10 Tips to Save Money on Car Rentals

10 tips for saving money on car rentals

Renting a car can often be confusing, frustrating, and worst of all, expensive.  But it doesn’t have to be.

Because of the dynamic price-gouging nature of car rentals, the tips below could end up saving you over 50% off the “regular” price.

And with all these savings, you may actually find renting a car enjoyable…as long as you keep an eye on the speedometer!

1.  Deny the insurance

I get it:  you’re not a risk taker and you want to be covered.  No worries!

If you’re renting a car in the United States and already have car insurance, your car insurance should cover a rental car (just call to make sure).

If you are renting in the US and don’t have car insurance, book your rental car with a credit card that offers supplemental insurance as a perk.  This includes all Visa signature cards, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase British Airways, or Hyatt credit card, and many World Mastercards as well.

If you’re unsure about what coverage your card offers, check out this great breakdown by NerdWallet or this infographic from Lifehacker.  You can also call your credit card company directly.

If you’re renting internationally, the supplemental insurance that the credit card offers usually becomes primary insurance, and so once again, you’ll be covered.

2.  Say no to the GPS

You don’t have to turn the clock back to the 20th century and use only a map and the stars, but don’t get the GPS the rental company offers.  If you’re renting in the US, simply use your smartphone’s map function.

This option is also available when renting internationally as well.  Instead of a $13 a day GPS, get a new SIM card for your phone (make sure your phone is unlocked first).

In most countries, $15 will get you data plan large enough to use the map for a few days and also be able to answer email and check Facebook!

 3.  Fill up where it’s cheapest

A no brainer.  But oftentimes, especially when traveling between countries, you aren’t aware of the difference in gas prices, which can be dramatic.  Do your homework ahead of time.

In Spain, the gas prices hovered around $7.50 a gallon.  Insane, right?

That’s what I thought until I got to Portugal, where I was paying $8.50 a gallon!

I was cursing myself for not filling up at the border and determined to not make that mistake again.  I put in just enough to roll out of Portugal on fumes and fill up at it’s much cheaper Iberian neighbor!

4.  Use Rentalcars.com or Kayak as a starting point but always check the actual rental car websites.

Using Rentalcars.com or Kayak or any other search engine is a great way to find out a decent range of what you should pay for a rental car.  However, always make sure to actually check the rental car companies websites as well.

On my last trip, rentalcars.com wanted 192 euros for a 10 day rental from Europcar.  When I went to Europcar’s actual site, the same rental priced out at 150 euros, a whopping 25% less.

A few minutes of work can save you a nice chunk of change, especially on long rentals.

5.  Avoid airport pickup

It’s not always the most convenient, but if you can avoid picking up the car at the airport location, you can save some big money.

Most rental car companies will place a charge on to your rental for picking it up at the airport, sometimes up to $30.

Instead, save those shekels and head to a secondary location to pick up the car.  If you’re in a big city, there should be plenty of options and they should be located conveniently around public transport.

Hop on the metro, get away from the airport, spend the extra money on a nice lunch, and then pick up your car.

6.   Always return the car full

Fill 'er up!

Fill ‘er up!

This has to be one of the biggest scams out there, right up there with the Nigerians princes offering you millions for your bank account information.

The rental car companies will charge you 2x or 3x more than the gas station for a gallon of gas, so if you don’t return the car full, you’ll be paying HUGE amounts to have them fill it.

Also, never agree to pre-pay for gas.  You’ll be charged upfront for a full tank of gas and unless you return it completely empty, you’re losing money.

Instead, simply opt for the “return on full” option…and then make sure it’s full!

7.  Earn bonus frequent flyer miles for your rental

Before renting, always make sure to check the Frequent Flyer Bonuses website to see what type of bonuses are being offered by each car rental company.

All you’ll have to do to get the bonus(es) is give them your frequent flyer number when renting the car and it should post automatically.

Who doesn’t love free miles!

8.  Grab a discount code

Rental car companies are always offering special discounts for all types of things, from business rentals to AARP members.

A simple Google search of “(Your Car Rental Company) discount code” will return a ton of hits.  Look through the first few sites and see what type of codes there are.  Then, use those codes to get up to 50% off your rental!

9.  Use hotel status to score perks

Oftentimes, if you have status with a hotel chain or two, you can score some perks with the rental car companies as well.  For example, my Gold Status with Hilton earns me a 25% discount with most major car rental companies.

Hotel status can also earn you perks like free upgrades or a free GPS rental (while I don’t recommend paying for GPS, if it’s free, take it!).

These extra perks MAY be stackable with promotions offered by discount codes, meaning you’d be able to use your status to get the perks AND use the discount code you found online.  Call the company up to make sure.

If they aren’t stackable, simply choose the one that is the best offer.

10.  Don’t speed

As someone who has racked up speeding tickets in multiple countries, do as I say and not as I do.

There’s nothing worse than opening an envelope from the Victoria state police four months after your vacation has ended and being hit with a couple hundred dollar speeding ticket.

Of course, if you aren’t planning on returning to that destination for awhile, and the statue of limitations might be over by then, and you have a significant other who could rent the car in their name next time, then…maybe speeding isn’t so expensive after all.

Final Word(s)

As long as you do a little bit of homework, renting a car should never cost you an arm and a leg.  Just denying the insurance they push on you can save you a huge amount of money.

Couple that with using your own GPS, scoring a discount code or two, and quickly checking multiple websites for the best price and you’re staring down some big savings.

And always remember, return the car on full!

What tips do you have to save money on car rentals?  Do you have a memorable car rental experience?  Share them below!

(photos courtesy of carlo montoya, bricktraveler)

The Top 5 Ways to Use British Airways Avios Points

Now that you’ve read the 4 Things You Should Know about British Airways Avios Points (if you haven’t, check it out first) and are up to speed with the program, let’s look at the top 5 ways to use your Avios points.

As I’ve mentioned many times before BA points can be incredibly valuable, but ONLY if you used in very specific circumstances.

Therefore, it is even more important with BA than with other airlines to know which circumstances give you the best bang for your buck because if you use them wrong, you could end up paying HUGE fuel surcharges…and nobody wants that!

If you’ve already got a nice stash of BA Avios points, great!

If you want to start building up your balance, grab the Chase British Airways Visa (which can be found on the Best Current Deals page or the Airline Credit Card page).

Then, use those points in the following ways:

1. Short haul domestic flights

Using Avios points for short haul domestic flights can offer some incredible value.  Because of the distance-based award chart, you can get flights that are as low as 4,500 points one-way if the distance flown is below 650 miles.

Only 4,500 points?  That’s crazy, considering that the same flight would cost you almost 3x as much if you were flying with AA, United, or USAirways!

This works best for people who live near American Airline US hubs, which are Dallas/Forth Worth (DFW), New York (JFK), Los Angeles (LAX), Chicago (ORD), and Miami (MIA).

There are tons of flights that fly out of these 5 hubs to places all over the United States, so if you live near one of the hubs, you can really make out like a bandit!

If you don’t start your journey at one of the hub cities, you won’t have as many options, and depending on where you are flying, you may have to pay for the leg from your home airport to the hub airport (minimum of 4,500 miles) and then pay for the leg from the hub to your destination.

This isn’t the end of the world, and can still be less than a regular airline would charge for a domestic flight, but its not the amazing deal that those lucky people near hub cities can get.

Examples (all examples in this post are for a roundtrip ticket in economy)

New York-Chicago
Using Avios Points: 15,000
Using regular carriers (AA, United, USAirways, Delta): All 25,000

New York-Miami
Using Avios Points: 15,000
Using regular carriers: All 25,000

Boston (non hub)-Miami
Using Avios Points: 21,000 (4,500 for BOS-JFK, 7,500 for JFK-MIA x 2)
Using regular carriers: 25,000

2. From the West Coast to Hawaii

Again, since the rewards chart is distance-based, it doesn’t matter that Hawaii is normally considered a different zone than the rest of North America by other airlines. All that matters is how many miles you are flying.

This means that by going to Hawaii from somewhere on the West Coast you can get a suuuweeettt deal!

If you are flying American Airlines, anywhere you fly from on that side of the country will route you through the main hub in Los Angeles, so if you can start in Los Angeles, you won’t have to pay for that extra leg to get there.

However, don’t forget that British Airways also partners with Alaska Airlines, meaning that you can also fly direct from Anchorage, Bellingham (WA), Seattle, Portland, Oakland, San Diego or San Jose to Honolulu using your Avios points.

Each route is under 3,000 miles, which means you’ll only pay 12,500 one-way or 25,000 roundtrip!  Hello, hula!

(huge thanks to reader planodude for pointing that out in the comments of last post…that’s why I love you guys; always helping each other, and me, out!)

Examples

Los Angeles-Honolulu
Using Avios Points: 25,000
AA 35,000 (off-peak) AA 45,000 (peak)
Delta, USAirways, United:  40,000 

San Francisco (non-hub)-Honolulu
Using Avios Points:  34,000
Using regular carriers: AA 35,000 (off-peak) AA 45,000 (peak) 
Delta, USAirways, United:  40,000 

3.  Boston to Ireland (Dublin or Shannon)

This is a very specific circumstance, but if you are able to make it work, this is the best deal out there for Avios points, even better than domestic short haul flights. Why? Two reasons:

1. Boston and Dublin are 2,993 miles apart, which puts it just below the 3,000 mile threshold in the Avios award chart, meaning you’ll only be paying 12,500 Avios points each way!

8 measly more miles and it’d be bumped up to category 5 (and cost 20,000 Avios points). Talk about cutting it close.

This route, from BOS to either Dublin or Shannon, is the only route that BA or it’s partners operate from the United States to Europe that falls under the 3,000 mile mark.

2. The route is flown by Aer Lingus, which for reasons unbeknowst to me, imposes only a small fuel surcharge ($150ish) when using BA Avios points and flying on their planes.

BA and every other one of its partners that fly between North America and Europe have huge fuel surcharges (think $400-600) when you use BA Avios points.

This makes it pointless to redeem Avios points on them, seeing as you could buy a ticket outright for the same price. For whatever reason, Aer Lingus has been spared (for now) so take advantage of it while you can.

Aer Lingus also flies to Dublin from New York and Chicago, but those tickets will cost you 40,000 Avios points instead of the 25,000 from Boston because they fall in category 5 on the Avios award chart. Still a really good deal, especially for people who wouldn’t be able to easily get to Boston.

If you’re looking to stretch your Avios points and save your dollars (and who isn’t) and can make your way to Boston (or even New York or Chicago) fairly easily, jump on this amazing deal to Dublin for only 25,000 Avios points roundtrip.

This isn’t just for people wanting to visit the Emerald Isle.  If you want to continue on to the rest of Europe, down a quick pint of Guiness and then fly from Dublin to wherever else you want to go in Europe using a budget airline like Ryanair.

Examples

Boston-Dublin
Using Avios Points: 25,000 
AA: 40k (off-peak), 60k (peak)
USAirways: 35k (off-peak), 60k (peak)
United and Delta: 60k

New York or Chicago-Dublin
Using Avios Points: 40k
AA: 40k (off-peak), 60k (peak)
USAirways: 35k (off-peak), 60k (peak)
United and Delta: 60k

4.  Flying to Central or South America

Sometimes the actual amount of Avios points required will be less than the amount of miles other airlines charge because the distance is fairly short (like Miami to Bogota, Colombio in the examples below).

If this is the case, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that you are getting great value.

Since you’ll never pay a fuel surcharge when using Avios points to fly LAN or for the AA flights that fly to Central or South America, this is a no-brainer if you are flying from somewhere pretty far south already (Miami, Dallas) or if you are flying to the northern part of South America (Bogota, Caracas, etc.)

However, even if the amount of points required isn’t less than other airlines, I still consider using Avios points to go to South America a good value.

If you ask me whether I’d rather use 25k Avios points or 25k United miles to get to Buenos Aires, I’ll pick the Avios points each time!

United miles are much more valuable to me, seeing as I’ll never get hit with a fuel surcharge when I use them, no matter where I fly, whereas the Avios points will often incur a huge fuel surcharge.

Any time you can get a flight using BA Avios points and not pay a fuel surcharge, take it, because they are few and far between.

Many of you may be unfamiliar with, so to give you a brief overview, LAN flies from Los Angeles, Miami, New York (JFK), San Francisco and Orlando in the United States and Toronto in Canada and flies to a ton of destinations in Central and South America.

Direct flights on LAN from North American include:

New York (JFK) to Santiago and Lima
Los Angeles to Lima
Miami to Bogota, Caracas, Santiago, Punta Cana
San Francisco to Lima

Of course, you can always fly in to one of these cities and then continue on from there, so your options are basically limitless.

In addition, AA operates a good amount of flights to Central and South America as well, hitting a bunch of cities in Central America and all the major ones in South America as well, including Buenos Aires and Rio.  Did someone say Carnaval?

Examples

Miami to Bogota
Using Avios Points:  20,000
AA:  30k (off-peak), 35k (peak)
United: 40k
USAirways: 60k
Delta:  45k

New York to Santiago, Chile or Buenos Aires, Argentina
Using Avios Points:  50,000
Using AA: 40k (off-peak), 60k (peak)
United, USAirways, Delta: 60k

5.  Flying to the Caribbean from the East Coast

Much of what was written about Central and South America holds true for flying to the Caribbean as well. If you are flying from somewhere pretty far south, such as Miami, you can get roundtrip tickets for as little as 15k Avios points to most places in the Caribbean (some are just a touch too far and cost 20k).

Amazingly, even coming from New York you can get tickets to places like the Dominican Republic for only 20k roundtrip!

Even the most generous of award charts, such as USAirways off-peak special of 25k roundtrip to the Caribbean, can’t match that!

Of course, if you are flying from further away, such as Los Angeles, you’ll be paying much more because its distance based.  Still, at 40k roundtrip to a lot of the Caribbean, the value isn’t that bad.  You West Coasters have cheap flights to Hawaii, us East Coasters can have the Caribbean!

Examples

Miami to Santo Domingo
Using Avios points:  15,000
USAirways: 25,000 (off-peak on USAirway flights), 35,000 (peak and on partner airlines)
AA, Delta, United:  35,000  

New York to St. Thomas

Using Avios points:  40,000
USAirways: 25,000 (off-peak on USAirway flights), 35,000 (peak and on partner airlines)
AA, Delta, United:  35,000

Final Word(s)

As you can see, it’s not all bad news when it comes to the British Airways Avios program.  When used properly, Avios points can be much, much cheaper than other airlines (I’m still shaking my head at Miami to the Caribbean for 15k roundtrip!).

Just remember that you must use them in very specific situations.

Obviously, it’s best to use them if you can for shorter flights (since the chart is distance-based) but more importantly, only use them on routes that don’t impose a fuel surcharge, which are the ones above.

Do that, and you’ll be singing a different tune than the ol’ doom and gloom that typically accompanies Avios!

If the above trips sound enticing, go and grab the Chase British Airways card and start planning your trip!

If you want to apply for the Chase BA card and help support the site, please use the links on the Airline Credit Cards page or Best Current Deals page.

(photos courtesy of usa map-Don Hankins, hawaii magnets-calsidyrose, ireland-acediscovery, south america- squirlaraptor, caribbean- Vox Efx)

4 Things You Should Know About British Airways Avios Points

When British Airways totally revamped their frequent flyer program last year, rebranding it as Avios and calling their new currency Avios points, many people bemoaned the changes, and rightfully so.

Overall, the program is worse than it was before, with British Airways Avios points much less valuable now than they were a year ago.

However, that doesn’t mean that you should write BA off completely.  Earning miles in many different programs is always a good idea, as it gives you great flexibility when trying to book flights and travel for free.

And BA is one of the easiest airlines to earn miles with.

They currently have a Chase BA Visa that can earn you some nice miles as a sign up (see all the details on the Airline Credit Cards page) and they oftentimes run big promotions as a transfer partner of American Express.

Before jumping in, there are 4 basic things you should know about the BA Avios program and how to use your points.

(If you want to know the best ways to redeem Avios points, check out the Top 5 Ways to Use Avios Points after reading this post)

[post src=”http://www.extrapackofpeanuts.com/bootcamp/”]

1.  The award chart is distance based

Most airlines have a zone-based award chart, meaning that it will cost you a set amount of miles to fly from one zone to another.

For example, with American Airlines, it would cost you the same to fly from New York to London (North America zone to Europe zone) as it would to fly from Los Angeles to Budapest (again, North America zone to Europe zone).

With BA Avios there are no zones and the amount of Avios points you pay is based on the distance that you fly.

Anything that falls under 3,000 miles will cost you 12,500 Avios points, regardless of whether you cross oceans or continental lines.  Boston to Dublin will cost you 12,500, same as New York to Los Angeles, because both routes fall in category 4.

You can find out how many Avios points you’ll need for a trip 1 of 3 ways (warning: it isn’t always easy).

For easy itineraries:

1.  Use the Avios Points Calculator on BA’s website.  This is an incredibly non-intuitive system and will only work if you are plugging in really easy routes (such as direct flights or sometimes routes with only one connection).

2.  Use milez.biz.  Enter the two cities you are flying between and select the British Airways program.  If the itinerary isn’t too complex, this should spit you out the number of points it will cost.

For more complex itineraries:

3.  Find out the amount of miles each leg of your trip will cost by using Milecalc.com.  Once you have the mileage for each leg, use the Avios award chart to tell you how many Avios points each leg will be.  Then, add them all together to get your final amount.

2.  You pay for each leg of the trip separately, even if you are just laying over.

This is by far one of the most annoying aspects of the Avios program for people who don’t live near a hub city (which are New York-JFK, Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles in the USA).

Let’s look at an example.  If you want to fly from San Francisco to Honolulu, you’ll have to first stop over in Los Angeles as there are no direct flights.  For each leg, you’d have to figure out the mileage and pay accordingly.

  • San Francisco to Los Angeles is 500 miles and so it would fall under category 1 and cost you 4,500 Avios points.
  • Los Angeles to Honolulu is 2556 miles and so it would fall under category 4 and cost you 12,500 Avios points.

You’d then add these two legs together to get your total, which would be 17,000 Avios points one-way or 34,000 Avios points roundtrip.

If you live near a hub then this won’t bother you much, since you’ll never be paying for that extra leg, but for many unfortunate souls, this Avios rule can really add points on to your trip fast, especially if you have more than one layover before arriving at your destination!

3.  BA charges huge fuel surcharges on MOST of their flights, but not all.

One of the major, major downsides to Avios points if you use them on most partners (or BA itself) is that you’ll get crushed with a huge fuel surcharge.

Most of the time, the fuel surcharge is so large ($400-600) that it makes no sense at all to even use your Avios points since you could buy a paid ticket for almost the same price.

There are a few exceptions, and it is these exceptions that you should take advantage of and use your Avios points on.  I absolutely hate paying fuel surcharges, and basically refuse to do it, so you better believe that I’ll be using my stash of BA Avios points in the following ways:

No fuel surcharges

  • Flying American Airlines domestically in the North America region (and including Hawaii)
  • Flying LAN to Central or South America and the Caribbean

Smaller fuel surcharge (about $150)

  • Flying Aer Lingus from North America to Ireland (Dublin or Shannon)

4.  You won’t ever get charged a close-in booking fee 

While #1 could be either a good thing or bad thing depending on where you are flying, #2 and #3 are big time negatives of Avios program.  But now let’s turn to a positive and end on a good note!

Almost all airlines will charge a booking fee when you book an award ticket within 21 days of flying. Usually, this fee hovers around $75.

Thankfully, BA has decided to waive this fee, so even if you decide to book an award ticket with Avios points and fly out THAT SAME DAY you won’t get nicked the extra $75.  A

fter all the changes they made to their program for the worse, I guess this is the least they can do!

Getting BA Avios Points

The best way to currently get a large number of BA Avios points quickly is to sign up for the Chase British Airways Visa (see the Airline Credit Cards page for all details).

Final Word(s)

While BA’s once awesome awards program has definitely taken a tumble with the rebranding of Avios and all the new rules they’ve instituted over the past year, its not all doom and gloom.

Take advantage of opportunities to get Avios points easily, such as the through a credit card signup or American Express transfer bonus.

There is still some value to be had from Avios points, so before you go burning them like Hungarians burn the forint, make sure to check out The Top 5 Ways to Use BA Avios Points!

Want to vent about the Avios program or maybe even defend it?  Did I miss any key points?  Have a go at it in the comments below!

(photos courtesy of kennymatic and steve_rinker)

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