Rental car prices

I looked up rental car prices a few days before my trip on hotels.com. Many budget rental services offered cars for $25/day. When I checked the prices on the day of my trip, they jumped to $60. The only company that was in the previous price range was Payless that offered a sedan for $26 on orbitz.com. The rental company was off the airport premises, had it's office in the foyer of an Econolodge. When I arrived the Payless customer rep. wasn't there, and the Econolodge suggested I check the Payless website in the mean time to see if I could get a better deal. I thought it was funny the Econolodge guy was trying to get me a better deal, and he offered 20% off a room, also. I wasn't sticking around, so I didn't take him up on the offer. While the Payless website certainly looks professional, the Oakland dealer seemed more like amateur hour. The car I rented had about 50K miles on it, but I guess I can't complain about the price.

Website Review: Hotels.com

I booked my first night in Oakland at the La Quinta near the Oakland Airport. This is my first time to use the site eventhough I have been visually barraged at the airport by people w/ the name on their boarding pass envelope. I didn't have much trouble booking a room, and the price was the same as the price on the La Quinta website before taxes. I was happy with the experience and glad it didn't make me spend a lot of time creating a customer account. I could book it and be done.