- I have six secrets to help you snag the best car rental
from Hertz, Budget, Thrifty, Dollar, and more.
(cash register rings) (gentle music)
Hi, I'm the YouTube Deal Guy, Matt Granite,
from mattsdailydeals.com.
You're about to save a lot of money.
So a reminder, if you subscribe
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we will be good to go.
Plus, if you like this video,
I know you'll like the content,
and who doesn't like saving money?
I rent a car at least every month, sometimes more.
I take one big trip every month,
usually a three or four-day long weekend
with all of these travel points that I've accumulated.
Now, one program that doesn't really have a lot of points
where loyalty does not go a long way: car rentals.
And when I did a video on this concept last year,
I heard from a lot of people who wanted to argue
and they had very strong differing opinions,
and I learned that a lot of the people commenting
actually work for major car rental companies
and they weren't happy with the advice I was dispensing.
And I was able to isolate the viewers and the subscribers,
and it was a really interesting video.
If you go and you look back at that,
I uploaded that at the end of October of last year
but this is a new video with updated information.
So first things first of the six secrets
that no car rental company wants you to know,
secret number one, most of those wonderful people
at the counter, many of them are wonderful,
they make the basis of their commission
on selling you add-ons.
Those add-ons could be a GPS unit, it could be a car seat,
and I wanna remind you,
if you travel with a young child like I do,
the cost to rent a car seat per rental is around $125.
You can buy a good toddler car seat for about $89
and ship it to your destination.
More importantly, if you have a car seat
that's about $200, buy a cover, check that at the airport
and you're gonna be saving at least 125 bucks
per car rental, so that's important to know.
That was the big takeaway at number one.
Secret number two,
don't book directly through any car rental company.
The reason is that is never your best way
to find the least expensive rate,
and I'm going to show you a tool
that I've profiled in the past.
I'll just show you how strong and valuable this is
to really lock in the lowest rate.
Let's look at CarRentals.com just to start.
So with the dates of March 5th, 6:00 p.m.
and a March 8th drop off of 5:00 p.m.,
CarRentals.com, which is a great website
using basically Expedia,
but not the website that I'm going to show you,
pulls up rates for an SUV of about $156, $30 a day,
go to Enterprise, 169.
Yeah, Alamo, 169.
All right, if you move to Hotwire
with the exact same dates,
Chicago, March 5th, 6:00 p.m.,
March 8th, 5:00 p.m. drop off,
you're pulling off rates of slightly less
with their featured deals, 10% off, $154,
163 here, blah blah blah blah blah,
for a compact SUV, 154.
CarRentals.com, a compact SUV, 156.
All right, 154, 156.
The third tool that I wanna show you right now
is a tool called AutoSlash,
and I, again, with all of my car rentals,
swear by this website,
they're not paying me to talk about them,
I'm not using any type of affiliate links,
I just happen to love this website.
If you were to use this website,
they will also track the rental price drops for you.
So if your rate drops to a lower price,
they will alert you and you can lock that in.
We're gonna put in the same dates here.
The only reason this website is a little bit different
is that you need to put in your email address
and then they will email you their results,
and I think that's because a human being
works with the computer algorithm
to really find you the best rates.
Sometimes it's five minutes till they email you,
sometimes it's an hour,
but you usually get a much better price.
So you can put in if you're part of any membership groups,
but for this sake right now,
we're just gonna go bare-bones.
And then you enter your email address.
And then within a few minutes,
I will have an email from AutoSlash.
They don't sell your information, no issue with that.
All right, let's look at AutoSlash now
now that my results are in.
AutoSlash is giving me for, again, March 5th, 6:00 p.m.,
March 8th, drop off, $98 for a compact SUV from Thrifty.
And again, it's pick-up at the airport rental car center,
the same location all of these other companies are using.
Let's look back.
So we've got, 154 was our best price at Hotwire
and $98 for a compact SUV,
unlimited mileage, no additional fees.
You can even prepay with AutoSlash
or just use this with a Pay later through Priceline option.
That is far superior, and on this trip alone,
if you use the tool that I've suggested,
you're saving 60 bucks just for one weekend rental.
Secret number three, if you can and your schedule permits,
avoid renting from an airport in most cases.
I don't know if you guys have realized this
but when you rent from an airport
or you return to an airport,
you're paying an airport concession fee
and sometimes that can increase the total value
of your rental by 30, 40, even $50,
depending on the dates and how popular the weekend is.
If you look at the different rates right here,
and now, this is per day,
there are three different rates that you can see,
and usually, you have a control over this.
There's in terminal, 35;
on airport, which means you have to take a shuttle bus;
and off airport, which is 36.
But let's assume you're not taking an Uber
or a taxi somewhere else.
Sometimes taking one quick shuttle bus,
which is no more than a five-minute drive from the airport,
completely free, will save you four or $5 per day.
And trust me, over time, that adds up.
That would mean that even just for the course
of this rental, the rate would go from
154 total
to 185 total by making that little change.
So again, it pays sometimes to hop on the shuttle bus.
Secret number four, those low rates
from those companies you've never heard of
exist for a very good reason.
Those companies are sometimes overselling
or just know that if they create the lowest rate,
they're going to dominate on a specific date
because anyone will go to that location.
An example, which I'm going to pick on them
because every time I fly to Phoenix, I see this,
Fox Car Rentals at Phoenix have a line
that wraps around the corner,
and one or two people at the front of the line
that are helping in a line that is usually a two-hour wait.
If you look at all of the concession stands
from Hertz to Dollar, Alamo, Thrifty,
all beside them, there's never a line.
What happens?
Well, Fox Rental Car will lock people in with prepaid rates
where you have to go to them,
and they know there's no other way
for you to turn down that $10 discount per day.
There's a reason they are that cheap.
Please look at the ratings for car rental companies.
You can look at them sometimes on AutoSlash
or you can seek them out independently.
Another example of a company that you may not want to go to,
Easirent, they're in Florida.
I just rented from them a few weeks ago in West Palm Beach.
They were almost $80 less compared to any other company,
but I was picked up in an unmarked van,
taken to a Hilton hotel,
and on the side of the Hilton hotel,
there was something that looked like a ballroom
and there is one person on what looked like an area
where you would hang your coats.
They gave us these numbers, one through six,
written out on a piece of paper
and had us call our own insurance companies
to prove that we had insurance,
and I probably gave up more personal information
than I needed to.
The car also made some strange noises.
Now, they were very nice, the drop off was okay,
but in the middle of the night at West Palm Beach,
that might not have been the best experience
for other people,
and that's, again, just one experience I had
with this company called Easirent.
Now, speaking of insurance,
that brings me to secret number five.
All car rental companies want you to take their insurance.
Now, there's a bit of a debate
that I have internally with this.
In an unknown city with an unknown vehicle
and directions that you're trying to get
either from your phone or through someone else,
we're a lot less likely to get into an accident
in those situations than we are in our vehicle
which we use and operate
in our own neighborhoods and commutes.
With that being said, a lot of people say,
"Oh, I'll just use my own insurance."
If you use your own insurance company
as your primary insurance company on a car rental,
yes, they'll cover you, but if you crash that car,
you use your own deductible
and that counts against your own insurance rates over time
if anything happens.
If you take out a secondary insurance,
you can smash the car and walk away.
There's no deductible,
there's nothing that affects your premiums,
and you're using a third-party insurance; that is great.
At 15 or $20 a day, that's a lot
if you're renting for an entire week.
One thing to keep in mind, which I like,
is a third-party insurance
that has nothing to do with the car rental company,
and in this case, if you're booking
through Priceline or AutoSlash or Hotwire,
you're going to be presented
with an add-on third-party insurance from Allianz Global,
which is a major company, for about $10.95 per day.
What does that mean?
Well, that means if anything goes wrong,
they're your third-party insurance company,
there's no deductible, and it won't affect your premiums,
and in most cases, you do not have to go
through your own insurance company.
Now of course, cities, rentals, states,
and countries have different terms and conditions
but it is interesting to know that for 10.95 per day
versus 20 or 25 from the car rental,
this type of coverage could be your best bet.
And secret number six, you can stack coupons
but don't book through the car rental company.
Now, with airlines, loyalty goes a long way.
Hotels, definitely loyalty goes a long way.
But for car companies, the best bet, generally,
is just book the lowest car rental company
in whatever city you happen to be in
and whether it's Dollar, Thrifty, Alamo, Hertz, Budget,
you're going to get the same vehicle
and yeah, it might not be waiting for you,
just where you just walk into it
and you're all there for their elite members
but that will cost you another five minutes
and there's really nothing to lose in that respect.
The car rental companies
will all allow you to stack Costco membership,
BJ's, AARP, AAA,
and if you're using a tool like AutoSlash,
you can actually tick the boxes
to show where you're a membership,
and that coupon will work
in conjunction with the discount you're getting.
So yes, coupon stacking works.
And then a couple of tips just to remind you,
don't take the full fuel upon return.
Every major car rental company is near some gas station.
Sometimes it's a block
from where you're returning your vehicle,
sometimes you have to get off the highway,
but it is impossible to calculate
how much gas you are going to use
and have that full tank where you don't need to do anything
work to your advantage when you do return the rental.
And finally,
if there are any remnants of garbage in your vehicle,
some companies will charge you a 150 to $300 cleaning fee
if you leave a couple of bubble tea cups, or if your baby
has a few extra Cheerio remnants in the backseat.
In fact, I heard from someone on my last video
that had a cleaning fee assessed for an empty water bottle
in the cup holder in the front.
The rest of the car was completely clean.
So keep in mind that when you are returning the car rental,
really, there's a garbage beside it when you take it back,
take everything out, get them to print a receipt,
and make sure there are no additional fees.
I've seen car companies make all sorts of mistakes.
So there you go, I hope this video helps you.
If you wanna see more content like this,
please leave me a comment.
If you have any specific trips
where AutoSlash or another tool has worked for you,
please feel free to leave a comment.
And if you are watching this
and you're a member of the car rental industry
and you're angry
about any of the information I've dispensed,
I have full support for all of you.
I've rented cars from every major company,
you are all wonderful people,
but there's sometimes a cheaper way to do things.
Okay, I love you, thanks for watching.
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And that last big roundup of deals I did, right over here.