OT car rental rates at airport
It's almost always more expensive to rent a car a the airport (or to return it there) right?
In practice, does that mean the higher rate continues as long as one keeps the car? Or is it a one time charge?
I may be renting one for 10 weeks, so a daily charge would be a lot of money.
Definitely don't rent at an airport, the daily rates are much higher...and avoid renting from a "major" if you can, except maybe Enterprise. Find a local company instead.
Put on your negotiating cap and call around a week or so in advance of your rental. You can probably cut a good deal considering the length you're planning.
Yes, but oftentimes, especially for a weeks' stay, the deals offered offset the added cost. All depends on luck and how hard you look, etc.
On a trip to Washington DC (DCA) I found rental rates for a full-sized car for Sunday-Wednesday running about $365. Booked a deal with Advantage who had an off-site in Crystal City and by simply extending the reservation to Sunday-Friday, intending to turn the car in early, got it for $131. I decided to stay an extra day and turned the car in on Thursday, they gave me a credit and my total for that trip was $107. The car was a brand new Chevy Impala with all the bells and whistles.
The various surcharges are typically applied to the daily/weekly rate.
Anything can be negotiated. Look around for the best weekly deals you can find and then call the individual companies and explain your needs and see what happens.
Another ploy, and I've only done this once, in cases where you need the car more than ten days is to search out the best deal by splitting the rental for the entire trip between two contracts - with the same rental company or different ones. Occasionally on an extended trip, extra days over 10 incur a higher overall daily rate which you can trim down by getting the best 6 or 7 day rate and then getting a second rental for the remainder of the trip. This worked for me when I had business in Washington and then when that was concluded, my wife flew out and joined me for a week down in Williamsburg. Obviously if you are not going to be near your rental terminal at the "midpoint" it won't work. I timed mine so that I returned the 1st car to DCA when I picked her up at the airport and grabbed the second one while awaiting her arrival.
Might have been able to swing a similar deal by calling them beforehand, but this worked just fine in that instance.
+1
It's usually more expensive per day when you rent at the airport. And they may have a one time airport charge added to it too. Other companies have free shuttles to offsite locations that are usually just blocks away. In many cases and depending on the airport, the majors have to take you on a shuttle bus anyway. But sometimes the majors have deals going where you can get a good price at the airport, so it's worth looking. You can find the rates for multiple choices using Travelociy, Expedia, etc.
The bill your insurance may not pay is the "loss of use". They charge you for the time the rental car was in the shop. Also remember your deductible. If they blame you for a parking lot ding in the door, it probably will be less than your deductible so be sure you look the car over before you drive it off their lot. Take pictures of anything that looks bad and note it on the contract (have them acknowledge it) before you take the car. I rented a car with a dent in New Hampshire and when I dropped it off in Buffalo, they tried to charge me for it. My wife had a picture on her phone of me and the NH agent looking at it. Case closed.
I went a round on that one with a rental. The windshield cracked and I have no idea how it happened. Nothing hit it while I was driving, I suspect it may have had a small crack already or something and just went on it's own. I had used a credit card to rent it, so they covered the repair, but like you say, the rental company wanted to be paid for the loss of use for a day or whatever. When the CC company would not pay it, they sent me a bill. I looked at the communication between the CC company and the rental company. The CC company has asked them for a copy of their car logs proving that all similar cars were rented that day. Apparently they never got it. So, I made the same demand and never heard from them again. It is very reasonable. If you expect loss of use, you better be able to prove that it likely would have been rented.
Also remember your
+1Smartphones have made taking your own pics of defects smart and easy.
It's been many years but I had fights at the airport and Disneyland about having to rent cars at a higher rate than agreed upon rate called in advance that I got over the phone. I would now only agree to accept offer in writing or email I could print.
Your own car insurance may cover rental so don't buy their outrageously priced insurance.
OTOH if you drive a rentacar like you stole it, the insurance is a bargain. ;-)
snipped-for-privacy@aol.com posted for all of us...
I think the OP should go to the inner city and rent one for $10 open ended.
Wow. Good job there.
You know you're right about that. I keep forgetting. Even the cable and the phone rates, that seem like they're set in stone, are negotiable.
The airport won't be so far away, but they let you return cars at other locations too (for an additional charge!)
Unrelated to the thread, but when I blew my engine near Asheville N.C. I limped into a motel parking lot, took a cab to the airport the next day and rented a car (the airport had the only branch of any company open that day), shopped for a replacement car for about 3 days, and found one two hours away. They wanted a day and a half to get it ready so I had it delivered to the airport at 2PM. The delivery driver parked in the back of the building, and after I signed his receipt, I went around to the front of the (smaller, car rental) building and returned the rental, drove my new used car back to the motel, took everything out of my old car and its trunk, and at 3:30 arrived the guy I had sold the old car to over the phone (he was going to strip it before junking it.). Everything went off like clockwork. in 90 minutes.
I had met the guy 4 nights earlier at a gas station when I was pouring another gallon of water in to my radiator. . I think I went through 12 gallons in 60 miles. I knew there was trouble the day before I got to Asheville when a short cooling system hose blew, so I'd gathered together 4 gallons worth of bottles before I set out, but I only made it
60 miles.The car, 10 years old when I bought it, didn't need any repairs for at least 2 years.
Maybe so.
It will take more time than posting here, but I will call them.
I'm sorry. I always forget something. This will be after changing planes and a layover, a 10? hour trip to Europe, and I have no choice but to rent at the airport, because I'll be too tired to do otherwise.
Also, thanks for the auto insurance tip. I think I checked a couple eyars ago and it didn't. But I'll look again.
The alternative seems to be to return the airport car to a local branch and rent a different car there, but they're not stupid I hope, so either I won't have to change cars to get the same (lower) price, or changing cars won't get me a different price from the original higher price.
I've returned the car at the airport there before and that was something like $5 iirc, or maybe 10, but that was less than it would have cost me to get to the airport without the rental car, even considering I had to pay a little gas. But in past trips, I'd only rent a car for a few days at the end of the trip. To do things I coudln't do on foot or with public transportation. This time, because my back is hurting and because I want to spend less time looking at things clustered together in the city and more time at things spread out, many in the countryside, I have to have a car for most or all of the trip. I"ve thought of using public transportation to get into town and renting the car there, but I'm not actually going to the city, but a small place with no rentals. So it means a detour to the city.
I guess I have to check with them, and I plan to let you know if I get a clear answer.
Thanks all.
[snip]
I never experienced bait and switch like that. Still, I always print out the deal and have it with me. Used to find the best rental deals on Hotwire.com. I knew everything about the rental except the name of the company before I made the prepaid purchase. Never got burned, always had a decent ride of the class I'd chosen or better. Anymore, Hotwire.com hasn't impressed me that much. Of late, last couple of years AAMOF, Advantage has been very good to me.
I just laugh at them when they start their spiel. I interrupt and tell them I carry a $500K/$1M insurance auto policy, the rental is paid for with my AMEX or AA Advantage Platinum which also provide insurance on rentals and, finally, I have a $1M Hired/Non-Owned auto policy to protect me if an employee screws up driving his own car while working for me as well as any vehicle I rent. Oh, there's also a $1M umbrella policy over everything else. Screw them!
Last rental in Albuquerque the rental agent started her spiel, I got to Hired/Non-owned and she laughed. "Before I became manager here, I was an insurance producer. You don't need any of this coverage, you're better covered as you stand."
Do some research if you are renting for 10 weeks. It has been a while, but I recall seeing rentals for longer terms that were much cheaper. They had a shuttle or met you at the airport.
Check this out too
I looked at my rental at GRR and I paid a $104 concession recovery fee for a 2 week rental and I don't have the receipt for my recent DCA rental. I don't know if that is a daily charge or a one shot charge. I suggest you just look online. They will give you all of the various charges if you poke around a little.
Buying their insurance can actually REDUCE your coverage as their insurance can supercede your coverage. Notice I said CAN. Depends on terms of insurance.
but it is important to check
your own auto policy USUALLY covers you for major stuff but not the deductible and not lost usage
SOME credit cards cover the deductible and lost usage.
so if you have an auto policy and use a credit to pay for the rental and take pictures of any minor dings before you leave the lot, you should be good to go..
but check with your auto insurance agent and credit card company first. m
BS.
You'd have to be pretty stupid to buy an insurance policy that says we cover you for less if it's a rental because you took their insurance coverage. Sure their coverage may pay out first, but you're telling us if I do $125K in property damage, $125K in personal injury, that because the rental policy only cover to $100K for each, while my policy covers to $300K, I'm on the hook for $50K? Show us an example of that auto policy.
I'm sure Medicare does but I don't know about the supplemental. I'll check. Thanks.
I used to go to the hospital on every foreign vacation, at least the first 3.
I broke my leg in Guatamala in 1971, and spent 4 nights in the first hospital. He did a bad job -- I was in so much pain when I stood up I could only stand for 2 minutes. I had a follow-up appt. the monday after leaving the hospital on Friday. I walked part way and had to sit down every 30 feet. I asked him for pain killer but he wouldn't give me any. He did give me crutches, but his last words as I walked out were "Walk on it." Back in the hotel, I couldn't make it to the bathroom down the hall so I had to pee in the sink in my room and flush it by turning on the water. Even then I could barely finish before the pain was too much, and I had to rush back to bed. It didnt' hurt when I was lying down. -- so I called the American Embassy for a reference to another hospital. The orthopedist at the second hospital removed the cast, x-rayed me, reset the leg's position, and replaced the cast with a lighter, warmer one. (the other one was cold and wet when he put it on.) He also wanted me in bed for for 10 days until the swelling at my ankle went down. Each orthopedist charged $50 for everthing including follow-up visits. The first, non-profit hospital was $5 a day, and the second profit-making hospital was $10 a day. The Guatamala Hilton was charging $30 at the time.
The second hospital included a newspaper at my bed every morning (they sold for 5 cents but it was still very nice to have one, I read spaniish fluently after only 2 weeks traveling), each evening I could choose my (lunch? and) dinner for the next day, and a bath in my bed every day by a cute nurse. I controlled myself each day, but decided I should do something the last day, but they sent a different nurse. My leg healed perfectly. As little as the cost was, I think my mother got about half of it back from my health insurance co.
The next trip my friend though she might have broken her arm, so we went to a hospital in Communist Czechoslovakia. Boy was it primitive, unpainted cement floors, cement or cinder-block walls, not much light, almost no equipment in the examining room, but it was free. And I guess they had an X-ray machine and her arm was not broken.
The next foreign trip, I was taking a photograph with my arms over a wrought iron fence, and I dropped something and reflexively reached to get it, driving one of the spikes at the top of fence into the crook of my elbow. I found a sink and rinsed it, then went outside and hailed a taxi, and had him take me to the only emergecy clinic I knew, but it was a good one. I ended up getting an American doctor living there who went to Princeton or someplace good, The hole was 1/2 x 1/2" and 1/2" deep! I could see inside. But for some strange reason, only about 2 drops of blood came out when I was rinsing it. Nothing came out in the 15 minutes it took to go back and take the picture, get the cab and get to the clinic. He was very apologetic for charging me anything, because most people would have been covered by insurance but I think it was 50 dollars (in 1989) and then he noticed that my tendon was partially cut too and he apologized that it would be $10 more to sew the tendon together. I thought to myself, Which do I want more, $10 and a torn tendon, or neither? Pretty easy choice. I'm a cheapskate but I thought the $60 was nothing. My arm healed perfectly too, except for a scar.
But I made it through the next trip with no injuries.
Very interesting. Thanks and thanks gfret!
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I've heard of this, especially when you don't have a reservation, but on the last foreign trip I called up Hertz at 9AM and said I wanted the cheapest car, stick shift. She said it would be ready in 45 minutes, I walked over a hour later, it was ready, and it was their cheapest car. (but still plenty good enough for me. A FIAT so small it's not sold here.) So I'd like to do business with Hertz again, but this time it will be more than last time's 9 days, so I'l check around.
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