Avoid Unnecessary Car Rental Fees
There are many ways to get discounts on car rentals. However, you will still end up paying more than you intend. With base prices that sometimes only reflect half of the actual cost of the rental, we often don’t know just how expensive the rental will be. Here are some fees to look out for when renting a car.
Ask about charges for dropping off the rental in a different location if you’re using the car for one-way travel. Agencies can slap on a fee of up to $1,500 for dropping off the car in a different location than where you picked it up.
Find out if your car insurance covers rental cars before paying for the agency’s insurance. Upper-level credit cards, like MasterCard Gold, are also often sources of secondary insurance.
Avoid renting a car at the airport if possible. Rental agencies at airports will charge you large airport surcharges that can be avoided if you rent your car in town instead.
Between state and local taxes, additional driver charges, gasoline bills, child seats, and other add-ons, your rental bill will still be higher than the base price quoted, even if you cut all of these corners. Travelocity now offers “total pricing” for car rentals. It will quote you a price within 1 percent of your total charge.
Comments
American Express Cards also has very good Car Rental insurances.
My son lives about 500 miles away from me and was going to make a trip to see me for my birthday. Before he left, the engine on his car blew so he went to lease (rent) a car from Enterprise for the week. So he can get to work and find a new car. Upon renting the car, he had the notion to drive up anyhow but as he was reading the rental agreement found that he couldn't without possibly incurring a major fee.
The car is rented on a weekly fee, with 150 miles a day ,and ** a note stating that he may travel in the surrounding states but no further without being charged $ 0.25
per mile for the entire trip.** He lives in Va. and I live in Cleveland,oh. Ohio not being one of them.
Does the rental track each day how many miles is traveled?
Does the rental track locations and report where you've been during the rental??
My son lives about 500 miles away from me and was going to make a trip to see me for my birthday. Before he left, the engine on his car blew so he went to lease (rent) a car from Enterprise for the week. So he can get to work and find a new car. Upon renting the car, he had the notion to drive up anyhow but as he was reading the rental agreement found that he couldn't without possibly incurring a major fee.
The car is rented on a weekly fee, with 150 miles a day ,and ** a note stating that he may travel in the surrounding states but no further without being charged $ 0.25
per mile for the entire trip.** He lives in Va. and I live in Cleveland,oh. Ohio not being one of them.
Does the rental track each day how many miles is traveled?
Does the rental track locations and report where you've been during the rental??
A car rental i have been doing promotions here in the Philippines have everything else included with their rental prices so you won't have to bother thinking at the end of the day if there will be extra charges to your pockets. Also, the chauffer is included with the charges.
As someone who rents cars for work almost 2-3 times a month, I've found that using a site like Priceline can reduce your base cost the most. Use an aggregator first - like expedia or orbitz - to figure out the cheapest you can get, then use Priceline to take it down another 20-25%. I've had lots of success with that.
As far as additional fees, the main one is gas. As a general rule, no matter how the rental company is offering to refill your tank (at the end per gallon, full tank advance), it is NEVER going to be cheaper than filling up before you return it.
Also, most people should know to call their credit card company to determine what kind of car rental insurance is available... If its not free, it will be markedly cheaper than the rental companies (even the credit cards premium version).
I always rent at the airport.
Renting inside a large city may add significant cost; renting in rural areas does similar. Around Atlanta, I always get one at the airport--even with the surcharges, I save hundreds of dollars over the course of a week.
See if they charge (fine) you for speeding or tickets or leaving the state. I always use the same company because they have unlimited miles across any state and don't use any kind of GPS to make sure I'm not speeding. Unfortunately, they did receive a ticket for when I drove, paid it and sent me the bill + $30--I never had the opportunity to contest it.
Always return with a full tank. The price /gallon is about three times the standard pump price. Sometimes they let you buy gas in advance, which is much closer to the pump price.
Separately, I often reserve a class or two lower than what I want--if they don't have it, I get a free upgrade. Even if they do, I can buy the upgrade at the cost when I made my reservation rather than the walk-up rate. Beware of SUVs: because of gas prices, their demand slumps and they're cheaper to rent than a sedan, but get two-thirds oir even half the gas mileage.
I recently was traveling to the UK and fortunately read all the tiny print details. Here is a quick summary:
1.) IDP: Although not required by law, Enterprise listed in the tiny text that they required an International driving permit. While not difficult to get ($15 and 5 mins at any AAA office), they didn't make it well noted. I'm not sure if there would have been an extra fee / higher rate for not having one.
2.) Insurance: My US auto insurer does not cover rentals outside the US. And none of my credit cards offer free insurance when outside the US. Apparently, no US insurer or credit card company does; so if you think yours does you better call them first!
3.) Buying insurance: Since I didn't have insurance I was obviously going to have to pay for it. When I factored this into the price, Enterprise was twice as expensive as my ultimate choice. I found numerous rental agencies that included the insurance in their rate and were very reasonable.
4.) In the UK, they run an authorization against your credit card for the full deductible amount ($1500 in my case). Not a fee, but something to be aware of (you may need quite a bit of remaining credit).
Other things I've learned:
A.) When renting in the US, apparently some rental agencies will demand not just proof of insurance, but proof that a rental car is covered! I think this is borderline illegal, as you are signing a waiver accepting responsibility for insuring the car. UHaul demanded this of me for renting a van, and when I asked how exactly I can show this proof, the manager insisted I call my insurer with him on the phone and have them say its ok. If this ever happens to me again, I'm going to insist we call their cooperate office.
B.) Your insurer will probably cover you in almost any vehicle you drive (rental or otherwise) but only when that vehicle is less than a specific cargo capacity. In my case, cargo vans were always covered but small moving trucks were not. Check with your insurance company.
C.) If you're moving some stuff, don't instantly go for a UHaul truck. Cargo vans have a huge interior, and you can rent them from regular car companies for quite a bit less than UHaul. I can hear you say "But UHaul is $20/day and National is $50/day; how can you say its less than UHaul?" The answer is that UHaul charges a per mile fee on top of that per day fee. National and most other car rentals have unlimited mileage.
D.) If you really need uhaul, do a one-way rental inside your city. They will issue you a mileage budget (i.e. 300 miles) and charge you a flat fee if you stay under it. For me, it was always a lot cheaper than their $1/mile.
E.) I was traveling as part of my work by the time I was 21, so finding someone who would rent to me was important. I always used Enterprise; my memory is that they had the lowest fee for being a young renter. Many rental companies refuse to rent to anyone under 25.
It is true, to avoid taxes placed upon "tourists," you should rent out of the proximity of airports. Tourists are often left paying taxes towards stadiums, town upgrades and the like with the tourist taxes added to hotels and automobile rentals.
Return the rental with a full tank. Don't take the option to return the car with an "empty" gas tank. The agency always shows you that their gas price is lower than that on the street, but it is not very easy most times to "drain" the tank before you return it.
Here in the Philippines, unnecessary car rental fees are very limited as we all have to serve the travelling population as best as we could to develop our tourism industry.