Oodles is one of our top two recommended car rental comparison sites for the Big Boys of Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty. In our Oodles review, we highlighted the site’s unique ability to plug in discount codes (or coupons) from Avis, Budget and/or Hertz when doing a search but had lamented the fact you need to seek out these discount codes in the first place.

Now, they’ve added a new section in their homepage featuring ‘today’s top ten deals’. Clicking on a coupon code will automatically enter it as part of your search criteria. You can enter one code each for Avis, Budget and Hertz to be searched in tandem. We like this as another step in the right direction to simplify, simplify, simplify. Now if only they’ll let us plug in discount codes from Europcar and Thrifty too!

Click to view Oodles website

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Our Verdict: If you are a frequent renter with Car Rental, Qantas Frequent Flyer or Velocity Rewards memberships, or you have Discount Codes from Avis, Hertz or Thrifty, there’s no more convenient place to compare and book your car hire.

Founded: 2007
Based: Melbourne
Companies searched: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Thrifty
Prices: Will not be higher than if you went to each of the rental companies’ sites. No extra mark ups, booking or agent fees. ‘Best Rate Guarantee’ will match a lower price on an equivalent car found within 8 hours of booking and add a further 10% discount
Of interest: Allows you to enter car rental membership, frequent flyer details or discount codes so you can automatically collect points or be shown discounted prices in the search results. Where the express pickup service is available, regular travellers can jump the queue

Their unique tabbed search results is well presented and highlights the cheapest available but if you want to see details of other results, you’ll have to click around. You can almost always find the cheapest price for each size category on Oodles, but our other recommended comparison site VroomVroomVroom tends to offer up more search results (e.g. green / hybrid cars).

Selecting a car will reveal all the necessary information from pickup and drop-off details and cost breakdown. Prices are final (but of course, excluding any further add-ons you may request). The booking form requires basic information but no credit card details are required and your reservation will be held for you at no obligation.

Related posts:

1. VroomVroomVroom: A Snapshot
2. Big Boys Comparison Sites We’ve Reviewed

The smaller independent companies can be cheaper (especially for airport car rentals) but either way, you should get the best price offered by Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, and Thrifty to use as a benchmark.

After finding the lowest prices here, remember to check all the car hire coupons we’ve compiled to see if you can bag yourself further bonuses and discounts. Then after booking, be sure to apply our tips for saving $100s on car hire insurance by bypassing the car hire companies.

Update: To make life easier for you, we’ve now incorporated our top picks’ search engines directly onto this page.

Read more on VroomVroomVroom

• Clean, easy-to-use site
• Easy price comparison at a glance
• Most complete listing
• Modify or cancel your booking online
• Prices given for GPS, baby seats, excess reduction
• Summary terms and conditions displayed
• Price matching promise + $10 further discount within 3 days of booking

• No Rewards or Preferred Program membership input
• No Discount Codes input
• Call needed to reserve child seats

Read more on Oodles

• Presentable site design
• Rewards (Qantas, Velocity) and Preferred Program (Avis, Budget, Hertz, Thrifty) membership input
• Discount Codes input
• Able to book child seats
• Vehicle details (e.g. luggage space, engine) shown with search results
• Modify or cancel booking online
• ‘Best Rate Guarantee’ matches lower price + further 10% discount within 8 hours of booking

• Tabbed comparison table looks good but not intuitive for first-time user and requires clicking around
• No ‘Green’ Hybrid cars or Station Wagons
• Prices for Europcar are 4-5% higher than VroomVroomVroom

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Related posts:

1. Big Boys Comparison Sites We’ve Reviewed
2. Unleaded Petrol Prices: Today’s Cheapest Fuel
3. Melbourne Airport – Best Independent Car Hire Companies