If you haven’t heard, Autoslash was a website that let you book car rentals and then re-booked you whenever they could find a better price via price drops or discount codes. It worked well for me in the past. Then the major car rental companies (which are really 3 huge companies with 10 different names) stopped allowing them to provide quotes. Things do not look good for them.
Tingo.com is a new site that wants to do basically the same thing but with hotel rooms. You book a room, and if there are future price drops, they’ll rebook the same room at the new lower price. It appears that you have to pay for the room upfront, and then future price drops are refunded to your credit card.
I like the idea, and I don’t see why you wouldn’t try them out if they give the same upfront rate as other big sites like Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. (I tried a few dates and places and Tingo did offer the same prices.) It would seem you have nothing to lose? But given what happened to AutoSlash, don’t be surprised if they receive a corporate smackdown as well. I do see that Tingo is a subsidiary of TripAdvisor, so maybe they have cleared this with the major hotel chains.
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I’m currently using Autoslash for two Thrifty rentals in June. Should I be worried and have a backup plan? I’ve seen no indication that they were in trouble, and have been enjoying watching my rental prices steadily decline every few days.
Nothing to lose? You have to pay up front – what happens if you need to cancel or make a change to your reservation?
What exactly changed with autoslash? I am traveling later in the month, and a little over a week ago I set up a reservation on autoslash for a 4 day rental of an intermediate size vehicle with unlimited mileage. To begin, it was 121.00 total. Over the next several days, it dropped 5 times to 71.38. It hasn’t dropped in a few days now and the travel is coming soon, but 71.38 seems like a great deal to me. I’ll have to see what happens, if it really ends up being that low.
Jonathan,
Do you know what Autoslash and Tingo’s policy is if the price goes up? Are consumers then charged more?
Just wondering if it works both ways. Price drops save you money, but price increases cost you. Thanks.
-Christian L.
Smart Military Money,
It’s only suppose to save you money.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing this resource.
@Dave, Nate – Autoslash says that all existing reservations will be honored.
@Dave – Have you seen any price drops yesterday or today?
@Scott – Most hotels make you pay upfront now to secure the lowest rates. You can still book with the refundable pay-at-the-hotel-rate, but that rate is usually higher by 10% or so. I was referring to if you wanted the lowest rate, which I found to match that of Expedia et al.
However, that is a good reminder of the big difference with Autoslash and Tingo. With AutoSlash you didn’t have to even give out your credit card number. With Tingo you are committed to the hotel and dates and have to pay upfront.
@Smart – As Justin said, you will only save money with the service. Price won’t go up.
Recently I realized that using Expedia Unpublished Rates resulted in lower prices than Priceline and Hotwire for Hotels – check it out.