Car rentals can be expensive. If your car is in the shop or you are on vacation you can pay an outrageous amount of money to rent a car. I’ll point on some ways you can save on your next car rental.
1- Check the weekly rate. Most car rental companies offer discounts for renting weekly. If you are renting for 5 or 6 days the discount could be enough to make it cheaper to hold on to the car for an extra day or two.
2- Ask what discounts they have. For example AAA members can get discounts with Hertz.
3- Check with your company to see if they have a corporate rate and if your allowed to use it for personal rentals. Be careful with this one though, in my experience many companies negotiate deals that are worse than what you can get on your own.
4- Always fill the gas back to the level recorded on the contract. My recent rental agreement listed $4.25 a gallon for gas if it wasn’t brought back to the right level. Make sure you don’t overfill, if the contract says 3/4ths of a tank then fill it up 3/4 full. If you overfill you are overpaying too.
5- Check with your insurance company beforehand on your coverage in a rental car. The damage waiver, personal accident insurance, and supplemental liability are outrageously priced. For my recent rental which would have been $28 a day at retail these three items added up to $24 extra a day. This adds up to $7800 a year. If your insurance covers you then you don’t have to double pay.
6- Check web site availability for last minute rentals. I’ve seen instances were car rental companies often lie about vehicle availability to boost local sales. I had to get a rental in a pinch a few years back. At the counter they were insistent that all they had were full sized vehicles even though their lot was full. This was not impossible so after asking several times I gave in and paid for the full size. When I got back to a computer I checked the company website and it listed a wide array of sub-compact through intermediate rentals available at that location. I got a refund for the difference. Check availability on the website and keep the rental car companies honest.
I hope you enjoy the hundreds of dollars you can save on your car rentals by doing a few simple things.