Ten Surefire
Ways to Save Money on Car Rentals
by
John Rosenthal
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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 shuttlers) 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 Metrolink 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. Voilà! 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 shuttler 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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