Why is car rental so expensive at the moment?
The car rental market has ended up with low supply and high demand due to the health crisis
The pandemic hit the travel industry like a Euro NCAP crash test. As EU is slowly lifting restrictions we want to share our predictions for the 2021 summer travel season.
When US started opening up for domestic travel, customer’s were faced with unexpectedly high prices. This will likely happen in other countries as well. As EU experienced worse lockdown, it’s possible, that the fleet issues might be even more common.
As the pandemic made it’s way to Europe in the begining of 2020, many car rental companies did not update their fleet that year. Sadly enough, many even had to sell some of their vehicles just to stay in business. This means that there is less vehicles available but as people are starting to travel again, the demand is high, causing the price to rise surge. The travelers in the US have already seen rental prices from 300–500 USD for a day, in severe cases people have paid even 1000 USD to get a vehicle for day. For many these prices sound unreasanable.
There also have been cases of fleet failures- if for some reason the supplier does not manage to relocate their cars on time, they will run out of vehicles to provide to customers. In situations like this, customers who have reserved a vehicle have an advantage over customers who want to pick up directly from the counter, as reputable car rental companies hold the vehicles for the customers with reservations.
By our data, the best time to reserve a vehicle is at least 1–3 months before the pick-up time. This means, if you want good deals for the summer you should act now.
Last minute car rentals being cheaper is a myth. Most likely there will not be even available vehicles last minute, or of there is then the prices might be triple what you’re willing to pay.
Will the rental prices go down?
The rental prices will likely not go down before next year. Car rental companies have confirmed us that many of them are working on improving their fleet but the demand is rising faster than the supply. As people have been locked in for over a year now, vaccination passes and lifted restrictions mean the travel addicts are soon finally free to storm the desired destinations. We’re of course hoping to see travel become more accessible and convenient to everyone. After a year like this, some sun in Spain or northern lights in Sweden might do us all good. We’re crossing our fingers with you.
