The Best Places in the World to Rent a Car

If you’re like me, this may be the first time you’ve ever rented a car. As such, I’ll give you a quick rundown on what it’s like to rent a car and some of the most important things to keep in mind. First off, renting a car is one of those situations where it actually tends to be cheaper to rent things like insurance and GPS devices by itself, rather than renting it as part of a package deal. That being said, I’ve always found that to be an exorbitant price to pay for trivial items.

So you’re probably asking yourself why he is bringing this up. Well it’s actually because these are the prices I was quoted over the phone before heading out. The reason being is that I rented my car for 3 nights from Thrifty Car Rental at Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC), which I’ll get into more detail later on.

This brings me to one of the most important parts to consider when thinking about where you’re going to pick up your rental car:

• Transporting your rental vehicle back home. If you’re flying into an airport that only offers one rental company (i.e. Thrifty, National) then chances are they’ll be located really close to the airport itself, like SJC’s Thrifty Car Rental which is a 5 minute drive from the terminal itself. However, if you’re flying into a large metropolitan area with multiple airports and more than just one or two car rental companies then things can get a little trickier. For example, for this trip I flew into Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), where Avis had several locations but of course Thrifty had none… so I ended up having to pay an additional 45 dollars to drop it off at another location nearly 20 miles away from my hotel.
• Another important aspect to consider is what you’re planning on doing with the rental once you’ve returned it. If you plan on taking it back and parking at your hotel or in a fence-off area for self-parking like me. Then chances are they won’t make you pay for an airport fee (usually 20-30 dollars). However, if you decide to utilize Thrifty’s “Park N Jet ” option where they’ll take care of the airport fees. For you upon drop-off then expect that to be added onto your bill as well.
• Speaking of extra charges, another thing I’d like to highlight is insurance. Normally car rentals require full coverage insurance. Which means that any damage will be cover by them themselves. So if you decline the insurance they’ll either come after you later for damages or charge you a ridiculous price to include it in your final bill. In my case, since I already have full coverage on my own car. Then I was only charged an additional 5 dollars a day for “Liability Only” insurance, which is a much more reasonable cost.
• Finally comes the actual joy of driving your rental car! While most rental companies will offer older models as cheap as possible. There are some companies out there that actually offer mid-tier cars as well. In this case Thrifty offer me up a 2008 Nissan Altima as an upgrade from their usual fleet of econoboxes. So at least I felt like I was driving something snazzier to compensate for the extra gas I had to burn.
• All in all, this comes out to be an additional 140 dollars on top of your rental bill. But considering how much it would’ve cost me otherwise I felt that was a reasonable price to pay.
• Also note that these prices are what were quoted to me over the phone. However upon arriving at all three airports they tried to upsell insurance packages and GPS devices. Which ended up costing nearly another 100 bucks! So if you’re planning on picking up a car here’s some advice: Bring your credit card with you. So you can decline their “recommended” insurance policies without being charge by accident. Also remember that GPS is often list as an incidental charge. So doesn’t get sucker into paying 600-900 dollars for the newest Garmin or TomTom.
• One more thing: Many car rental companies don’t really advertise this. But if you already have a GPS device (even your phone) then they only charges 5 dollars more. To use it in their vehicles rather than adding on an additional 400 bucks for a GPS device of their own. This is especially important when flying into smaller airports that don’t offer rentals from major brands like Hertz or Avis. So just keep this little tidbit in mind and you’ll save yourself some money down the road… Now onto something completely different: San Francisco!

Conclusion:

Well, if you’re like me and your flight arrives during the middle of the night. Then they’ll most likely be the only game in town. Assuming that’s the case, I’d say their service was pretty good. The car I received wasn’t exactly clean but it got me where I needed to go. So there’s not too much else to complain about… Plus, with gas prices as low. As they are now there’s really no need to try and find an Avis or Hertz location. Just for convenience sake since you won’t actually save any money by doing so. However, if you do have a choice between companies. Then my advice would be to go to whatever has more rental locations available.