off topic: US car rental

Having rented a few hundred cars in the US in the last decade or so, my personal experience is that the cost per day can vary between cities and dates in a way that is not predictable.
The same car company, the same car category, the same date--but you can have significantly different daily and total cost, depending on what's happening in the car rental market in that location and date.
You just have to comparison shop, but sometime it won't matter, all rental companies in a certain city on a certain city will be high, and other times not.
These cost variations are probably related to sports or events occurring in those areas on certain specific dates--for example, a team from your hometown is playing in your destination on that weekend and thousands of fans are flying in.
I'm sure it's more complicated than that, it's just an example.

You can reduce the cost by declining certain coverages, but if you do that, make sure you understand how your own insurance covers you for coverages you decline.

You can also reduce your cost by avoiding rentals at airports, but there are downsides to that, too.

I've found the lowest rates, best service, etc in the last few years has been with Enterprise.

Your experience may differ.
And others will have different strategies.

We've been finding our lowest rates by booking through Costco. Prior to using Costco a lot we booked through Priceline or one of the other popular booking engines like Orbitz. After looking at your choices book one that has a 24h cancellation policy. About 1 week before your travel date check the rates again as they can often drop if the rental market is slow. In September we were able to cancel our $260/week car and book with the same company for $170/week.

EDIT: This week (July 31, 2015) we were able to cancel a 4 day booking for $136 total and re book for $56 total for an upcoming car rental in Williamsburg VA, again checking for different prices a week or two before traveling.

a few years ago, we flew into Albuquerque planning to rent a car to visit friends in Santa Fe. It turned out to be the weekend of the balloon festival, so rates at the airport were way high - but we were able to rent at an in-town location about 15 minutes away for much less. They even had a free shuttle to pick us up! So don't rule out an off-airport location.

I've used carrentals.com; put in the city name instead of the airport, and use the map to find something that will be a reasonable taxi ride away. Good luck!

1) There usually isn't a great price improvement by prepaying

2) Since non-prepaid reservations don't require a credit card guarantee, just search on a multi-company rental site like Expedia and find the best price fro ma company and with a car class you can live with. Note this.

3) Actually pay attention to the spam e-mails you get from airlines, hotel groups, AAA/AARP, etc. I'm coming to believe that getting a better price really is quite voodoo, but if you do see another coupon or affinity code pop up in your junk mail, it really doesn't take long to try a search with it so it's worth giving the new ones a try. For a recent Colorado trip, I was getting pretty ugly prices for a 9 day rental until I read a e-mail from La Quinta Hotels about ten days before departure saying they've got a special discount code that can save you up to 25-30% from Budget and when I tried it, I actually did get a rate that was $150 cheaper than what any other major rental company had quoted me for that car class to that point.

Yes, we also recently booked through our hotel (Hampton Inn/Hilton chain) and saved a bundle - my recollection is that it was $200 less on a 10-day rental. I've always heard you should recheck the price shortly before departure and I'm now a believer! I just canceled the first reservation and made the new one. When we arrived at the airport, we were quoted a different price but showed our confirmation and actually ended up with a price even lower than that showed!

I use www.carrentals.com, try to book really early, check if rates are going down over time (I've cancelled and rebooked a better rate a number of times) and also compare it against www.hotwire.com or even www.orbitz.com. Sometimes www.hotwire.com will have the best price and I just have to pre-book to get it (i just look at the base rate and decide if it's worth it, the taxes are a given); othewise, I try to reserve without pre-paying. Another tip may be to use airline points, although those work best at airports and not non-airport locations (same with hotwire.com). For whatever reason, the prices on the rental car websites are astronomically higher than either carrentals.com or hotwire.com, so I never use the car rental websites themselves.

Rentals at airport locations are packed with facility fees, taxes, etc. pertinent to that airport, but they typically have the greatest selection of cars and more competition from alternative rentals to offset these fees. But it's worth checking rates at non-airport locations for comparison.

A word of caution about using off-airport locations derived from one of my experiences. For a recent visit to my daughter in Portland, she found us a "great" rate with Thrifty. The catch was that their site is not at PDX. You get a shuttle back and forth. At the end of the trip, we visited friends in Eugene. Having done that many times, we knew the drive back to PDX would take 2 hours. We gave ourselves more than 4 to allow for traffic, refueling and returning the car, and the shuttle. Long story short, what with nightmarish traffic and not being able to find a gas station (even with a gps) easily, we barely made our plane. For future trips, I'll go with one of the companies that has a location right at the airport.

Ruth,

I've rented many cars in Seattle, and usually just use the links provided by the airline when I book my flights. They have all the major rental firms listed, and I just look for the one that has rates that I'm "comfortable" with (can't remember which one I used last time, but it might have been Enterprise).

If my memory is correct, they built a brand new facility close to SEA a few years ago, so all car rentals are "off premises" now. There's a shuttle bus from the airport and it only takes a few minutes to get to the rental place.

Are you familiar with the Seattle area, or will you need a GPS? You could start with this link.....

http://www.rentalcars.com/us/airport/us/sea/?affiliateCode=msn_ca_pl&cor=ca&label=msn-ca-domestic&adcamp=MSN%20-%20CA-Pay%20Local%20-%20Airport%20-%20USA&utm_content=Seattle%20Seatac%20Airport%20-%20SEA&adplat=msn&adco=cpc&utm_term=car%20rentals%20seatac

Thanks, everyone. I've checked most of the links, and the prices still seem crazy high to me. That is, the rates seem decent...until the $200 in taxes and fees get added on! However, thanks to your good advice, I did go ahead and book a reservation, which will at least give me peace of mind while I keep looking. My employer's discount is still the best rate I've found, but even that is way more than I've ever paid to rent a car before. Maybe it's the market...or maybe prices have just gone up a lot since the last time I rented. I am definitely going to keep an eye on the email I get from my hotel honors program...I usually trash it without reading, so that's a great tip. Would it ever be worth contacting the hotel directly to see if they have any discounts? I am also going to try to see if I could use airline miles. I have a bunch of United miles I haven't been able to use. We used to live in the SF area, and flew United all the time. But now we live in the middle of nowhere in upstate NY, and it hasn't been worth our while to fly United.... Any other advice is appreciated! Thanks!

I have a bunch of United miles I haven't been able to use

I've used United points for car rentals many times (always from airports) - this seems like a winner to me!

Costco is my first choice, although i always check Hotwire (fantastic savings at times), Kayak, et al. What's working against you is an evening arrival and a desire to gain a car at/near the airport. While not confirmed, my opinion is fees and taxes imposed by the Port of Seattle on auto rentals associated with the airport are very high. Traffic is a madhouse in Seattle and was bad when I lived there years ago. I recall a Sunday late afternoon rental car return to SeaTac on I5, with stop and go traffic starting at Tumwater (50 miles south). Plan accordingly.

For personal travel, I usually start with Expedia to see what each brand's price looks like. But then I go directly to the car rental's company site and search. And since you don't have to pay anything up front, you can easily make another reservation and cancel the original if you find a better deal. Earlier this year I flew into Roanoke, Virginia and with Hertz found a "Manager's special" rate for $15 per day. So the 2 day rental including taxes was about $50. I also stick with the well known brand names as they are pretty efficient with pickup and drop off .

I recently reserved a car in Seattle through Expedia - just for a weekend - and got an unbelievably cheap rate with Alamo not using any special code. Note that all the car rentals are sort of off site at the Seattle airport. They run a shuttle to the car rental facility. Allow time for this when you return for your flight home.

In the past I've checked Travelocity and others to get a idea who is coming up cheapest. Now when we rent a car, I go right to the Dollar dot com website and make a reservation. Then I check every two days....right now I've booked, cancelled and rebooked 5 times, each time a cheaper rate (for Las Vegas in January-- heading to Utah). It has come down from $497 to $246 for an 8-day rental of a mid-size car. ....I haven't checked today yet : )