Renting A Car
Driving home from a lovely wedding, Husband and I were commenting on the good decision made to rent a car. A well established pattern of renting vehicles for our longer out of state trips for weddings and funerals had not been considered for this 500 mile round trip. A phone call received from New Son a few days before our departure for our 500 mile weekend trip saying that he had snagged a good deal on a rental car, gave us some new thoughts. New Son went on to share that by renting a more gas efficient vehicle, his entire cost of the trip to the wedding for both Daughter and he would only be about $5.00 more (including the rental fee) and would save putting miles on his older vehicle.
His comments gave us reason to consider doing the same as our 17 year old car with over 200,000 miles would be better served not having to make this trip. New Son used priceline.com and Husband, hotwire.com. Both found comparable deals. We picked up our fuel efficient vehicle on Saturday and started our 5 hour trip. Imagine our delight to find that the car received even better mileage than we anticipated! Our original estimation of the trip costing our family an additional $10.00 after all costs were calculated, turned out to be better than we thought. Husband believes we actually incurred no additional cost as the gas savings paid for the car rental fee.
Not only did we break even with our costs, but saved the wear and tear on our vehicle and didn't drive with any thoughts of breakdowns far from home on our minds. We now have a new perspective when considering any kind of multi-hour car trip in the future. When you live in the state of Texas, these kind of trips can happen several times a year!
To our benefit, we do live close enough to the airport where we rent our vehicles to make this work easily and our airport is not difficult to navigate. We also can easily leave our regular car near by in a safe area for no cost while we are gone.
How about you? Do you ever rent cars for trips and events? Has anyone gone to one car and just rents a vehicle for those times when a second car seems necessary?
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7 Responses to “Renting A Car”
September 13th, 2011 at 10:21 am
My husband always spreadsheets our trips to see what the best travel option is – fly and board animals, drive and bring them, drive and board, drive out of the way and drop them off at family, drive to family & drop them off then fly. Then he figures out the difference for renting a car, using Car1, or using Car2. He figures wear and tear, gas cost, days off (driving sometimes takes twice to three times as long as flying), parking fees (we don’t live near an airport), stress on the animals, stress on us, and overall goal of the trip.
We attach monetary value to our stress and/or enjoyment of the trip each time as well. If it’s going to cost an extra $50 to do X, but it will significantly stress one or the other of us to do Y, is it worth it to be stressed or to save money? Is the stress of travel more than the stress of spending $50?
So far renting has never been the best option, but I can see how it would be for some people.
September 14th, 2011 at 12:08 pm
If you have an older and/or unreliable car, especially if you have children I would personally always recommend renting. I am a single mom on a limited budget and have rented a car for long trips over the years and found it was more than well worth what I paid and likely saved in wear and tear on my car or worse yet, a breakdown.
There is nothing worse than being stranded at the side of road with a child in tow (more so in the days before affordable disposable cell phones) and have to rely on strangers for a ride/assistance or waiting forever for a tow truck and being charged a high fee per mile even with AAA membership.
Worse yet, is trying to find a reliable mechanic in a nearby town (unless you want to pay the mileage to take it your hometown) that won’t take advantage of your situation. I have never had any trouble with any rental car and if I did, I would contact the rental company to be supplied with a new one. This is godsend if you travel in a remote area.
I have rented through Priceline.com & Hotwire.Com and gotten rates as low as $13.99 starting on Thursday’s and up to Sunday. Some have had offers where they will lock in the gas rate a few days earlier if there has been a big price jump and saved a bundle turning it in almost empty.
Some insurance companies or credit card companies offer insurance if you rent a car and you don’t have to purchase the additional insurance if you don’t want to – you just need to verify with what you have.
September 14th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
good thinking!!
September 21st, 2011 at 9:07 am
Can you give me a better idea of how the costs add up? I’ve never rented a car. Do you have to pay for the gas above the price per day that you are paying? Do you have to fill it up when you return? I’d love some details!
Thanks.
September 21st, 2011 at 9:14 am
Fatcat:
I appreciate your questions. Because we were able to get a good deal on our car rental, the rental cost for 2 days was $35.00. The car comes with a full tank of gas and you have the option of returning the car with a full tank or the dealership will refill the car, but at their gas price. We usually find it better to fill up the car ourselves close to the rental spot where we are returning the car.
My husband had projected with our own car that our gas expenses would be between $90.00-$100.00.
Our costs for renting the car and gas came to $90.00! Certainly one needs to find a good deal on the rental car if this is to work well.
October 11th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Nice Post. One thing I have noticed is Alamo Rent A car agents allows you to drive beyond one state border at a reasonable price with reasonable mileage limitation. I drove from Georgia to Pennsylvania and then back in July and it was around 1500 miles round trip and it was more economical due to the fact the gas mileage of the Nissan Versa was that much better than my Jeep! So my gas savings paid for the rental and all the food along the way! Airfare was crazy expensive, so that wasn’t an option!
February 8th, 2012 at 10:56 pm
JS = if you need a spread sheet to figure out how to take a trip, I weep for humanity.
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