Need Advice Rental Cars

I don't often rent a car, so I was wondering if anyone could provide some insight on the tips and tricks of renting. I have read articles about no need for insurance through the company and buy my own gas when refilling. I was wondering more about going with a certain company or using Hotwire or Priceline. Any guidance would be appreciated. We are traveling to Florida for vacation in August so I need to get on with renting something!!! Thank you

 

Buy your own gas, take your gps and easy pass. If you pick up at the airport they sometimes charge airport taxes and sometime like ORD you have to take a 20 minute shuttle just to the rental.

Watch your credit card statements if the car has an easy pass built in, we just got hit for tolls when we did not even use it by Budget. Called them up and they said handled by someone else and gave us a number...ongoing...

Sometimes car insurance covers if you have comprehensive, also credit cards sometimes offer secondary insurance which I think means you have to write the check then they reimburse.

Sometimes your place of work gets a discount.

For some reason they charge more for a week than single days. When we needed the car for another day Budget wanted us to charge us around $130 for that (on a ~$30/day rental).

We've always used expedia, have not tried the others. Note that companies watch your computer activity (cookies) and probably continue to adjust the price, at least I think I read the airlines do this.

 

Also when you get to the rent a car place in FL ask if they have an upgrade, if they do you get a better car for only 3.00 extra dollars a day and sometimes for nothing extra, worth the asking

 

I couldn't discern if you were renting the car in FL or renting one here to drive to FL. If you are renting one here, make sure there are no limitations on distance from rental facility. This is different from a mileage limitation (ie rental rate includes 500 miles then $0.05 per mile). Some cheaper rentals limit the areas you can drive to 2-3 surrounding states.

 

Try using rentalcars.com. They have pretty good rates.

 

Whichever company you use, take pictures of the car, especially of anything that could potentially look like damage. Make sure a rep from the rental company walks around the car with you and takes written documentation of the condition of the vehicle. When you return the car, do the same thing. That way if the company later claims some type of damage after your rental period, you have written documentation to back up your side. I'm dealing with Avis on that right now...