Visitors who call Miami their second home will need to spend a lot this Christmas due to exorbitant car rental rates.
A new survey compiled by CheapCarRental.net, renting a car in Florida’s southern tip over the Christmas period will cost visitors ?four times more than what they used to pay.
On an average day, a typical budget car rental in Miami costs a daily rate of $ 30. However, ?since December, that rate has risen to $ 111 per day. The price hike represents a 268% increase over the everyday rate, positioning Miami as the highest-percentage rate spiker of the 30 cities surveyed.
Miami is not alone in its Christmas car rental explosion. Other cities instituting significant price increases include Los Angeles (+91%), Chicago (+95%), Honolulu (+194%) and Orlando (+218%).
Not all cities, however, are playing Scrooge with heavy price increases. Many have initiated only moderate rate hikes. New Orleans (+25%) and Atlanta (+18%), for instance, aren’t using the Christmas holiday as an excuse to jack their car rental costs sky high. For some lucky home-for-the-holidays visitors to certain cities like Washington, D.C. (-6%) and Dallas (-16%), renting a car for Christmas will actually be less expensive than usual.
The following table shows the ten cities with the most costly car rental rates for the 2011 Christmas period. The percentage increase, based on a comparison with regular rates, is shown next to each city making the cut. The prices illustrated reflect average rates for the cheapest available car during the period December 23 to December 28.
