I have had the chance to use these guys twice now. They seem to have the cheapest rates. But I guess you get what you pay for.
The first time I used them was in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, most rental car companies operate out of the rental car center. You catch a shuttle at the airport, and a few minutes later, you are at the rental car center. No problem. But with Fox Car Rental, you need to catch another shuttle from the rental car center, to the Fox rental car lot. While the shuttles to the rental car center are frequent, the shuttles to the Fox lot are not as frequent.
I had reserved an econom car. But they seemed to be out of these, and were giving people PT Cruisers. Pretty cool. My only complaint was that the PT Cruisers didn’t have cruise control. I picked the car up, and dropped it off, no problems.
My second experience with Fox Car Rental was in Seattle. Man of the rental car places in Seattle are right at the airport. But Fox Car Rental is off airport. We got there, and didn’t know how to get to the rental car place. I called Fox Car Rental and got a recording about going to the courtesy phones and calling extention 32 or something. But on the courtesy phones at the airport, you cant dial anything. I did manage to go through the menu on the phone, and contact Fox, and was told to wait island 1 or 3. We got out there, and just missed a Fox shuttle. We had to wait 20 minutes or more for the shuttle come back. Getting the car was no problem. We got a Kia. Great car. It even had satellite radio installed.
The biggest issue came when we went to return the car. Out flight was a little after 6am. We planned to be at the airport at 4am, so we planned to drop the car off at about 3:30am. We arrived at the rental car place at 3:30am only to find them closed. WHAT? I called the local Fox Car Rental number and got a message saying thei hours were 4am-1am. WHAT? I had checked the Fox Car Rental website and didn’t see anything about hours. When I called the Fox Car Rental 800 #, I didn’t hear anything about hours. We waited until 4am, and they opened a few minuted after that. It still took time for them to get opened to check us out. The whole thing was kind of annoying. I will have to think before I choose to use these guys again.
Actually, they didn’t so much lose it, as delay. Then they proceded to make mistake after mistake in trying to get it back to us.
We left Rochester, NY, flew through Cincinnati to Seattle. Our single bag didn’t arrivw with us. Apparently it went to Detroit, to Salt Lake City to Seattle or something like that. We arrived a little after noon. Our bage wasn’t due until sometime after 4pm. But we were staying in Kingston across the Puget Sound. They said they would deliver it that night, in the morning. It didn’t arrive. According to Delta Airlines website, our luggage should have been delivered between 6pm, and 6am. I called Delta Airlines. They said our luggage was now going to be delivered before 6pm. But I called the courier and found they didn’t even deliver to Kingston. They were waiting for Delta to tell them what to do with it. Delta Airline seemed to think they delivered to Kingston. After hours of phone calls, and incompetence by Delta Airlines. We finally drove 80 miles round trip to pick up our bag in Por Orchard. The other option Delta gave us was to have the courier deliver the bag back to the airport, and they would fedex the bag to us. But then we would have to wait another 2 days to get it. Still not happy about the whole situation.
I have had more problems with Delta Airlines than all other airlines combined.
We were Tupper Lake for the Tupper Lake Tinman. I had a friend who was staying out in Saranac Lake. We were going to meet up for dinner. The original plan was to eat at a place out in Lake Placid named Pasta La Vista. But when my wife and I arrived in Lake Placid, we found Pasta La Vista was out of business. Bummer. I loved the name. My buddy and his friend hadn’t arrived yet, so I called him. He discussed it with his friend, and it was decided we go to a place called Nicola’s. Fortunatly it was less than a block away. So my wife and I walked there. We went in and got a table.
Eric and his friend Bob showed up shortly.
My wife and I have already been looking through the menu. One thing we noticed was that they don’t do separate checks. Hmm… So my wife and I quickly checked how much cash we had. Only about $55 in cash on us. I would have liked to have had a steak, but couldn’t afford it. I was going to have pasta then. I couldn’t decide which one. I asked the waited for a recommendation. He recommended the Bolognese Pasta, so I ordered that. My wife ordered the We also ordered a Vongole which had clams and linguine. We also ordered a caesar salad to split. Oh, and I ordered a diet coke.
The caesar salad was excellent. But the Bolognese Pasta, was just okay. Kind of bland. My wife was not thrilled with the Vongole either. She said the clams were good, but the pasta was missign something. I tried her pasta and agreed. My coke was empty, and I asked for a refill. After a bit I asked again. After asking the third time, I finally got it. We also had to ask for the bill. When the bill came, we set about figuring out who owed how much. I foudn they charged me for the 2nd coke. Grumble.
So the service sucked. Other than the caesar salad, the food was not all that great, and was priced on the high side too. Pretty much, I did not like this restaurant and cannot recommend it at all.
Nicola’s is located at 211 Main St, Lake Placid, NY 12946. Their phone number is 518-523-5853. They have a website: http://www.nicolasandgrill211.com
I needed to book a Scranton, PA hotel room for a night in October. My first stop was Orbitz. I found I could get a room at the Days Inn for about $62. That is including taxes and fees. It was a 2 star hotel. There were some other hotels that were priced at over $100 a night. But I just wanted some place decent, and cheap. I found rooms slightly cheaper if I was willing to stay outside of Scranton. But I wanted to stay closer in town.
I headed over the Hotwire.com to see what I could find. I found a 2 start hotel for $58. But when taxes and fees were added in, the price jumped to about $70. And I wouldn’t even know what hotel I was booking. Probably Days Inn, but maybe not.
I headed over to Priceline. They listed the Days Inn hotel at $66/night. And I am not sure if there would have been taxes and fees added to that price. But it was already more expensive than Orbitz.
I decided to try Priceline’s Name Your Own Price. I bid $30, which with taxes and fees came to about $40. My bid was not accepted. I checked out other areas, and found some areas with much more expensive 2 star hotels. I added one of those in figuring I wouldn’t likely get one of those), and upped my bid to $35. Again, my bid was not accepted. I upped my bid to $40, which with taxes and fees, came to a price of slightly over $50. I added in another area, and again my bid was not accepted. I set about to raise my bid yet again. I was going to try $45. But then I saw that with taxes and fees, Priceline had the total at $58 or $59. That was not much cheaper than the rate at Orbitz. And with Orbitz, I knew what hotel I was getting. With Priceline, I didn’t know. It was PROBABLY the same hotel, but maybe not. And there wasn’t even a guarantee that I would get the room for that price. I didn’t submit the $45 bid. I went back over to Orbitz and booked my Scranton PA hotel room for just over $62.
Maybe the Name Your Own Price feature works better for higher priced hotel rooms.
I needed a hotel in Louisville in August. I didn’t particularly care which hotel I stayed in, I just needed to stay downtown near 4th street. I searched various travel sites, and found the hotels were kind of expensive. I found a website that had winning Priceline bids for various citys. But I found these bids not very useful, since it depends when you will staying in each city. And many of the bids I found for Louisville were not the weekend I would be staying there. But I did find a tip on how to win Priceline bids.
I will be there on the weekend of the Ironman Triathlon, so I am guessing they will have no shortage of guests. So I didn’t count on getting a hotel for those cheap prices. But I had to try.
I checked out Priceline, and found that the only 3.5-4 star hotels were in the downtown area. So I tried bidding $70 for a 3.5+ star hotel. My bid was not accepted. No problem. I would either have to wait til the next day to up my bid, or modify my requirements. Since I knew there were no 3.5+ star hotels in any other area of Louisville than downtown, I added another area, and upped my bid by $5. Again I was turned down. I added another area, and upped my bid again by $5. My bids were repeatedly no accepted. I used up all my bids.
The next day I tried again. I started at $90. Each time my bids were not accepted, I would add another area of the city. As I said, I knew that I would not get a hotel in another part of the city, since there were no 3.5+ star hotels anywhere but downtown. I finally bid $105, and my bid was accepted. I got a room at the Hyatt Regency for $105/night plus taxes and fees. It came to $374 for 3 nights.
So try this trick next time you go to use Priceline. Just be sure there are no hotels of the star rating you want in the areas that you add, to get the extra bids.