The following is a review of the car rental fetures on the
recently-launched Orbitz by Dennis Schaal, Travel Weekly's
techology editor.
Overview:
Orbitz's car rental feature includes offerings from charter
associates Advantage, Alamo Rent A Car, Fox Rent-A-Car, Hertz,
National Car Rental, Payless Car Rental and Thrifty Car Rental as
well as from some 35 other suppliers.
Features:
Car Search: Consumers can specify pickup location (at or near
airport), car type and desired features and can select up to three
preferred companies if they don't want to run a search of all
vendors.Stated mission: Searches an inventory of more than 2 million
rental cars for lowest available rates, including Web-only
rates.How it measures up:
I searched for an economy car to be picked up at or near Chicago
O'Hare on June 14 at 11 a.m. and dropped off there June 18 at 4
p.m. I ran similar searches on Expedia and Travelocity.
The lowest rate produced by all three was $19.99 per day from
Avis.
Although each site has advantageous features -- Travelocity, for
example, noted in initial results that the pickup location was "in
terminal, shuttle to car" -- I found that Orbitz's principal
advantage was the way it displayed search results.
The results were presented in tiles, with pricing arranged by
vendor, enabling users to analyze the offerings in one glance.
Click on the Avis logo, for instance, and see all of its offerings
starting at $19.99.
With Travelocity and Expedia, I had to scroll through results or
search by vendor.
In total, my search on Orbitz produced results from eight
vendors -- four Orbitz charter associates and four nonpartners.
Expedia produced a six-page printout of offerings, ranging from
$19.99 to $85 per day, from five vendors.
The initial results from Expedia produced no Hertz offerings,
although a subsequent search specifically for Hertz produced a
$53.99 daily rate.
Travelocity, like Orbitz, produced rental rates from eight
vendors. Although the low rate was the same on the three sites,
Travelocity's Hertz rate of $33.20 per day bested the Orbitz and
Expedia Hertz rate of $53.99.
And, both Expedia and Travelocity beat Orbitz for Dollar, $33.99
per day vs. $44.99.
Contacts:
Phone: (888) 656-4546
Web: www.orbitz.com