6 car rental rip-offs to avoid

Here's a trick I learned recently...  We were flying in to Louisville for 5 days, enroute from a vacation to South Carolina.  We were going to rent a vehicle the 5 days and then drive home (near Chicago) and drop it off the following morning (6th day).  I booked the lowest rate available according to Expedia and Travelocity for this 6-day rental with a 1-way drop-off, and it was over $600.  I was floored it was so expensive, so it made me curious what the premium was related to the 1-way drop-off.  To determine the amount of the premium, I booked 2 separate cars from the exact same rental car company.  The first was a 5-day rental with a pickup and drop-off in Louisville.  The 2nd was a 1-day rental with a 1-way drop-off between Louisville and my home near Chicago.  The total?  Less than $350!  For the $250 in savings, I decided to make the 2 separate rentals.  When I got to the car rental line, I saw that a different company had nobody in line, and they had a sign saying "We have cars to rent".  I stepped up to that line, explained my situation with the headache of the double rental, and he gave me a price of $310 for the full 6-day, 1-way rental solely because I asked for it.  He was able to steal the business from his competitor, and I got a lower rate and avoided the trip back to re-rent the same vehicle.  Nice way to save nearly 50% on the best rate I could get online.

I used ENTERPRISE often until my company was charged $250 for a door ding, a chip less than the size of a pencil eraser. It hacked me off that the site manager constantly referred the car as "the damaged vehicle". Despite my protests of it being pre-existing, I had the car for a day and it was not parked next to another vehicle the entire time, they got the money. I tried to make a pencil rubbing but the door ding would not make an impression.

They have lost tens of thousands of dollars in rentals since then as I have stopped renting from ENTERPRISE. In twenty years of renting cars (30-40 rentals a year) that still remains the only time a rental car company has had a damage claim against me.  The ENTERPRISE site manager called me again a year later and offered me a free weekend rental to get them back in my good graces. I replied I would use ENTERPRISE only if my company put a gun to my head and told me I would be fired if I did not use them.

This happened over ten years ago but I tell this story about ENTERPRISE every opportunity I get. They have earned the customer dissatisfaction.

I used to work for enterprise. Once i found out someof their business practices, I quit.

 

 

 

Maybe you missed the "Return the car to a different location" option. You know, the one right at the top of the page...

Being a frequent traveller in the USA in the past, I had to use rental cars extensively. Rates vary considerably from city to city (I found NYC to be the most expensive, and locations in FL to be cheapest), so you do have to do your shopping online.

 

To save money on car rentals, this is what I do:

 

1) Make sure that either your Car Insurance and/or your credit card will cover damage and excess liability if you have an accident with a rented car. If they do, then you do not have to take the option of the collission damage waiver, which can cost nearly $ 25.00 a day, and the excess liability coverage which can cost about $ 10.00 a day.

 

2) If your car insurance and/or credit card do not have the features indicated in 1), consider buying a collision damage waiver with a higher deductible if you can afford the deductible. At a recent trip, my car insurance and/or credit card did not have these features, I then selected a $ 3000.00 deductible, and cut my collision damage waiver to $ 10.00 a day.

 

3) Rent out of favor cars, which in most cases includes subcompacts, and very large vehicles (subcompacts are out of favor due to the small size which cannot carry a family, and very large vehicles due to the poor gas mileage).

 

4) if you can do so, pay online in advance. By doing this, you can knock off 15 to 20 percent from the base weekly online rate.

 

5) Always book in advance either online, or by telephone. Showing up at a rental counter and asking for a rental without an advance reservation is an invitation to disaster in terms of getting the best rental price, especially in peak travel periods (summer, Christmas, etc.) ..

 

6) When shopping online do your comparison on price on the total requirements that you want to get for the rental. For example, some rental car companies wil give you a cheap  "teaser" base rate for a rental, but when you add in all the extras that you want, the rate may not be attractive compared to other car companies. And by all means, shop around online.

 

7) Consider car rental companies with nearby "off airport" locations if you are renting at an airport. Many jurisdictions/airpor​t authorities will have two sets of surcharge rates with the cheaper set of rates being at near "off airport" locations.

 

8) If you are going to rent for more than four days, consider the weekly option. On a recent trip that I took, my daily rate for a subcompact was $ 85.00 a day in Seattle, whereas for a week, it was about  $ 280.00 Since I was renting for more than four days, I took the weekly option.

 

9) When you rent, read your rental contract thoroughly. In some locations (especially in  CA), most rental contracts allow you to only drive the car within a certain jurisdiction (eg in CA where I recently rented a car, the rental contract only allowed to drive the car in CA, and if you  drove the car out of state, you paid a real hefty surchage, which may total hundreds of dollars). The car rental companies track their vehicles through GPS in most cases, and will definitely know if you drive out of state.

 

That is all that I do have. Happy renting, and enjoy your rental. 

Rental places have the last laugh when you decline the insurance coverage. I had to say no about six times before they finally agreed not to add the coverage, but I ended up with a purple car for the weekend.

For renters with no insurance/plpd, haggle with the guy renting you the car. At times you'll find someone who will lower the rental rate to offset the cost of the damage waiver. If you have only liability/plpd insurance and you'll be renting 5 days or longer, call your insurance agent to bump up your insurance to full coverage and then lower it back after your rental is done and the rental company has verified whether there was damage or not.

 

Last money-saving tip:

If you reserve a car type with Enterprise, realize that they don't actually plan on having that car type...they cross their fingers and hope it's there when you show up. Reserve an economy car...if they have it on site when you get there, great...if they don't, you get a free upgrade. If they do have the ecnomy car, you might be able to upgrade to something larger for only a couple bucks more...which will be less than the reservation rate when you originally set up the rental.

What the author should have done was call Enterprise at the point where she wanted to return the car. They'll pick you up at the airport.

 

I've had some counter people get quite rude when you turn down their insurance coverage. Not the best way to keep frequent customers.

We use Alamo....they arent pushy, always have what we need and their rates are the best around.

Budget earned my eternal business when they allowed me to rent a car with an expired license.

Background:  I was travelling on business when the TSA pulled me aside because my license had expired a few months earlier (I forgot about renewing it).  After getting through the pat-down, I had my wife go on-line to my state's DMV and renew it on-line, since it was within the grace period to do so.  When I got to my destination, my original rental company would not honor the reservation due to the expired license.  I went over to the Budget counter,explained what had happended, and the clerk said no problem. Their system was able to electronically verify my license with my state and they rented me a decent car.  Really saved my behind, since I had to drive about 60 miles to my final destination.  You can imagine what the cab fare would have run.