The Consumer Surplus Problem: Car Rental Edition →
Ron Lieber, in the New York Times, on Autoslash, a service that continues to search for lower fares on car rental sites after you book your reservation. They claim an 85% success rate. Car rental agencies aren’t thrilled, even though they created the situation themselves:
The rental companies make the rules that allow AutoSlash to exist. Then they flood the market with coupons and change prices by large amounts often enough for AutoSlash to make a business out of capturing the best deals. That some of them now want to keep consumers from handing over their money is a truly bizarre state of affairs.
