"Until now you were making a "Bid", and you never realize it - because you never entered the bid value nor did you even see the word BID till this stage"

So you found that Priceline has the best deal out there or you just heard about this bidding website with the cheapest rentals. Whatever be your case, please be aware of the following information that is not apparent for all of us who skim through (or don't read) the terms and conditions.

The Situation:

I wanted to book a rental car in Montreal and was fishing for cheapest deals around. Started from Google, and found an attractive search result (which is almost always a bait and not the price you get in the website).

The link went to Priceline, where I searched for my pickup location, date/times and the page below is shown.

The Lure:

Note the first column has Express Deals which are the cheapest and most attractive. This essentially means you will not know which car rental agency (or the car)  you would get until you complete the transaction. Most of us would not care which company/car if the price is really a steal.




I clicked on the express deal for Mid-Size. Again note that the prices between higher models up to standard have very small difference. This as you would know is to hook you into the mid-size/standard because you think the difference is very little - common for any service with multiple offerings these days. Although there is an additional surprise here - which I will mention below. Also note the highlighted area with "Pay at Pick-up" and "Free Cancellation.

Nothing to suspect:

Once you select the option it shows the summary screen with the prices and other features like unlimited mileage




Yes, you are happy you got a good deal and you click "Reserve it" which takes you to the next page



Where you get fooled

There you see that the price with tax and everything is displayed. If you were to think you got yourself a good deal, think again - you didn't yet. You fill in the credit card details and other personal information, there is a terms and conditions box which you are required to sign (your initials).



If you see here there is a statement which says that any booking is completely non refundable. Do not get fooled by the "Cancel with 100% refund". That is only if you buy the collision damage coverage (the price of which you will not know until you actually go to the car company to start your rental).

The Surprise!

After this stage, when you think that you are done with your booking, you are directed to the page which says either your booking is confirmed (in a rare occurrence) which means you are done with the booking. But what mostly happens is you get redirected to a page that says that this "BID" is not available. Yes, until now you were making a "BID". Nowhere was this word even mentioned till now. It doesn't matter if you never entered a bid or if the website sounded like a normal booking site showing you options and price for them.

The Bidding 

For new customers this would be a surprise. And for those who have done some research and find that this price is too good, we would continue with this process of "bidding".

How this works is, you enter a value higher than the one that was shown to you and it tells you if the bid is accepted or not. So in my case, the mid-size car was $39/day, so I would try $40, $42, $44 etc. and keep trying until it accepts my bid (because it stills sounds like the best deal among the competition)

Now after one bid for a type of car, it does not allow you to make another bid. So you would try with other classes of cars. Again for each type you can make one bid. So you end up topping your previous offer by $1 or $2. The real surprise comes after this.


This is how you get screwed 

For those of you who were trying to see at what price the bid gets accepted, you are now locked to your deal. Remember you had already provided your credit card information earlier so now your card would be charged (actually it is only blocked but if you cannot cancel the bid, there is no difference between blocked and charged). Anyone who didn't know becomes a victim of the terms and conditions which state that there is no way to cancel or refund this deal.

All those who believed in the free cancellation in the first screen, would forget that they have to look for this in each screen by the time you reach the last screen. Because that applied only for that case where the price they displayed got accepted, which is very rare. And by this time your money is blocked and there is no way to even move your rental by half an hour and if you really notice the price after all this process, it wouldn't be very different from the other open options or direct quotes from car companies that have an option to change or cancel until you start your rental.

Do not try calling customer service representatives, they bluntly say there is no way to change this and even if you try to provide a feedback that their website is not upfront and misleading, these folks are just rude with you (might not be always but this is what I got).

Smart, right? By taking advantage of unsuspecting customers, they play according to legal terms, but will never attract the respect and loyalty of customers.