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Ten Surefire Ways to Save Money
on Car Rentals
by John Rosenthal
Trying to get the best deal on a
car rental is kind of like shopping in a Turkish bazaar. The price
changes depending on location, length of rental, day of the week,
hour of the day, city you live in, the day you make your
reservation--and maybe even your shoe size! But you don't have to
get taken for a ride just because you need wheels. Note: All
prices were quoted during the summer of 2001.
1] Use the Web
The days of phoning every car
rental company to see who's got the best rates are a thing of the
past. Point your browser to one of the many car rental booking
engines on the Web (Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, whatever) and
enter your destination and dates. It will search every car rental
company in the area, saving you dozens of phone calls, and return
a list of options arranged by price. It will even return the names
of some local companies (especially in foreign countries) that you
might not know about. If you like any of the rates you see, you
can reserve the car with the click of a key on your laptop.
2] Always rent the smallest car
The smallest cars have the cheapest
rates, and if the location doesn't have a subcompact when you
arrive, they'll give you a free upgrade to the next smallest
vehicle they have on the lot. The people who deliver cars to
satellite locations (called shuttles) don't like squeezing into
subcompacts any more than you do, so they don't stock the lot with
small cars unless they have to. In locations with very few cars,
you will often--as a result--be given a full-size car for the
price of a subcompact. And if they do have a subcompact, and you
want a bigger car, you can always ask for an upgrade on the spot,
but there's no reason not to try for the lower rate. This strategy
surely won't work at a giant airport like Miami's, where there are
hundreds of cars (and therefore dozens of subcompacts) on hand.
But it will work in downtown locations and smaller airports with
room for only a few cars. At the Hilo airport on the Big Island of
Hawaii, this tip recently landed me a convertible for the price of
a subcompact.
3] Compare rates between
downtown and airport locations
Say you're arriving in St. Louis on
September 10, and need a car for four days. If you rent one (a
subcompact, naturally) from Budget's airport location, you'll pay
$51.99 a day, or a total of $207.96. But if you rent the same car
from Budget's downtown location, just a few blocks from the
convention center, you'll pay $39.99 a day, or a total of $159.96.
And here's the best part: You get the lower rate--a savings of
$48--even if you return the car to the airport. But, you may ask,
doesn't it cost something to get from the airport to downtown?
Yes--all of $3. That's the price of a Metro link ride from the
airport to downtown.
4] In New York, the savings can
be even greater if you're willing to take a train ride to the
suburbs
Say you want to rent a car for the
Fourth of July. At any of Hertz's Manhattan locations, a
subcompact will cost $71.99 per day. But if you take a train to
Hertz's location in North White Plains, the same car rents for
$42.99. The rental lot is right next to the train station, and the
ride takes no more than 50 minutes from Grand Central Station
($6.50 one-way). The savings are even greater if you keep the car
for a week: $311.99 at North White Plains, compared to $409.99 in
Manhattan. What's more, you still get the lower rate even if you
return the car in Manhattan.
5] Check differences between
weekend and weekday rates
Sometimes you can save money by
keeping the car longer. At airports and other locations catering
to business travelers, weekend rates are so much cheaper that it
might make sense to pick up a car on a Saturday or Sunday. (At
some locations, there may even be more than one rate on the same
day!) For example, at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, National
charges $55.99 a day for a rental starting on Monday, July 16. If
you keep the car for three days and return it Wednesday night, you
pay $167.97. But if you pick up that same car on Saturday night
(July 14) and keep it for four days, you pay for two days at the
weekend rate of $21.99/day and two days at the rate of $48.99/day,
for a total of $141.96. Viola! A savings of $26.01! If you pick up
the car Friday night, you pay only $163.95, still $4 less than
what you'd pay to pick it up on Monday morning, and you get the
use of a car all weekend. In Manhattan, where car-less urbanites
flee the city on weekends, the equation is just the opposite.
Weekday rates are lower than weekend rates, but again, you can
save money by keeping the car longer. For example, if you pick up
an economy car at any of Budget's Manhattan locations on Friday,
August 3 at 10 a.m. and return it Sunday, August 5 at 10 p.m.,
you'll pay $75.99 a day, or a total of $227.97. But if you pick up
the car the night before (Thursday, August 2 at 10 p.m.) and
return it at the same time, you pay only $65.99 per day, or a
total of $197.97. That's a savings of $30, which will more than
offset the cost of storing the car overnight in an expensive
Manhattan garage if you can't find a parking spot. Why do the car
rental companies do this? For the same reason restaurants have
early-bird specials. They want you out before the big rush. If you
take a car off their hands on Thursday night, that opens up room
for one more car they can rent on Friday.
6] If you're keeping the car for
four or more days, check if there's a weekly rate that might be
cheaper
Weekly rates for most car rentals
usually kick in on the fifth day. Most rental companies' weekly
rates allow you to keep the car for five, six, or seven days with
no difference in price. In many cases, the weekly rate might be
cheaper than the four-day rate, and in a few cases, even cheaper
than a three-day rental. Here's an example of the latter: If you
pick up a subcompact car from Alamo on July 13 at the Charlotte,
North Carolina, airport and keep it for three days, you'll pay
$60.99 a day, or a total of $182.97. Keep it for four days and
you'll pay $243.06. But keep it for five days (or pick it up a day
earlier) and the weekly rate of $146.99 kicks in, a savings of
nearly $100.
7] Join all the frequent renter
clubs you can find--the ones operated by the major car rental
companies themselves (call them and request procedures for
joining)
These clubs, with names like "Gold
Service" or "Emerald Club," are free to join, and usually get you
a minimum of a 5 percent discount. But sometimes, preferred-renter
discounts are greater and even better than what you get with AAA
or AARP discounts. On a three-day rental for August 3 to 5, when
everybody is trying to get out of Manhattan, my Avis Wizard number
saves me 15 percent. And like frequent flyer programs, some
frequent renter clubs allow you to earn points toward future free
rentals. In addition to the financial incentive, frequent renter
status gets you better service, beginning the minute you make your
reservation.
8] Always return the car with a
(mostly) full tank
You don't have to fill up right
outside the airport. As long as the needle says "F," nobody can
say the tank isn't full. When I worked as a shuttle for a big car
rental company, we filled up the cars with gas at the airport and
then delivered them to satellite locations around Boston. The gas
gauges still indicated a full tank, but after as much as an hour
in Boston traffic (with the A/C on full blast), the tanks were
obviously somewhat less than full. That said, returning your
rental car (almost) full is still the most economical option. If
the gauge is not on "F" when you return the car, you'll pay a
fortune in refueling charges. If you pay in advance for a full
tank, you'll come out ahead only if you bring the car back empty
(not something you want to chance).
9] Check your automobile and
health insurance policies to avoid hefty daily insurance charges
The rental companies will try to
sell you additional types of insurance, ranging from liability
(sometimes called liability insurance supplement) to accident
(a.k.a. personal accident insurance) to policies covering personal
belongings. If you already have an auto insurance policy, decline
them all. Each charge is several dollars a day, and they add up
fast. If you have automobile insurance, you're probably covered
for rental cars; if you have health insurance, you're covered for
personal injuries regardless of how you end up in the hospital.
And if you have homeowner's insurance, you may be covered if
somebody steals your swimsuit from your trunk. Even if you don't
have homeowner's insurance, personal effects coverage is a waste
of money unless you're transporting the crown jewels in your Ford
Escort.
10] Check your credit card
coverage to avoid CDW charges
Then there's that painful charge
for a Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) or Loss Damage Waiver, both of
them lures the rental companies use to get you to pay the
collision portion of the insurance on their vehicles. Unless you
sign the CDW agreement, sometimes adding more than $10 a day to
the price of your rental, you're responsible for damage to the car
in an accident. Many states (but not all) have outlawed this
liability by requiring the car companies to pay for collision
insurance, so you don't have to worry. But even if you rent in a
state that allows CDW charges, you can decline the hefty fee by
paying for your rental with a credit card that covers you in case
of collision. American Express provides this service to holders of
its Gold, Platinum, and Blue Cards, as well as standard green
cards, but not every Visa or MasterCard does. MBNA America is one
bank that does; check with your credit card's issuing bank to see
if yours does too.
John Rosenthal, a New York-based
freelance writer, once worked for a major car rental company
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