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Plenty of destinations have great public transportation systems.  In many situations, we’ve used them and they generally work great – especially the ones with tourists in mind.  However, for most places within the United States, public transportation is spotty at best. This is probably why most people rent a car when they travel.

Car rental places can be tricky.  What one do you pick? What options do I choose?  How do I make sure I’m not being swindled by some rental salesperson?  We’re going to share our experience with you so that you can at least have a bit of a leg up when you encounter these situations. Here are some car rental tips and considerations.

Shop Around

I cannot stress this enough.  Do an internet search for all of the car rental places around the airport you’ll be arriving at, bring up a browser tab for each, and compare prices.  You may be surprised how much money you can save doing this. You’ll eventually find that most of these rental car places are actually owned by the same company, have almost identical websites, but strangely have large differences in the price of the same vehicle type.  You’ll also learn which ones are clearly the “name brand,” which are “off brand,” and which are ones you’ll come back to over and over. We have used many different car rental companies, but one of our favorites is Dollar Car Rental.

We’ve found that a discount code through an event we’re attending might sound like it’s going to save you a ton, but actually doesn’t save much at all.  Yeah, it might save me money with that one rental company, but while shopping around, we almost always find a better deal elsewhere. It may also be prudent to look at “package” sites that bundle in flight, hotel, and car. Sometimes you can save a bunch of money that way as well. These reasons are why it is important to shop around.  You’d be surprised how much money you can save by spending that extra time comparing prices.

Child Seats

If you’re traveling with a child and aren’t taking your own seat, make sure to reserve a child seat when booking your vehicle.  In the US, all car rental places are required by law to not only offer these, but keep them up to date. In our experience, rental companies charge between 10 and 17 dollars a day for the use of these seats.  That seems steep, but in some cases it’s better than lugging your own around.

Vehicle Size

It may seem like a great idea to get a larger vehicle if the price is close to a smaller one, but it can actually be a mistake.  For instance, in Oahu, Hawaii, most of the roads are very curvy, the lanes not very big, the parking spaces pretty thin, and the gas stations few and far between.  The first time we went to Oahu, our vehicle was not ready for pickup at our scheduled time and we were given a complimentary “upgrade” to an Armada. At first, we were ecstatic.  However, we soon realized why this vehicle was even available. It was easily one of the bigger vehicles we encountered on the island. It was actually sort of tough to stay in our lane, it ate gas like it was parched, and fitting in parking spaces took a bit of effort. 

Also, the lack of gas stations on the more rural part of the island where we stayed created an adventure in itself. Even when we were in the Waikiki Beach area where there were more gas stations, many had very small parking lots and lines of people waiting to get gas. This type of situation is the reason you should rent the car you need – not the car you want. 

If you need a Land Rover to get around where you’re going, then more power to you. You need a passenger van to haul around your big family, go for it. However, if you can get by with a smaller economy car, then do it. It will save you tons of time, money, and headaches in the long run.

Insurance

This is the big “optional” add on that really causes the price of a rental to skyrocket.  They say it’s optional, but their salespeople really do their best to sell it to you – even if you don’t need it.  They might even get pushy about it. However, you may be surprised to know you may not even need it. Check with your own car insurance carrier. It may very well extend your coverage to rental cars.  For instance, we have full coverage with Progressive. If you have comprehensive car insurance through them, they actually cover your rental as well. For this reason, we don’t buy into the optional insurance add on.

However, keep in mind, if you get into an accident you would be responsible for your deductible with your own car insurance. One benefit of a lot of the rental car company insurance plans is that it covers everything, meaning no deductible or other out-of-pocket expenses for you. So with that said, if you decide to splurge and rent that luxury mid-life crisis machine, you may want to take another look at their “optional” coverage…. You know… just in case.

Additional Considerations

This category is one that came with hard earned experience.  Things you may think just “come with the deal” may not. For instance, does your rental company have a 24/7 airport shuttle?  How often does this shuttle run? Every 10 minutes? Hourly? Is it even open 24/7? Will they have someone on staff who can speak your language?  Do they have a 24/7 helpline for issues? How do they handle issues with the vehicle?

We rented a car in North Carolina and after driving it down the road, we realized that one of our tires was not properly secured to the vehicle.  Aka… it was wobbling dangerously as we drove it down the street. We called the help hotline and they gave us another car – no questions asked. These things happen. It’s important to know how the company handles these situations. If you don’t see info on the site about it, call or email them and ask.  It’s better to know now that your discount rental place doesn’t have a late night airport shuttle for your red eye so you’re not standing there at 3 AM with no way to get to the airport.