and recovered.

 

In response to the mayhem, rental companies sold off their cars. In the UK, fleets were slashed by 30 percent, according to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), a car rental membership organization. In 2019, Hertz had 700,000 vehicles globally. In the first quarter of 2022, that collapsed to 481,000, according to a company spokesperson. Europcar’s fleet size numbered 293,000 vehicles in the first quarter of 2020 but plunged to 187,200 in 2021.

That move made sense as the industry’s two key markets, businesses and vacation travelers, were stuck at home, explains Yusuf Allinson, an analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. “There’s no point holding onto depreciating assets that were not generating money,” he says.

But as lockdowns eased and travel recovered, car rental companies couldn’t restock, thanks to a chip shortage that stalled manufacturing, a problem exacerbated by complex supply chains that rely on parts made or assembled in Ukraine. The ensuing shortage of cars in rental lots more than doubled prices. Over Easter, car rental costs were up by an average of 135 percent across Portugal, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Italy, and France versus 2019 levels, according to consumer organization Which. “You’re buying the car for more, you’re fueling it for more, there’s more demand—it’s very logical for prices to increase,” Allinson says.

read more:  https://www.wired.com/story/car-rental-pandemic-shortage/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[UNTLifer]

I just returned from a business trip.  My rental car for less than 2 1/2 days was more than my airline ticket.

[Marty]

I thought the rental car business was getting better. I went to a Boston in May and rented a SUV for about $28 per day. Just got back from Florida and rented the same size SUV for $30 per day. 

[UNTLifer]

39 minutes ago, Marty said:

I thought the rental car business was getting better. I went to a Boston in May and rented a SUV for about $28 per day. Just got back from Florida and rented the same size SUV for $30 per day. 

Standard vehicle, $98 a day plus fees at the Little Rock Airport.

I typically use Hotwire.com to rent cars because I have found the best rates on here.  In doing a brief study on my own, this is what I found.  I put in the dates July 20 through July 22 and picked the following cities and got the following rates for a standard vehicle:

Las Vegas: $53/day

Orlando: $55/day

DFW: $65/day

Dallas Love Field: $75/day

Little Rock: $93/day

Memphis: $72/day

El Paso: $66/day