These Five Car Rental Sites Are Not Five Competitors
Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental reads like a comparison of five rivals. It is not, and the distinction decides how you should use them. Four of the five are owned by Expedia Group — Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotwire — and they sell the same rental-company supply. The fifth does not.
Priceline is owned by Booking Holdings, the company behind Booking.com, and shares none of that inventory. Searching four of these five draws on largely the same supply, though not always at an identical price on an identical search. Searching Priceline returns a genuinely different supply chain. That is the single most useful thing to know before comparing a quote from one against a quote from another.
Everything below is built from the published ownership and business-model facts of these companies rather than from how they market themselves. Where details change, check the site.
Whatever site you use, the moment that matters is here.
Fact 1: Four of the Five Share Inventory, and One Does Not
This is the structural point behind Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental, and it is the one most comparisons miss because it is invisible on the results page.
Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotwire are one company
All four are current Expedia Group brands, alongside Hotels.com, Vrbo, Expedia Cruises, trivago, Wotif, Ebookers, CheapTickets and CarRentals.com. Expedia Group reported revenue of $14.7 billion in 2025 and around 16,500 employees in 2024.
The practical consequence is set out on Expedia Group’s own car rental partner page: a rental company signs up once, and its cars then appear across the group’s brands, including Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotwire. The supplier behind a compact car at a given airport on a given date is therefore usually the same whichever of the four you search. The price is not always the same, because each brand layers on its own merchandising, packages and member pricing, but the rules about fees and fuel policies come from the rental company rather than from the brand.
Our guide to what shared ownership actually means covers this in more depth, including why the price differences between those brands are usually smaller than the branding implies.
Priceline is a different owner entirely
Priceline.com sits under Booking Holdings, alongside Booking.com and Agoda — a direct rival to Expedia Group rather than a member of it. Its car hire is booked from a separate supply chain, so a rate on Priceline and a rate on any Expedia Group brand are genuinely different products.
Worth flagging, because it comes up in search results: Priceline (Australia) is an unrelated Australian health and beauty retailer owned by Wesfarmers. It has nothing to do with Priceline.com, and any comparison drawing on it is comparing the wrong company.
Same four brands, same fleet. One different owner.
The same handover, whichever of the five brands you booked through.
Fact 2: Hotwire Is a Different Kind of Business
Hotwire belongs to the same parent as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz inside Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental, but it is not the same kind of website.
It was built to compete with Priceline
Hotwire launched in 2000, funded by Texas Pacific Group and six US airlines — American, America West, Continental, Northwest, United and US Airways. It was positioned directly against Priceline.com, and the two were structured differently by design: on Priceline you place a bid, while Hotwire shows you a price. That is the one structural difference between them, and it is worth remembering when you read an Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental comparison.
InterActiveCorp bought Hotwire in September 2003 for $665 million in cash plus about $20 million in options and warrants, at the same time as completing its earlier purchase of Expedia.
What “opaque” means, and why it matters to you
Hotwire is described in the industry as an opaque site. It sells unsold inventory at discounted prices, and the supplier details — which airline, which hotel, sometimes the flight times — are not revealed until after you have booked.
For a car rental this matters less than it does for flights, because you are collecting a specific vehicle from a specific desk rather than boarding an unidentified aircraft. The practical effect on Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental quotes is that Hotwire’s prices can be lower, and its terms are less standardised, so read them rather than assuming they match the others.
Fact 3: The Rate Is Not the Price
Car rental pricing is built from more than the daily rate, and the extra components are where the difference between a cheap quote and an expensive one usually lives.
What moves the headline rate
The daily rate itself responds most to the pickup location, particularly whether the counter is in the terminal or a shuttle further out, and to the duration, since most contracts price a week differently from a day. Driver age, vehicle class and booking lead time all move it too.
What gets added afterwards
Mandatory extras — collision damage waiver, theft protection, a second driver, a child seat, fuel policy and one-way fees — are usually selectable rather than included, and a quote excluding them is not comparable with a quote including them. The trap is comparing a “total” from one brand with a “total” from another that was built from a different set of extras.
Compare the same set of extras on both sides. If you decline the waiver on both, compare the two waived totals; if you want it on one, add it to the other before comparing.
Fact 4: Where the Price Difference Actually Comes From
Given that these four brands draw on the same rental supply, expecting one to be reliably cheaper is the wrong expectation. The realistic sources of a better Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental price are elsewhere.
Location and collection point
An in-terminal desk costs the operator more to staff than a city branch, and that difference is frequently passed on. Shifting the pickup to a nearby branch can be worth more than switching between the Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental brands.
Duration
A long rental is priced differently from a short one. If your dates are fixed, check whether extending by a day reduces the total, because the marginal day is often cheaper than the average one.
Booking lead time and season
Rental pricing follows demand in the way airfare does, and the same general pattern of earlier booking being cheaper applies. It is a general trend rather than a rule, and it moves by market and season.
Loyalty, where it applies
Only some of these brands sit inside a rewards scheme that covers car rental, and they are not interchangeable. Expedia Group runs One Key across Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo, earning OneKeyCash on eligible car bookings and counting each rental day as a trip element. Orbitz runs its own Orbitz Rewards scheme with Orbucks, and its published earn rates cover flights, hotels, packages and activities rather than cars. Travelocity and Hotwire are not participating brands in either, and Priceline belongs to a different company’s programme entirely.
So the loyalty decision genuinely distinguishes these five, in a way the shared-ownership point does not. Check the current terms rather than assuming a balance carries between sites.
How to Book a Car Rental Without Surprises
None of the five in Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental is a bad place to book. The costs that hurt come from things the headline rate did not include, and every one of them is visible before you confirm if you know to look.
Read the fuel policy before you pick a price
Rental contracts behind any Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental quote come with a full-to-full policy or a pre-purchase option. Under full-to-full you return the car with a full tank, which is straightforward if you know where to fill up. Under a pre-purchase option the fuel is added at a price set by the rental company, usually above the pump price, and that difference can exceed the entire saving you made by switching between Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental brands.
Compare the two policies on an assumed mileage before choosing. If you are doing a lot of miles, the pre-purchase option may be worth it; if you are doing a handful of miles around a city, refuelling yourself is cheaper.
Understand what the damage waiver does and does not do
The most misunderstood line in any Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental quote.
A collision damage waiver reduces your liability for damage to the rental vehicle in any Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental booking. It does not cover tyres, glass, the undercarriage, the roof, or the interior, and those exclusions are frequently the part that costs the most. If a wheel is damaged, the waiver frequently does nothing.
Basic cover is normally included in the rate, with a reduced-excess option sold at the counter. That counter price is added at booking and rarely appears in a search result, so two Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental quotes can look identical and differ by the cost of the waiver.
Count drivers, not seats
A second or additional driver is usually chargeable per day across Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental brands, and additional drivers must usually be added at the counter rather than online. If two people will drive, price it in from the start rather than discovering it at pickup, where the charge tends to be higher.
Check the one-way and mileage allowances
Another item that never appears in a Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental search result.
Contracts frequently include a daily mileage allowance, with a per-mile charge beyond it, and cross-border travel may be prohibited entirely. If the plan involves taking the car out of the country, or driving a distance that is obviously going to exceed a standard allowance, check before booking rather than at the border, and read the terms on your Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental quote first.
Booking Two Cars on One Trip
If you need two vehicles through Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental, the booking pattern matters as much as the price.
Two cars for the whole trip
Two concurrent bookings through Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental are charged from the start, so every day of overlap counts twice. Booking them separately rather than as a “two vehicles” reservation sometimes gives a different rate structure, and it also means each driver has their own contract, which removes the question of who is authorised if something happens.
One car, swapped mid-trip
Booking two one-way rentals and leaving the first car where the second is collected saves the cost of moving a car forward and back. It does mean you pay for two contracts, so it pays off when the two legs are in different cities and the repositioning cost would be high.
When Booking Direct Is Better
All five names in Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental list rental companies you can also reach directly. Booking with the rental company directly is a real alternative, and it has two genuine advantages.
Negotiated and member rates
Rental companies run their own loyalty programmes with member rates that frequently undercut public rates, and no Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental search will show them. These are only visible on their own site, so an Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental search will not surface them.
Direct terms
This is the strongest argument for skipping Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental altogether.
On a direct booking you hold a contract with the company that has the car in front of you, with no agent in between. That simplifies liability, disputes and any in-vehicle damage claim, because there is no third party to work through.
The counter-argument is that an agent can be more useful when something goes wrong across multiple bookings, and some packages price the car more cheaply than the same components booked separately. It is worth running both, since it takes a few minutes.
Age, Licence and Deposit Requirements
Two constraints decide whether an Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental quote is even available, and both apply identically whatever route you book through.
Minimum and maximum age
Rental companies set their own minimum age, commonly in the early twenties but frequently higher in some markets. Drivers above a certain age — commonly seventy or seventy-five — may also find the larger vehicle categories restricted. This is set by the rental company, not by the booking site, so an Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental search cannot tell you whether your licence will be accepted.
If you are near either boundary, confirm with the rental company before searching. A quote that cannot be completed at the desk is worth nothing.
The licence itself
A full licence held for a minimum period is normally required, and an international driving permit may be needed depending on the country and the issuing authority of your licence. The permit does not replace your licence; it is used alongside it, and it is usually cheaper and easier to obtain through an automobile association than at the airport.
The deposit
A security deposit or hold is placed on the card at pickup, whichever of the Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental brands took the booking. The amount varies with the vehicle class and with how much excess cover you have declined. A hold is not a charge, but it reduces the available balance on the card, and that is a practical problem for anyone whose card limit is already committed.
Declining the collision damage waiver usually increases the hold substantially, because your liability rises. This is the point at which a cheaper headline rate can produce a larger deposit, which is its own kind of cost.
Insurance and What the Rental Includes
Two separate things get called insurance, and conflating them causes most of the confusion in an Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental booking.
What the rental company provides
Every rental booked through Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental includes a basic level of third-party liability cover as a matter of law in most markets, plus a damage waiver with an excess. The excess is the amount you remain liable for, and it is usually a four-figure figure. Buying the reduced-excess option lowers it, at a daily rate.
What your travel insurance may or may not do
Many general travel policies treat a rental car as an excess and reimburse what the rental company withholds, which is different from reimbursing the cost of the car. Coverage for tyres, glass and the undercarriage is frequently excluded. Check the policy wording rather than the summary, and check the ceiling against the value of the vehicle rather than against your excess.
Credit card cover
Some cards extend cover to rentals paid with them, and it is normally only the cardholder’s own rentals, frequently only for the cardholder as driver, and frequently excludes certain vehicle types and countries. It is worth reading the card’s terms once rather than assuming.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Book
Am I comparing the same rental?
Same pickup location, same vehicle class, same driver age, same duration. Two rates that differ on any of those are different rentals.
Are the extras included on both sides?
Collision damage waiver, theft protection, second driver, child seat, fuel and one-way fees. Add them to both quotes before comparing, or remove them from both.
Which loyalty programme applies to this booking?
One Key on Expedia, Orbitz Rewards on Orbitz, a separate scheme under Booking Holdings on Priceline, and no rewards currency of their own on Travelocity or Hotwire. The balances are not shared.
Is the counter at the terminal?
If it is not, allow for the transfer time in both directions and check how far the branch actually is before you commit to it for the saving.
Who do I call if something goes wrong?
Booking through an agent means the rental desk and the agent may have different liability. For a problem at the counter, the contract is between you and the rental company, and knowing which number to ring first saves time when it matters — whichever Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental brand you used.
Bottom Line on Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental
Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental covers four brands owned by one company and one owned by a rival. Comparing Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Hotwire against each other is largely a comparison of interface; comparing any of them against Priceline is comparing different supply.
So search on the brand whose loyalty programmed you actually use rather than treating Expedia Travelocity Orbitz Priceline Hotwire Car Rental as a five-way comparison, compare like with like on location, vehicle class and extras, and spend your attention on the collection point and the duration rather than on which of the four you picked. That is where the money is.