Guest post from Jody of Plastic Back Books.
Is it cheaper to rent a car or drive your own?
Our Honda has nearly 300,000 miles and no air conditioning. Taking a road trip when the temperature is 103ºF is not just unpleasant… it is risky!
Even if I don’t have a heat stroke, the Honda might. The cost of a tow truck and being stranded in an unknown town is probably more expensive than renting a car.
Gulp. But I hate spending money.
If you share my concerns, I’ve got 12 tips to help you save money on car rentals.
Tips for Renting Cars for Cheap: When you book
1. Book Early
Prices change drastically even within hours. Ask about making a reservation to lock in a price — even if you aren’t ready to make a commitment.
2. Compare Rental Companies
Prices vary between agencies. Use sites like Costco.com and Priceline.com to compare multiple rentals at a glance.
3. Be Aware: The Same Company May Have Different Rates at Different Locations
I saved $80 just by renting six miles farther away. The location closest to me would have picked me up for free, but saving $80 was worth getting a ride from a friend.
4. Adjust Pick-Up and Drop-Off Times
These are listed in half-hour increments. Tweak your time to find “sweet spots” during the day when rentals are the cheapest. You may even get a lower rate by renting the car longer than you need it. I wanted a car Friday morning, but it was considerably cheaper to rent Thursday night.
5. Find Coupon Codes
The mantra “Never Pay Retail” holds true with rental cars too. Costco.com factors coupon codes into the price. Priceline.com allows you to name your own price. Retailmenot.com offers various coupon codes.
6. Factor In Insurance Costs
Check with your insurance provider to see if extra insurance is even necessary.
7. Don’t Forget Fuel
You may be thrilled when the rental agency offers a free upgrade from economy to a fancy SUV, but can you afford the gas? Considering this cost is an important factor in staying within your trip budget.
8. Read the Fine Print
Make sure you have unlimited mileage and are allowed to take the car where you want to go.
9. Get Rewarded
If the rental company has a rewards program, join it (know the rules to maximize rewards).
How to Get Rental Car Discounts: Before you drive off the lot
10. Don’t Get Distracted
This is the most important tip: When you slide into that shiny new car it’s tempting to fiddle with the “bells and whistles”. Do this before pulling onto the road.
Adjust your seat, mirrors, radio, a/c – whatever you need to do to get comfortable. Take a moment to find the hazard lights, headlights, defroster, and windshield wipers. Do this while you are still parked. It could save you a deductible and the humiliation of pulling out and causing an accident right in front of the rental agency.
11. Don’t Take the Blame
Before signing on the dotted line, do a thorough inspection of the car, and write down any damage you see. Don’t be held liable for what a previous driver did.
Tips for Cheap Rental Car Deals: When you return
12. Leave Things Better Than You Found Them – Except This
Check the gas tank before you sign the rental agreement. If the previous driver left you with an empty tank, get it in writing that you aren’t responsible to return it full. If you did receive the car with a full tank, return it that way, or you may be charged.
How to Get Car Rental Discounts FAQs
This depends on the situation — usually you can get a discounted rate for longer rentals, but sometimes renting per day will be cheaper.
Weekends are often more expensive, so you’ll likely save a bit of money if you rent them Monday – Thursday.
A good price (in 2023) is considered to be around $10 per day or $100 per week. You can likely find it even cheaper than that with the tips above though… so just keep looking! As mentioned above, contact various rental agencies in your area — one might have a special and you’ll get an extra good deal!
Have you found any other great ways to save on car rentals?
Jody is creating PlasticBackBooks; a marketplace for helpful, wholesome, and entertaining eBooks.
#5 part 2: you can get discounts for club and status memberships: AAA, AARP, ABA, union, AMA, military, etc. Ask when you rent or at pick-up.
If a rental company forces you to take larger vehicle (frex they gave away your mini and have only a minivan for you), it’s possible to negotiate a discount rate or a free tank of gas because of the change. GET IT IN WRITING.
#11: AVOID RENTING FROM THE AIRPORT. Not only are the rates higher, so are the city/county/state taxes. They figure that only tourists rent from the airport and tourists can’t vote against the higher tax. Calculate the cost of a taxi or public transit to somewhere else as part of your comparison. For example, rental taxes at both Chicago airports are enormous, but there’s good public transit (the El) from each. If you don’t have too much stuff you can take the El into town and get your car there. If that doesn’t work, look into “off-airport” locations. This will involve a shuttle drive to somewhere, and extra time in case it’s one of the agencies that run a van every 45 min, but the price differential can be dramatic.
#12: When you get to the counter or pickup, ask what the best rate they can offer you is, THEN ask how you qualify.
#13: Sometimes cheap is very costly. If a rate is much lower than anyone else’s, better to find out why. Budget is known for quoting a cheap rate, then not honoring it or not having the right vehicle for that rate (so you either get no car, or a different car at a different rate). I’ve found Enterprise to be my sweet spot of price – which is usually good but not always the absolute cheapest – reliability, and service.
Read about a website (Zalyn) on one of the forums. Apparently, it lets you search coupons the way you search rental cars. You specify the location and the dates and it removes coupons that are not applicable. If a coupon is valid only in Arizona and you’re renting in California, it will hide the coupon! If you’re renting for a week, it will hide the weekend ones. Seems to filter the junk pretty nicely.
Also claims to somehow figure out which coupon potentially offers the most savings. And it has coupons for BJs, Costco, USAA and a number of other categories. Worth a try.
We live in Australia but go back to the States yearly (and my husband six-monthly) so we’re always renting cars. Car rental agencies don’t require credit card details for a reservation, so I’ve been known to have 5 or 6 reservations at a time and am constantly rechecking even the same places as its amazing how prices change on the same details on a daily/weekly basis.
I always Google for promo codes and have no problems finding heaps of them. If you are a USAA member there’s a number on the back of your card for a car dealer (I think its Budget, can’t remember) so you can call it and get a price there as well – often a better discount than AAA.
Unfortunately because we’re coming from overseas we have to get the insurance, but only the SLI, not the LDW – thankfully I figured this out before we had an accident (and after we’d rented a car that we later figured out had no insurance coverage). But I know that a lot of credit card companies, and sometimes your own car’s insurance company, will cover you for insurance. We only care about third-party coverage (hence taking out the SLI) and we skip the LDW.
Definitely check the fuel gauge before leaving the lot and return it at the same level – will save you heaps.
And don’t assume that a second driver is free. This past Christmas we had spent three days traveling from Western Australia to Wisconsin and was not expecting the guy to say “So, $680, does that sound right?” I was like “no, the quote is $450”. Turns out they were charging us $10/day for a second driver and some other fee that wasn’t advertised online. I looked him straight in the eye and said “I’m not paying for a second driver – I will go to the other three counters right now and get a quotes for a car before I pay for a second driver”. He made a “magic” call and the fee was waived (Merry Christmas to us).
I wasn’t sure what SLI and LDW were – could you let me know? Thanks. 🙂
Always check with your credit card company’s to see if they cover the insurance, most do and this can save a lot of money.
I haven’t noticed any posts on Autoslash.com so I have to post! I found out about this car rental website somehow and decided to give it a shot. My husband and I were planning a short stay in Southern California and needed to rent a car for 3 days. We needed to rent in Orange County, and then be able to drop off in LA. Considering that we were renting on a weekend and that our pick up/drop off locations were different, I was anticipating the rentals to be quite expensive but autoslash started us off with $152 for 3 days (the same price as many other standard discount sites for an economy sedan). Autoslash looks for coupons and discounts for you throughout the course of your reservation!! Our price went down to $81!! 🙂 Another option for you all.
We just returned from taking our family of 4 to Disneyland for a week. We were flying in to LAX and planning on some sightseeing as well so we wanted to rent a car. I began planning our trip early and did alot research. There were 2 things I would pass along. First, check with local companies. I found their prices to be cheaper than their national competitors by $20-60. And, as mentioned before, don’t forget to utilize your wholesale club memberships. We have frequent BJ’s Wholesale and I ended up booking my 7 day rental through their webite with Budget. I rented a standard sedan for 7 days for $208 total and Budget offered a $15 dollar rebate or magazine subscription. I even received a $16 credit or price adjustment on my credit card after we returned the car. Maybe you will have good luck on your rental, too!
When I was working on my MBA, my Operations prof shared an interesting car rental strategy with our class: always book the smallest, junkiest option available. He says he does this every time he travels because car rental companies rarely even stock this type of car because no one wants to squish into a tiny hunk of junk with two doors. So when he arrives at the car rental counter, they never have the car he rented in stock (it’s not a good business strategy to keep tons of cars that customers don’t spend money on), so they give him a free upgrade. I usually only rent cars for work, and I’m not as frugal with their money, so I haven’t really tried this. But I think it’s a pretty interesting story!
I usually get the best deals by NOT booking early. Well, I book early (with no cancellation penalties) and then price again a day or two before the rental. More often than not, the last minute deals are better.
I rent a car once or twice every month for business, I’ve found that I like to stick to one particular rental company. I’ve signed up for their preferred program, so I can just head straight to my car. Also, make sure you check the fine print on gas fill up. Mine usually says gas must be filled within 10 miles of the drop off location. I’ve found the closer you are to the airport the more expensive the fill up.
Also, when you rent from price line or another discount web site just call the rental car company with your reservation info and they’ll add your preferred card number to the reservation if you couldn’t add it before.
Thanks for the tips. I found booking online to be a lot cheaper than on the phone or in person.
Research #6 thoroughly with your credit card company AND car insurance provider. Sometimes either (or both) will cover the insurance on a rental car. Rental car companies will ALWAYS try to sell you their expensive, overpriced insurance, and some get downright nasty when you turn them down. Pulling those policies out of your pocket with the coverages circled or highlighted might make the rental car process a little more enjoyable.
Thanks for the tips! I have to rent a car in two weeks, so these will be handy.
I am even more interested in how you have kept your car running up to 300k miles. Ours has 110k miles, and I would like it to last as long as possible.
Keep checking that oil. 🙂
In my previous company I was a frequent traveler. Over time I discovered an unlikely source of the best deals: Priceline.
The good news is they only use the big names, which means on-airport, or as on-airport as the car rental facilities are nowadays. What I’d do is make a bid at about 25% below the lowest online rate. If I win I win, if I lose, I don’t lose, I still get the best online deal elsewhere. Using that strategy I “hit” about 2/3 of the time.
Because I frequently had multi-day stays, the car rental bill was usually substantial, which made the savings add up to real money. 🙂
The only downside was I didn’t get the fast track service that I could get at Hertz or the other big renters. But if I was willing to take an extra 15 minutes up front I could (and did) save at least 25% over what the otherwise best deals were.
Oh, and one other (slightly related) tip: in a strange city, the Gas Buddy app is a great way to save on gas.
Definitely look for coupon codes / deals. I am under 25, so, unfortunately, that makes me a “risk” driver. Although Enterprise and other car rental agencies offer cheaper rates for their cars, they charge outrageous rates for the underage fee. Hertz, on the other hand, is more expensive for the daily charge for the car but waive the underage fee with a particular discount code.
We have used rental cars multiple times. We’ve always turned down the insurance they offer since most credit cards offer the perk of covering any damage or losses as long as you use the card to book the rental (definitely call your credit card company and check ahead of time). And, unfortunately, we found this out the most recent time we rented a car. We were in an accident–our first accident ever and it was driving a car we didn’t own! It was extremely painful to be in an accident in a car that had less than 1000 miles on it. Though, thankfully we were all okay. And, sure enough, our car insurance covered all of the damages to both vehicles and our credit card covered our deductible and other fees that the car rental place charged from the accident. We did not pay a single penny. I don’t recommend getting in a wreck, but it was a huge blessing that with our insurance company and our credit card that the rental was booked under–together, both took care of the expenses and we didn’t have to dip into our emergency savings to cover any damages.
Keep in mind that the rates are not always inclusive of taxes and fees. The big fee is the Airport Concession Fee. It varies in name, but in short, it’s the fee the car companies pay to be located “at” an airport. If you’re renting near your house, try to find a location not directly on (or directly linked) to an airport. The concession fee can be steep, and it’s added on the end like a tax. (If I remember correctly, the average fee was 10%.)
My sisters and I flew in to St. Louis a few years ago and rented a car to go to a wedding. We were told that for convenience we could fill up at their gas station when returning the car, but that the price per gallon was a little more than elsewhere.
So being cheap we decided not to do that. Long story short: it’s late at night and we’re headed back to the airport to drop off car. Looking for a gas station nearby, so we could get just the right amount and not a gallon more! No gas stations that we could find. Finally, in desperation, we gave up and decided to get it at the rental place. Turns out it was insanely high – so high I can’t even remember – like $17 a gallon!! So my sister heads back out to look again, gets lost, nice employee went to find her, finally she got some gas. Anyway, it was an enormous hassle when we were all exhausted.
Moral of the story: we should have just got gas farther away, and put a bit extra in.
In the beginning of July, I reserved an extended cab truck with a well-known rental company for 139.00 plus taxes for 7 days. A few days before we were set to leave, my husband stopped by the pick up office to confirm everything. The man working told him that no way was that our rate and it would be 139.00 per day. We were devastated by this price difference. I stewed and brewed overnight. I had my husband recheck the reservation confirmation email and sure enough..there it was…139.00 for a week. We printed the email and took it back to the office. A different employee was working that day and confirmed the price for us. We were able to add a couple of days and still keep the rental at $200 and change.
Every time I checked the prices online, they would change. I am so glad that I went ahead and reserved it at that low rate.
I’ve had very good success with Priceline, but do make sure you read the fine print. Also, as someone else said, do not leave the lot without checking the car for any damage and getting it documented.
Anyone have tips for renting in another country? We are leaving for a trip to Europe soon and are looking to rent a car for one weekend.
We rented through Avis in Italy, without problems, but we did it through my employer’s discount site. Be careful. Some agencies may require you to have an international driver’s license. You want to check before you leave, to ensure you’re allowed to drive the car away. (My husband had one, but I don’t think it was necessary for where we were.)
Unless you’re going somewhere really off the beaten path such as Albania or Belarus, you’ll need an International Driver’s License. Check with your country’s embassy (their website, really) for the specific rules.
IDLs are easy to get. Go to AAA (you don’t need to be a member IIRC), show them your US licence, pay about $15, and you’re good for a year. It’s just paper so you need to carry photo ID as well.
We leave in just a few days for Disney and will be renting a car. We originally planned to just rent a car to drive there, turn it in and then rent again on the return trip so save some cash ($600 for the week or $300 for two days). Anyway, had the midsize SUV on hold when a friend told me to check priceline.com. WOW! I spent a week bidding on midsize SUVs and minivans and it was worth it! On day 5 it came back with an offer. I took that offer straight to the company and got the same price plus additional discounts with coupons I had from the Enjoy the City coupon books. $330 for an 8 day rental for a MINIVAN instead of the SUV. WOW!
And someone else said already but I have to agree check other locations close to you. It was a $100 difference from one location to another for me.
Don’t use your debit card. Use a regular Visa. Rental companies hold a larger deposit for use of debit card. Even when you return and pay for it by other means the hold on your deposit may be days to be returned.
You can book a package deal on sites like Expedia which will save you money. We booked a flight for my father-in-law who will be joining our family at Disneyland and at the same time booked a hotel room and a minivan for a week. Because we purchased it as a package, the van was only $300 for the week, where it would have cost us around $700 even with Costco discounts. We ended up finding a better deal on a motel room and Expedia let us cancel the motel reservation without changing the price of the rental car or airfare.
Ask if they offer any discounts for things like AAA. They often will take off 10% and add on a 2nd driver for free with AAA.
After you make a reservation check to see if there is a better deal later on. There is usually no money needed up front or no charge to cancel a reservation. Check through airline websites for discounts
I’ve rented cars in many cities all over the U.S. and have found Hotwire.com to be amazing! Their prices are usually half and they are so easy to use.
If you find damage, take pictures with your cell phone, and show them to the rental agency representative before you leave the parking lot. Have that person note the documentation on your paperwork, and get a copy.
That’s a great idea – I’ve never thought of doing that. 🙂