If you travel much, then saving money on car rentals can save you a lot of money over the course of a year. Suppose you’re a real road warrior, and that you’re on the road traveling 18 weeks out of the year. If you can save $10 per day on the cost of your car rental, then you can save close to $1000 a year. That’s money in your pocket if you’re a business owner or a leisure traveler. So here are 3 ways to save money on car rentals.
1. Shop around. Comparison shopping is the way to save on everything, not just car rentals. Brand loyalty makes little sense when you’re dealing with a commodity type product like a car rental. There are lots of car rental companies to choose from: Dollar, Thrifty, National, Avis, Budget, Hertz, and Enterprise are a few that come to mind immediately. Taking a few extra minutes to call each service or check each service’s phone number can be time well-spent.
2. Always join the frequent customer club. Airlines and casinos aren’t the only companies who offer loyalty programs. Loyalty rewards for car rentals have a dollar value that can be attached to them. So receiving those rewards is the same thing as saving money. But you can’t get loyalty rewards if you don’t join the loyalty program. It doesn’t take much time to join either, so give it a shot.
3. Try some of the services like Priceline and Hotwire. Companies like Priceline and Hotwire use a reverse auction format to let car rental companies bid for your business. When a car rental company has unexpected cancellations or low volume days, they’ll lower their prices and try to take advantage of the additional sales channel that Priceline and Hotwire offer them. And that results in savings to the end user. A lot of times you can negotiate a better rental rate dealing directly with the car rental company, but it’s always worth it shop around. And that doesn’t mean just shopping directly with the car rental companies themselves.
Saving money on car rentals is easy if you get organized and do the work. Nothing in the world is free, but there’s no point in paying extra for something that could have cost you much less. You can learn more about how to get the best car rental rate here.
