Methodology
How RateGrip tracks rental car prices.
RateGrip reports observed prices. It does not forecast prices or recommend a booking date.
What we collect
- Rates for the airports and pickup windows listed on RateGrip.
- Pickup and return at 10:00 a.m., seven days apart.
- Quotes returned for a 35-year-old U.S. resident.
- Supplier, vehicle class, payment type, pickup type, and total quoted price when available.
How one daily point is calculated
- Invalid, non-USD, nonpositive, and incomplete quotes are excluded.
- Multiple economy offers from the same supplier are reduced to that supplier's median all-in price.
- Supplier names are mapped to canonical brands.
- The published market point is the median of those brand-level prices.
A day is published only when it contains at least three canonical brands and six eligible supplier rows. This prevents a single operator or a thin scrape from setting the benchmark.
Major brands and all operators
“All operators” includes every mapped supplier that passes the quality rules. “Majors only” applies the same calculation to brands classified as major in RateGrip's canonical supplier table. The major-brand series is suppressed when coverage is too thin.
What the numbers do—and do not—mean
Rates are market benchmarks for the stated airport, date, duration, and vehicle class. They are not guaranteed bookable prices for every driver. Eligibility, residence, age, payment terms, inventory, loyalty status, and booking-channel conditions can change an individual quote.
Historical ranges describe only the observations RateGrip has collected for that pickup window. They are not predictions of future highs or lows.
Freshness and corrections
The collection pipeline runs daily. A page is rebuilt only after its coverage checks pass. If a supplier changes its name or data format, its quotes may be temporarily excluded until the mapping is reviewed.