I was shocked when I logged onto my preferred web booking engine, orbitz.com, and found rental car rates of over $100.00 a day for a visit I am making to Los Angeles this week. At the time I was surfing, I was talking on the phone with my brother who was equally shocked – being a US Federal Judge for the EEOC, he is entitled to special rates that we mere mortals can never achieve. As I normally stay at the Hotel Bel-Air, I often take advantage of their Audi Test Drive program and have been lucky to have driven the A6 and the convertible on occasion. As I am not staying at the Bel-Air on this trip, this was not an option. I scanned the orbitz.com list and noted the lowest rate for a convertible was $1,300 for 3.5 days – I could not believe it! I decided to try travelocity.com and plugged in my dates and was shocked again to see just the opposite – normally priced rental car rates. I quickly booked a Sebring convertible for $156.00 for the time period which represented a savings of over 79% for the Orbitz rates at a similar rental car location. I even re-ran the search twice more to see if it was an error or a glitch, but, no, it was the same. Moral of the story: shop around – Caveat Emptor! -Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO