August Car Rental Rates Down Year Over Year

With the exception of Chicago, rates dropped an average of $9.84 for the five other cities in the survey: Boston, Miami, Houston, Seattle and Los Angeles.

by Staff

September 5, 2012

August Car Rental Rates Down Year Over Year

2 min to read

With the help of Michael Meyer of Rate-Highway Inc. and Jim Tennant of The Tennant Group, Auto Rental News publishes monthly auto rental rate surveys for six major airports in the cities of Boston, Miami, Chicago, Houston, Seattle and Los Angeles. The rates are based on weekly surveys.

Analysis and commentary provided by Jim Tennant of The Tennant Group. This survey is dated Sept. 2. (Click on the graph below for a larger view.)

August 2012 car rental rates, with the exception of Chicago, followed the patterns seen in June and July.

The five cities other than Chicago averaged a drop of $9.84 in the month compared to August 2011. This is in the same range as July’s drop of $11.71 and June’s $12.25. However, Chicago’s strong 2012 rates — up $22.96 over the same month last year — were enough to bring the six-city average reduction down to $4.37.

Looking at the other five cities individually, Boston was down negligibly, Houston and Los Angeles next, followed by Miami. Seattle continued to be down significantly from 2011 and was most recently down $22.59 — almost double Miami’s drop.

Year-to-Year Changes
	Jun 11	Jun 12	Change	Jul 11	Jul 12	Change	Aug 11	Aug 12	Change
BOS	62.15	53.51	(8.65)	80.80	64.05	(16.74)	29.79	29.58	(0.21)
MIA	56.92	31.34	(25.58)	65.51	41.24	(24.27)	33.44	21.46	(11.98)
ORD	59.71	59.81	0.11	60.46	57.60	(2.86)	35.10	58.06	22.96
HOU	45.17	40.42	(4.75)	41.91	36.89	(5.01)	40.40	33.86	(6.54)
SEA	60.67	40.33	(20.34)	74.80	51.55	(23.25)	58.86	36.26	(22.59)
LAX	51.30	36.99	(14.32)	44.33	46.23	1.90	32.63	24.76	(7.87)
6 City Avg.	55.99	43.73	(12.25)	61.30	49.59	(11.71)	38.37	34.00	(4.37)

ICAR Average Rate Quotes - Monthly Averages
	Jan 12	Feb 12	Mar 12	Apr 12	May 12	Jun 12	Jul 12	Aug 12
BOS	34.54	34.76	28.70	29.85	30.47	53.51	64.05	29.58
MIA	37.37	44.16	49.45	17.76	16.04	31.34	41.24	21.46
ORD	53.95	53.37	51.84	62.16	60.23	59.81	57.60	58.06
HOU	48.96	65.26	68.62	64.28	52.69	40.42	36.89	33.86
SEA	36.20	41.42	39.47	32.26	30.37	40.33	51.55	36.26
LAX	32.74	33.22	34.82	28.15	27.12	36.99	46.23	24.76
6 City Avg.	40.63	45.36	45.48	39.07	36.16	43.73	49.59	34.00

The rate quotes are for pickup 15 to 21 days out. The Aug. 10 quotes — for pickup Aug. 25 to 31 — show a significant drop, probably marking the end of the summer travel season.

See the car rental rate report for July here.

Topics:Rental Rates Airport Rentals Rate-Highway 6-City Survey Tennant Group Rental Operations