I rent a car when I go back to Ontario or when I travel on business.
Even if the client pays, I still like getting a good deal.
So I did a little online research as upcoming prep for January/February when I may rent a car for the weekend to visit my sister.
Here are all the major car rental companies I tried:
- Hertz
- Budget-Rent-A-Car
- Discount Rentals
- Enterprise
- Avis
I have a couple of discount codes for two of them, but I’ll just assume regular rentals for now.
My Quick Comparison of Daily Rates and Final Totals
My choices:
- 2 full weekend days (pick up Saturday, drop off Monday) for January
- No GPS
- Don’t care about miles — I never go over 600km
- No insurance coverage or protection (I’m covered under my TD Gold Select Visa with no annual fee)
- No discount codes — But the ones I used did lower the price to make it cheaper by a couple of bucks
- No points or rewards considered for other affiliate programs
The daily rates mean jack
Compare between the final totals and prices, using the same criteria for all.
A high daily rate like Budget at $70.30 had the lowest price out of all.
The lowest daily rate at $45.99 from Discount Car Rental, yielded one of the highest prices in the end.
Don’t assume the discount is always a good deal
Like I said, it didn’t apply in this case, but when friends sent me discount codes for their wedding parties, it was $50 MORE than what I would have paid, had I chosen the same flight without the damn discount code.
I think they jack up the price and then discount it.
It’s an old trick done a lot by retailers too — where holiday season hits for example, and they raise all the prices by 10% and then discount by 10%.
Pirates.
Try and get insurance covered by your card or bank
Always try and figure out if you can get your car insurance covered in some other way, rather than paying the car rental company.
My PC Financial Mastercard doesn’t do it, because they’re a low frills card.
So I got a TD Bank Gold Select Visa with no annual fee, and in the contract, they cover me if I rent the car with the card.
This saves me around $16.95 – $25.99 for each day of car rental, which is around $85 saved per week.
Not only that, they have special rates with Budget, that saves me another $4.17 on the rental situation described above.
That’s it.
Happy Car Rental Hunting!
Any other tips from seasoned car renters?
That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
- Researching Rental Cars
- Compounding Interest, de-mystified
- Assumptions are not as real as they appear to be
- Finances and Marriage
- Letting go of the shackles of unused memberships/subscriptions
SS4BC
on Dec 21st, 2009
@ 5:59 PM:
Every time I rent a car I do exactly this. I search each car company for the dates I'm gone, put the final price in a spread sheet and also use the discount codes (like from Costco or from my work – we have a deal with National that includes insurance). In my spread sheet I have the name of the company, the discount code I used, and the final price. That way when I'm finished going through I can quickly see which was the least expensive. To date, I have ONLY used Budget and Alamo – between the two of them they have ALWAYS given me the cheapest rate.
munchkin
on Dec 22nd, 2009
@ 3:36 AM:
dont go with budget! I rented a car with them once, it broke down, i had to call the 24 hr support thing and they brought me a new car. When i took it back they tried to charge me 100 bucks extra for the gas!! LOL if anything i should of got a dicount seeing as they gave me a car that broke down. I doubt they inspect them after each rental.
Michelle
on Dec 21st, 2009
@ 10:59 PM:
I always go with Enterprise. I’m a preferred customer (you’re automatically enrolled at no charge if you rent from them all the time) and have had no problems with them. If you request a specific car and they have it, it’s yours and for a discounted rate if you become a preferred customer.
I never chose their insurance because it’s expensive and our provincial auto insurer offers car rental insurance at $2/day and it covers everything you have covered on your own automobile insurance.
Michelle´s last blog ..You’ve got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere
michelle
on Dec 23rd, 2009
@ 5:36 PM:
I've used Dollar a couple times in the past. Not sure if it's the same with other companies, but when you make a reservation, you don't pay anything at the time. You pay when you get there. So I had a pretty good deal reserved, but checked again a few days before the trip. And what do you know? The price had dropped by more than half! Make one new reservation and cancel the old without penalty. It pays to keep shopping in this case.
FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com
on Dec 23rd, 2009
@ 2:57 PM:
Great tip on rechecking the price before the lock-in date..
Ellen
on Dec 23rd, 2009
@ 8:16 PM:
I do the same thing (& have found the same results), although I usually start with one or more of the big travel websites, check their rates, then go to the individual car rental websites (and airlines & hotels, for that matter). I also have found that the "coupons" and other plans that supposedly offer discounts (credit cards or organizations I belong to) are almost never the best deal.
@michelle – good idea to keep shopping on car rentals – & hotels. None of the car rental places actually charge you before you pick up the car.
Two other points of interest: If you can rent the car from a company's pick-up site that is not associated with the airport (i.e., at a hotel or somewhere across town), the rates can be a lot cheaper. Also, recently my DH needed to rent a car while out of town & had asked me to make the arrangements from home. However, he found time to check locally himself & the rate was 1/4 of the best rate I'd found (yes, 1/4th) – so it might pay to wait until you get to the destination unless you need some specific type of exotic wheels.
The Last Carnival of Personal Finance of the Year! | Finance Blog
on Jan 7th, 2010
@ 12:59 AM:
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