I'm going to the Bay Area in a couple of weeks and will need to rent a car for the first time. Is there anything I need to look out for?

I've heard about reading the company's gas policy, filling up before returning, and noting any scratches on the car before driving it off. Anything else?

I take it you have never rented a car before.

Here's the deal. Don't use their insurance. Use yours. They will gouge the hell out of you.

Tell them you will return the car full. Fill it up yourself right before you bring it in. They will try to B.S. you saying their price is good. That's crap. It's not.

Finally, and this happens virtually every time I rent a car, they will try to pressure you into an upgrade. If you reserved a compact, insist on a compact. I have even had guys say they don't have compacts on the lot and then try to charge me for the upgrade. Bullshit. You reserved at a compact rate (or economy, mid-size, whatever) and that's what you expect, regardless of what vehicles they have.

Check your credit card benefits to see if they offer car rental insurance so you can possibly avoid that charge.

pgens Wrote:
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> Check your credit card benefits to see if they
> offer car rental insurance so you can possibly
> avoid that charge.


The insurance fees are a nightmare. One time my wife agreed to it for a week-long rental. I looked over the contract and the insurance was going to cost more than the car rental. I went down and screamed at the bastards and they dropped it. My wife was dealing with a death in the family when she came in for the car and their salesman really tried to screw her over. I was seething with anger.

Rental insurance does get tricky. The small print goes into primary and secondary insurance and such. Unless it says "primary" they may try to get money from other sources (your auto insurance company, etc) before they pay it off. If it says it is "secondary" insurance then it isn't any better than using a credit card that offers secondary insurance on rentals paid for on the card.

Before I rented last time, I made a call to my insurance company. They said I was covered and, there was no need to get any additional coverage. Check with your insurance.

OMG Wrote:
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> Before I rented last time, I made a call to my
> insurance company. They said I was covered and,
> there was no need to get any additional coverage.
> Check with your insurance.


I'm pretty sure that unless you use "gebco" or any of those other Prince George's County based ghetto insurers, your insurance covers YOU, EVERYWHERE, not your car.

The rental car companies used to be really hard core about scaring people into taking their insurance, but I'm pretty sure nowadays they just ask you if you want it and when you say no, they cross off that part of the contract.

I even had a rental company in Germany try to sell me their insurance, and I said "my insurance covers me, not my car, so I'm covered no matter what I drive" and the rental agent said "But this is Germany. You have American insurance. You could even get arrested for lack of insurance in Germany because your american insurance doesn't count here." So I asked the agent, "I have USAA. What about all the American military living in your country who have USAA insurance? Are they all going to be arrested?"

She quickly x'ed out the entire section about their insurance and checked the "self insured" or "has own insurance" section (I don't know german, but my girlfriend at the time told me that was what it said. This wasn't Hertz or anything, it was some local rental company in Bremerhaven, probably the equivalent of our "rent-a-wreck" or something.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2009 02:08AM by Bob.

Eastsider Wrote:
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> I'm going to the Bay Area in a couple of weeks and
> will need to rent a car for the first time. Is
> there anything I need to look out for?
>
> I've heard about reading the company's gas policy,
> filling up before returning, and noting any
> scratches on the car before driving it off.
> Anything else?

Don't let them talk you into the "full tank" or whatever it's called. Just tell them you'll return the car with the same amount of gas as was in it when you picked it up. If they give you a car with 1/2 a tank, you return it with a 1/2 tank of gas, etc. Sometimes, they'll charge you $50 for a "full tank" and tell you that this means it doesn't matter how much gas is in the tank when you return it. Who cares. The people checking in your car only look at the guage, so if you pick up the car with 1/4 tank, and the entire time you have it you barely drive it, and return it close to 1/4 tank, they record your turn-in as "1/4 tank".

Call around to the rental car offices that are NOT at the airport. A lot of the time, the per-day or weekly rates at the airport are higher than if you rent the car in some random suburb or whatever. If you can take a short cab ride or mass-transit to a town away from the airport and save five or ten dollars a day, it's worth it. This isn't exactly the same, but my sister lives in Manhattan, and to rent a car a few blocks from her condo it costs about $45 a day for a sub-compact. If she calls the same rental company in Elizabeth NJ or even Newark, she can get a mid-sized car for about $35 a day. Obviously if she just wanted to rent a car for 2 or 3 days, it's cost effective to rent in uptown manhattan and save the time and money of a train ride out of NYC, but if it's for more than that, she's better off taking the train to pick up her car.

Don't pay for their insurance. Don't pay for their gas. Check to see if the airport rental offices cost more than the same company's offices in nearby towns.

Also, call your insurance company. Sometimes they'll let you use the rate they'd pay when you file a claim for an accident and need a rental car, for a normal rental. Plus, sometimes the rental company will give you your insurance company's rate instead of the normal rate, just for asking, so ask them.

Also, as far as the upgrade/downgrade game. Once you find a good rate and reserve your car, it doesn't matter what they have "in stocK" at the time. If you reserved a mid-sized car at $30 a day or $160 a week, or whatever, and they tell you all they have is luxury or specialty cars, they are obligated to rent whatever they have at the rate they promised you. I've reserved sub-compacts for $190 a week and gotten lincoln continentals. I reserved a mid-sized car in Denver with a ski rack for an additional $14 a day and was told they didn't have any ski racks left that fit the cars in their mid-sized range, and they gave me a toyota forerunner at the same rate. If they downgrade you, pay the lower rate, if they upgrade you, pay the same rate you were promised, not the higher rate. If you have a reservation, they have to honor it. If you have to take a larger car because they don't have the car you were promised, it's not your fault, but if you have to take a smaller car, you obviously shouldn't be paying for the larger car.

Thanks, guys.

\



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2012 12:43AM by Alias.

Alias Wrote:
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> Eastsider wrote:
>
> "I'm going to the Bay Area in a couple of weeks
> and will need to rent a car for the first time. Is
> there anything I need to look out for?"
> ______________________
>
> If the woman giving you the key to the car has a
> mustache and insists on helping you with your
> luggage, watch out!!

Don't scare him. Just because the woman at the rental counter is going to be stronger than all of us combined, and has a life partner, shouldn't detract from his trip to san fran.

We're all adults here. We should all realize that in San Francisco, the women are men and the men are running away unless they are gay. (does that rhyme?)

It's really not that bad. Just stay away from the castro district.

But make sure you drive through Haight/Ashbury.

I agree with the aforementioned advice - especially:

1) declining all of their insurance packages.

2) declining upgrades.

3) declining the "refuel" option

I would add the following....

When you get to your car, look over it with a fine tooth comb. Note EVERY single scratch, dent, nick, or piece of bird shit that is on the car. Many rental places are looking to ding you for "damage" done during the rental. So be sure to mark everything on your contract and either give it to the rental counter or give it to the security guard when you leave the rental lot.


BTW, be sure to look on orbitz.com for rental car deals. Or, sign up for the Entertainment Card - the corporte discounts afforded by them are terrific. I got a week in San Diego for $99.00 (a full sized car) courtest of the Entertainment discount.

Yeah, but then you had to drive around San Diego... the stress-related health costs of that will far outweigh any discount you got.

Ummm....I'd rather drive around San Diego than D.C. any day of the week. Driving up and down Mission Boulevard is enough to make most gay men straight.

Gonna have to disagree, but I did evade mission blvd so I can't disagree "wholeheartedly". I did most of my driving downtown, and to the south X southeast of town. The wide variety of moronism on the road there made DC drivers look like professionals.

Well, when you're south and southeast of town you're dealing with certifiable morons. I would not want to base driving skills on Skyline, Encanto, Chula, or Imperial Beach. But that is no different than in say, Route 1 country here in DC

I think drivers suck everywhere. There are different dimensions to the sucky-ness. For instance, in DC people don't seem to pay much attention to what they are doing. But out West, those bastards don't believe in letting you merge...AT ALL! It is a personal affront to them if you try to merge in front of them. They would rather ram you in the back, flip both vehicles and cause everyone to burn to death than give you the satisfaction of getting on a major thoroughfare.

IMO.

the problem to DC is that nobody is from DC, and mixing folks from Plano, TX, Fort Lauderdale, Ashville, NC, and Philadelphia usually results in disaster...

Mixing anything from Plano, Texas with anything else is a bad idea. Just ask this guy about his dad:
Attachments:

I been renting from Hertz since forever it seems, but hassles with counter persons, faulty navigators, and other car issues my last two rentals makes me believe I should probably use a different car rental company in the future at least for comparison purposes. I sense that Hertz is sinking...