September 19, 2013 • 43 mins
In some situations, a rental car can be a lifesaver. In others, however, it can be an enormous hassle. So what do you need to know before you head to the rental kiosk? Join Scott and Ben to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot com Walking the
Car Stuff. I'm Scott Bensman and Ben Boward. Ben. We've
got a topic today that you you came to me
with last week and said, I would really like to learn,
uh not learn that, maybe teach our listeners about about
(00:25):
renting cars. And I thought that was a fantastic idea
because we've talked about in general. You know, when you
go to pick up a rental car, here's a couple
of things you want to do, but we've never really
said anything about about maybe tips or tricks for renting cars,
getting the best deal, what you should do and pick
up and drop off, um, kind of all the all
the stuff that goes along with a vacation. So so
(00:46):
this I thought it was a good idea, And and
here we are, so let's just let's get to it.
Oh yeah, the um you know why I got this idea, right, Well,
I recently lost my job, one of my jobs, really
got another what's well not anymore. This is a door
to door car rental salesman. That's a terrible job. You
(01:06):
know a lot of people, it turns out, already have
cars at their houses and uh, and what reason would
they need to rent a car when they're sitting on
their couch anyways, Well, I'm charismatic, so it did make
a close a few sales, but it's just stressful man.
So um, let's excise that part. We're not going to
talk about door to door car rentals except to say
(01:27):
that you shouldn't mess with that business. If someone does
try to rent you a car at your door, close
the door. Fantastic advice, then yes, this podcast will be
full of fantastic advice. Scott, so Um, let's go with
the very very basic things. What do you need to
rent a car? All right, fair enough? Then, so what
(01:47):
is it? What do we need? Well? Uh, first things, first,
you do need a license that is not an urban legend. Uh. Secondly,
there are age requirements and if you're sixteen, you're probably
not going to be able to rent a car anywhere.
That's a good point because you know a lot of
younger drivers that are you know, just now driving and
they've just got their license, even past you know, learner
learner permit, they've got their their full fledged license. Uh,
(02:10):
they are unable to travel and rent a car. Somewhere
else or rent a car in their own city if
they wanted to, because I think a lot of them
are restricted to as an eighteen or twenty one even
maybe in some cases, because really you're signing a legal contract.
And that's what it all comes down to. It's not
so much that you have a license and you can
drive and be on the street. It's that you're going
to be signing a document that's legally binding, uh, that
(02:33):
that you know you're agreeing to all the terms and conditions,
and you know a lot of states don't allow that
until you're eighteen or twenty one, right and additionally, even
in your twenties. Um, now you know you'll hear different
things with people saying you can't rent a car until
you're twenty three or your twenty five. But even at
that point, when you rent a car in your twenties,
it's just going to be more expensive. There's nothing you
(02:56):
can do about it. Your hands are tied, your hands
are hide by statistics. Really because you're going to be
a less safe driver. I mean nothing personal, but just
just know that. But also you'll need to, uh, you
need to make sure that you have your own valid
insurance the rental company will have an insurance agreement with you. Um,
(03:17):
let's talk about some dues and don't sounds good? Okay,
we can, we can toss back and forth. I'm just
gonna I got a little list here. I'll just run
down some of them and stop me or add to
this whenever you've got So that's fine. I've got some
stuff too, Okay. So, Uh, one thing that a lot
of people don't think about avoid the airport rental places.
(03:39):
If you can avoid the airport rental no kid, I
know it's a huge thing and it's a huge hassle
to avoid them. They are super convenient, but you'll get
a better price somewhere else. Yeah, I guess. So if
you travel a few miles outside into into the city
proper and uh, and you find a location that's you know,
like just some kind of off the main road, off
off main street type play instead of right there on
(04:01):
the airport property, you're gonna avoid a lot of extra
taxes and search charges as well, for sure. And it
all goes down to convenience. Another thing which I know
you and I say this often, it's kind of a
monstro of ours. Uh, you just have to have as
much prior planning time as possible because you, uh, you
will benefit greatly if you're able to shop around to
(04:25):
check you know, a this hurts all of the big
name guys in advance. And then you can also hunt
discounts because there's so many discounts online. I'd like to
recommend specifically a place called auto slash dot com. They,
in addition to not paying me to say this, have
have a great, um, great strategy and it's easy to
(04:46):
navigate the website and find discounts. Hard Where you got
that auto slash dot com shirt you wearing today? Oh yeah, yeah,
I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I can't, but really that's a
good one. So that's that's a place that you go
and check it out because then you can get some
deep discounts there and look at look online. You can
also um, you can also prepay um when you know
when you're planning this, say if you almost treat like
(05:09):
a plane ticket and you say that I'm going to
buy the I need this car a month from now. Yeah, Ben,
you know what, I've I've got a lot of experience
running cars, have done it many many times. My wife
does most of the work on this stuff. I can't
take credit for a lot of it, but but we've
runned cars often, so I know the pickups and the
drop off procedures and all that and how we go
(05:30):
about it and and booking the car is really one
of the biggest key key points that it needs to
be put out there is that do this way ahead
of time. Anytime you've got a chance to do do
extra research on it. You're able to find the best deals.
You're able to shop around, you're able to price and compare. Um.
One thing you need to do though, and when you're
doing your research is, uh, after you do book a car,
(05:50):
make sure you get a confirmation number UH and hold
on to that print the email or whatever they send
you that you know has that confirmation number, the booking number,
and then we can take that with you to the asking.
That way, there's no confusion about where your reservation is
or what you have because you've got it all printed
out right in front of you. It's a it's really uh,
it's really it's a big, big time saver to have
(06:10):
that in your hand when you walk up to the counter.
Yet and then also speaking of the counter times here, UM,
this is something a lot of people don't know. I
at least haven't run into a lot of people who
are aware of this. Renting a car is a bit
like buying a car in that negotiation is expected. You
(06:33):
can do it. You're not going to be a jerk,
you know. It's not like going into Target and trying
to get a DVD for eight dollars. See. I never
ever have done this. I've never bargained for a rental car. Well,
you can try, you can. I mean, it depends on
it depends on how much the money matters to you.
I suppose so. And I think I think I've heard
some people at the counter doing a little bit of
(06:54):
bickering back and forth about you know, the size of
vehicle that they're getting. And we'll talk about that too,
about the vehicle choice that you have when you're there.
But but I've heard people say like, well, man, you
don't have my car available, why don't you give me
this one at the same price, and I'll take that
um And they say, no, well, we can't really do
that because that's three steps up. We can usually do
one or two steps up in size or class or
(07:16):
whatever they call it. UM, So there's a little bit
of that back and forth. But I've never heard of
bickering for the price. I guess, um. I know that
you know online you can search for the prices and
and the little side don't that I've got here about
um prices. Um. You know that the rental car prices
can change hourly, even they change all the time. So
so you've got to check back often and uh. And
(07:39):
when you do check, you know, check back, make sure
you note the time, note that note, the note the price,
and if you don't reserve it, you're you're out of luck,
of course at that point. But if you check back
and think you're gonna find a better deal, you know,
in twenty four hours, by all means, do so. But
it may go up or down depending on the supply
and demand. I guess for that day, if there's a
convention in town, if there's something else going on in town,
you know you're gonna pay a hefty price for that car. Um.
(08:02):
But if it happens to be a weekend, a slow
weekend or slow week uh, you may get a pretty
good deal on the same vehicle. So and check back
and forth between different brands, and there's a lot of again,
the research is really important. So there's a lot of
this back and forth looking around. You can also find
coupons when you do reservations. You off, that's a that's
a lot when you're talking about you know, four or
five day rentals or even longer um and speaking to
(08:25):
that four or five day rentals um if you're going
beyond five days. It's also recommended that sometimes you get
an extended weekly rate, and a weekly rate is cheaper
than a day rates. Instead of paying for six individual days,
you pay for a week rate, and uh and oftentimes
it's a much better deal. A lot of people don't
think about asking about, you know, these longer trips, you know,
(08:46):
weekly rates versus day rates. That's a good point. And
one thing with a length of reservation, it may behoove
you to get a margin of error by making the
reservation a little bit longer than you actually expect to stay,
because you don't know what might happen. I know, I
sound really cynical and pessimistic, but you never know. Murphy's
law might kick in. Also, well, I don't know, like
(09:08):
maybe maybe like half a day longer or something not
not a full day. I wouldn't think I think a
full day would be too expensive. We're talking about something
right more right. But a half day gives you gives
you a margin America, because as you know, the pickup time,
which we'll get to has some has some rules that
can be kind of stringent. Yeah. One thing with negotiation
(09:30):
that going back, I'm I'm talking well, I'm talking about negotiation.
I am talking about the upgrades, downgrade things, um, not
so much as specific price, which brings us to amenities
and hidden fees. You know. So let's say you're gonna
you're going to rent a Mustang, very nice, great car,
great car, It's going to be up there in the class,
(09:52):
it will be in the hierarchy of the vehicles. And
you realize that the price you were quoted, just quoted
when you ask them for a quote over the phone
or something, is way lower than the price they're asking
you to pay. And you start saying, well, what what
are what are all these fees? Why is that? Yeah?
(10:12):
Why is that? Well, let's say that the Mustang they
quoted you on, uh, didn't have all the bells and
whistles that the Mustang they're trying to rent you does.
So the Mustang that you were gonna pay X amount
of dollars for is now a Y amount of dollars
because this one has you know, it's a convertible. It's
got UM on Star GPS saying. See this is where
(10:37):
paying for the vehicle ahead of time with a credit
card online is maybe the best deal so that you
can get You've got that deal locked in, you know
exactly how much it's gonna cost you, and all you
have to do really then at that point is signed
the paperwork adding fees things like that. That's something that
these uh, these that a lot of rental cars are
rental car companies are notorious for UM and it's it's
it's these hidden charges. These like airports search rig is
(11:00):
that we mentioned because they're on the airport property. UM
additional driver fee so if you know you want another driver,
you want your husband or wife to be able to
drive as well as you. UM and then maybe like
even a kid that's old enough to be able to drive,
that's a fee also UM fuel search arge. Don't return
it with the proper amount of fuel. The insurance that
(11:22):
you know they add on, which we'll talk about, I'm sure,
UM just local taxes, you know, federal, state, whatever, I'm sorry,
local and state brother, just fee after fee after fee
can be tacked onto this thing. And then by the
time you know, you get to the end and you're
ready to sign, suddenly that cars, you know, double the
price that it initially was when you when you made
the reservation if you don't pay for it ahead of time.
So again, lock it in ahead of time. That's the
(11:45):
way to do it. Excellent. An additional thing that's tremendously
important if you were a member of the military, or
Triple A or a ARP, numerous groups, perhaps even your
employer may have an organizational discount of some sort, right,
that's a very good tip. Yeah, that may impact your
decision because they may have an agreement with just one company,
(12:08):
you know. Yeah, And you know, I'm going to mention
a company as well, because I think I read somewhere
that Travelocity if you if you lock in a rental
agreement with Travelocity, um, they guarantee that the price of
the rental car will will be within one percent of
the actual price or the quoted price rather for that
rental So one within one percent, that's reasonable. I mean,
you may see a couple of little things added on
(12:29):
here there, but they guarantee that one percent um is
the most that it could go up. So so that's
pretty safe bet in that case. I mean, but we're
not talking something that doubles it, you know, or anything
like that, because that that does happen, and you know,
it could be as simple as what you mentioned before.
You know, they add on um, you know GPS, so
they say, we don't have that car available, but we
have this one and it's only seventeen dollars more per
(12:50):
day um. But you know, over the time of your vacation,
that adds up, and then their additional fees on that
so um, all this all this adds up. Um. So
you know it's just the research part. We can't stress
this enough. That's that's so so important. Right do you
are you familiar with a rental car company already? Like
Scott you said you and your wife often rent cars
(13:12):
because you guys travel a lot. Uh. Do you guys
go to different companies or do you have perhaps a
loyalty prob Absolutely, we go to different companies all the time,
and it's just really comes down to who's making the
better deal at that time. Um. You know, it's great
to be a member somewhere and to be able to
have all the perks that come along with it. But
oftentimes that that that gets expensive as well. And I
(13:32):
know that some people are just willing to pay that
because they like to be able to step off the
airports shuttle and walk over to a car and know
that the keys are in the car, and all they
have to do is just is just you know, flash
their their membership card when they drive out a lot.
That's perfect, you know, good for them. But I would
prefer to shop around and get a better deal. If
I'm going to make a trip for seven days or
ten days, or you know, even if it's three days. Um,
(13:54):
I just want to be able to know that I'm
getting the best deal. And I often you know, been
just between us, between us, between us and everyone on
the internet. Most of the time, all we do is
just get you know, we just rent the absolute minimum,
lowest economy car that you possibly can whatever they have,
because really we don't need a whole lot of extra space.
We're not carrying a lot of lugga journeying with us. Yeah,
(14:15):
most of the time. Now, let's say you're gonna take
a we took a trip a couple of years ago
around um, around the Southwest, did a lot of driving,
a huge, huge amount of driving, just a great, big
circle several states. We knew that, you know, in a
compact economy car might not be the best bet for
something like that because you gonna be on the road
a lot. But we don't also need a huge luxury
vehicle something in between. So we got like the midsize
(14:36):
Sedan and that was perfectly comfortable, a lot of room
for our luggage because it was like a seven day trip.
I think there's a ten day trip maybe, and I
don't know. It just seem exactly perfect for us. I mean,
if we if we were you know, really really wanted
to be uh, you know, pampering ourselves live in the
left luxury, we could have gone with you know, a
great big suv or something, or you know, something that
(14:57):
had it all long. Yeah, something with a h and
something of the long wheelbase. You know, we could have
gotten the Lincoln town Car whatever that Uh it was
very plush, but was it necessary not really, And you
know we'd rather spend our money somewhere else, you know,
like maybe a better hotel room for the night. Um.
So so you know, what kind of it's give and
take whatever you feel that you need for that trip.
And that's really really important when you're talking about like
(15:19):
maybe going uh, you know, snow skiing or something you
may want to. You may need an suv that has,
you know, four wheel drive so you can get up
into the mountains, or you may need something that has
the ability to go off road if you have to,
um ski racks, things like that. I mean, it's it's all.
There's a lot of important things to think about. So
it's important to know where you're going. One thing that
(15:39):
we should mention, going back to our earlier Mustang comparison
and um to the point you've already made, Uh, you
can save money by letting go of a big brand
name when it comes to a car. That's a good point.
Some people are stuck on. I have to rent a Ford,
I have to rent a Chevy I have. Some people do,
and I understand that if you're with Thick Corporation. Let's
(16:01):
say that you're you're traveling with the Ford Motor Company.
Oh yeah, well yeah, you had better run a Ford
motor car motor company rental car when you get to
wherever you're going, right, That makes sense. Totally understand that.
But you know, just average Joe traveler doesn't matter if
you're drive in Adihatsu or whatever they happen to have
on the lot. You know, it just doesn't matter. But again,
some people are very particular about what they drive, and
(16:21):
you know, it just it's it's it's a mental thing
that you have to get over, I guess. And now,
speaking mental things, what we're going to do in a
minute is go to the hypothetical buying of the car,
the rental car, the inspection, if you will. And let's
assume we did, and we will talk about that right
after a brief break for our sponsors. All right, we're back,
(16:47):
and as promised, we're going to now talk about the
actual rental itself. Right when you rent the car. When
you're there, you've got everything, You've got all your ducks
in a row, You've done your research. Yep, you've got
your paperwork in hand or email with a confirmation number,
and they say, you know, sign all the paperwork, here,
your keys, sir, head out to the lot. It's the
it's the third car on the left. And and then
(17:08):
what do you do? Then, Well, the first thing you
should always do is inspect it, preferably with someone from
the car company. Ah, you know what, I'm going to
tell you that that is nearly impossible. Yeah, they won't
be there, No, they won't be there. It's usually a
desolate lot that you're going to. There's nobody there except
at the at the checkout area, you know, like the
(17:28):
gate that lets you out where they check your paperwork. Um,
so you're oftentimes left to do this on your own. Look,
but Clark Howard, for instance, would would want a rep
there just case. But if you can't have a rep,
there is another thing. This is not hopeless. You know,
I'm going to mention Clark Howard later, So I'm glad
you mentioned. He's like the hero of this stuff. So
you need to have a camera with you. Really Well,
(17:49):
I think it's a good idea because if you're going
around the car, do a walk around before you get in,
and you should inspect it, check the tires. Don't assume
that anything that is already messed stuff is gonna be
uh is going to be considered their responsibility. Oh yeah,
it's not gonna be previously marked on that on the
slip or anything. To have your phone out if you
have a smart phone and just take a photo if
(18:11):
you see a dent, if you see some paint chips.
That's a great idea because almost everybody has a phone
now that can take a photo, of course, And it
seems like a simple thing to do. And you know,
I drive my wife crazy with this stuff when I
get there, because I I will take five minutes and
inspect the car, and she's ready to go, ready, ready
to get in the car and go to whereveryone uggage.
She's already on vacation at that point, you know. And
(18:31):
I'm and me, you know, I've loaded the stuff in
the car, and I'm I'm taking the walk around the car,
and it takes me a couple of minutes because I
just don't want to. I don't want these additional charges
to show up on my card later for something that
I didn't didn't do. And I'm I'm looking inside and outside,
you know, make sure that there's no uh, you know,
chips in the glass, making sure that you know all
the hub caps are. They're simple things like that, you know,
(18:52):
the big things first, and then maybe take a look
at it kind of in you know, squint with one
eye and look down the side of the car, and
see if there's a big dent in the door or
something like that. Make sure that the gas cap is there. Um,
all kinds of things. We We had a rental car
not long ago that it was just a piece of
junk when we picked it up. I don't remember where
it was, but it was a big name company. But
it looked like it had really been just and put
(19:14):
away wet. Absolutely, Yeah, it was just really bad shape.
And um, you know, I marked so many things on that.
You know, there's a little diagram of the car. I
marked so many spots on that thing. And I felt
at that point, you know, it wasn't just like there's
a little scratch in the front of the rear bumper
where people loading the luggage or something like that. I
felt that I needed to talk some to somebody. So
I went back in and they didn't have another car
(19:36):
available for us to take. It was that bad. There
were all kinds of things wrong with it. UM short trip,
but so I wasn't really too too worried about it.
But UM, I checked off all these things and I said, look,
here's this. And they came out with me and they
looked at all the stuff and said Okay, we've we've
noted it, so that's fine with sign your and they
initialed my my little sheet and then we were on
our way. Note the damage. That's going to be our
(19:58):
takeaway from this out. One thing that's weird that other
people might not think about is that you should contact
your insurance company just say, what what's the policy of
rental cars? If I rent a car and something happens,
is there coverage for me? Is their liability? I say
this goes ahead at the research area, talking about research,
(20:19):
because then you're, you know, ahead of time if you
need to sign that little waiver that says that I
agree to the you know, fifteen dollars a day extra
that it costs to ensure this car for collision, when
really your your your basic personal insurance already covers you
for collision or possibly even ben some some credit cards,
some of the bigger name credit cards, will also have
a rental car provision that allows for collision coverage. Nothing else, no,
(20:43):
no other additional coverages, but just collision coverage. And that's
that's good enough in most cases. But you will be
charged if you do crash a rental car, if you
do put it out of service in some way. They
will charge you for the days that the vehicle is
not on the road, and that's a lot of That's
one thing that a lot of people don't really realize
is that let's say you bring a car back and
(21:05):
it's got a you know, she's I don't know, bent
frame or whatever. It happens that a big one, something
big like that, and uh, something that you know, it
makes it renders it undrivable and it's your fault. Well,
you're gonna be charged for the days that that vehicles
in the shop because they're not able to rent that out.
So they're gonna they're gonna give you the maximum rate
for that vehicle all the days that it's in the shop,
(21:26):
and that can really add up. H that's uh, that's
so uncool. But I understand it's in the uncool situation.
I guess. So I pictured as if I rented my
car to somebody, you know, and they brought it back
to me, and they'd be responsible for that that price,
I guess. I mean, I kind of I kind of
get that one back, you know, I understand that. So
(21:49):
we've got our inspection and our hypothetical car, we've got
the price we wanted for the time we wanted. The
luggage is piled in, We've done our diagram inspection. Uh,
let's see what's text. We're ready to just hop in
and drive this brand new car. Almost almost. Oh, but
where's your sensive adventure? Buddy? They have a sense of adventure.
(22:10):
But but you do need to figure out where all
the controls are. And every car is different, so you
gotta kind of figure things out. Make sure your mirrors
are adjusted, make sure your seats are adjusted. You know,
it sounds kind of silly, but when you get into
a car, yeah, yeah, exactly. Have you ever hopped into
a car and then you you're you're driving and they're like,
as nightfalls, like where that? Where's the switch for the headlights?
How does that work? Where? And pick up? And you're
(22:32):
looking around at the stick and you're going, which one
of these exactly, because there's several stocks that come off
the thing, and you're like the steering column and you're like,
which one of these? And you hit it, and of
course the brights come on, and you know, all kinds
of things happen. The rear wiper goes, the it shoots,
the oil slickjection seat exactly. So you know, I've I've
also picked up around cars at night and uh, and
(22:54):
that's really frustrating because you're in a dark lot. Sometimes
you can't figure out where anything is, you know, and
once you do find the lights, that makes things a
lot easier. But you know, trying to figure out where
the controls are for the mirrors and you know, all
that stuff, it's just it's it's just difficult. So so
just take a second to to just do that. And
I know it will drive your passenger crazy, but as
the driver, you really have to do something like that
(23:15):
because you know, when you're a block or two blocks
away from the airport, you're gonna realize all the stuff
that's just not exactly right for you when you're driving.
My my girlfriends had a job for a while where
she would travel extensively and she would go she would
fly out from the airport here in Atlanta, which is Hartsfield,
and then she would land in the airport usually somewhere
(23:36):
in the southeast, and pick up a rental car and
have to drive to these fairly remote locations to take
pictures of furniture. It's a weird story. But what's interesting
about what you say there is that she often would
have to end up dropping off or picking up the
car in the dead of night because of the schedule
for the driving, you know, and she was able, she
(23:59):
was will do with it. But one of the things
that she did very early on which she said, you know,
I don't I want to sit down and figure out
all of these controls or I leave the parking lot.
It really pays off. I guess if you're in desolate
areas in the Southwest as well, no lights out there,
I mean, you're gonna be really stuck if you're driving
and suddenly it's you know, nightfalls, and uh, you know,
(24:21):
because it happens fairly quick, and you know, if you're
kind of on the edge, you pick it up in
the evening, you know, late in the evening, and you
don't really familiarize yourself with everything, you like, where the
radio controls are, any of that stuff. Um, that that's
something that really pays off in the long run, and
and you know, soon enough you'll become accustomed to where
everything is. It's pretty easy to get around. But um,
it sounds like it's a simple thing that you know
(24:41):
a lot of people just uh, they just forget it. Okay,
so boom, we have rented, successfully rented our car. We've
picked it up. We paid a little extra because we're
both driving, and we go on a great road trip.
Where are we going? Let's say, how about car hinge? Oh,
that that is the correct answer. That is where we're going.
(25:02):
Cadillac's buried up, you know, nose into the ground. Perfect.
That sounds like the place to go. So that's where
we're headed. We're going to take a brief break for
our sponsor, and then we'll be back to drop off
our rental car. All right, we're back, and I guess
we're at the point we're dropping off our car after
(25:23):
our trip to uh well, I guess i'd be down
Root sixty six somewhere right, Yeah, yep, And what a
time we had. I only wish we were there right now.
That would be so cool. So, but you know, we
have we do have to turn in this car. So
what do we need to know when we are turning
in a car. One of the first things I'll harp
on is fuel. So here's the deal with the fuel situation, Scott.
(25:49):
You know how it is whenever you even borrow car
from a friend of yours. It's common courtesy. I think
there should be a law that when you return somebody's
car after borrowing it, you feel up the tank for
at least bring it back to where it was. That's
what I mean, bring it back to where it was.
Now with the price of gas, it is unreasonable to
borrow some guys someone's card to go down the street
(26:11):
and then lose sixty bucks on their tank. But bringing
it back to where it was is required in rental agreements.
And that's really all they're asking you. Because it's full
when you pick it up. They want you to bring
it back full, and you can do um. You can
do a couple of things, one of which I would
advise against. You can fill it up yourself, which I
(26:31):
think is great and I think that's what you should
always do if possible. And then there are like gas
fueling up packages that you can buy. That's the one
you advise against, right, that's what I don't want people
to do. Yeah, Chick, I totally agree with that. I've
never purchased the prepaid fuel option on these things. You
know where they fill it up after you bring it back,
so you can bring it back bone dry and let
(26:53):
them fill it up and that's supposedly the deal. And
they tell you what they charge you per gallon, and
it's usually more than what it is outside of the airport,
but it's less than what it is inside the airport
because the the the fuel stations right near the airport
next the airport are really they're they're preying upon people
that are bringing back rental cars. They've got prices that
(27:14):
are marked way way up and uh, and that's what
they're counting on you buying. And they say, you know that,
we're gonna quote you this price. It's normally three eight
five a gallon, uh, just down the road here, but
we'll we'll give it to you for three seventy five
if you bring it back you know, empty, right, And
the actual price of gas in that area outside of
this weird shell game would probably be you know three yeah, exactly,
(27:38):
So it's a little cheaper and uh and it makes sense,
I guess to do it. But is it worth the
convenience I guess of having to stop somewhere and get it. Yeah,
you know, to me, it is. It's fine, you know,
when you leave the leave your hotel or whatever. If
it's near the airport, just somewhere five to ten miles
outside the airport, maybe you top off the tank and
then by the time you get there it's still full.
Of course, you know, you don't have to fill it
(27:59):
up right down the street. You can fill it five
or ten miles away and still make it to the
airport with a full tank. And that's all you really need.
What's the this is my question for you. Okay, what's
the Clark Howard stuff? You want to? Oh, yeah, we've
got um. You know Clark Howard. He's a h would
you call him? I guess he's like he's in Atlanta
based financial advisor, like a consumer expert. Maybe. Yeah, he's
(28:20):
like he's kind of like a one man consumer reports.
I guess so. Yeah, he's like kind of save money
and avoid being ripped off anyway and every way to
save money. And he's got the site called Clark Howard
dot com. And I think he's he's nationwide. I think
he's he syndicated. I think yeah, he is. He has
a lot of people can hear him everywhere, and I
don't know about outside of the United States. But but
(28:41):
if you, I mean, if you go to Clark Howard
dot com. There's a ton of of travel tips, rental
car tips, hotel tips. I mean, find everything, consumer electronics,
any saving for your kids, college funds, everything, anything and
everything to do with money. So you know, this is
the place I went to when I was looking for
a car, rental stuff. And he's got one too, maybe
six or seven tips here that I can just read
(29:03):
off real quick and see how they match up with
what we've talked about. UM. You know, I think I've
got a couple more things maybe that I want to
to mention on the drop off. UM, you know before
we go here, But um Clark's tips here, and this
goes right back to the beginning to get the best
deal when you book this book the car, when you
book your flight at the same time, and then always
continue to re check for a cheaper rate. We talked
(29:25):
about that, right, So we're on the same page with
that one. UM. Don't accept the insurance options the company
wants to wants to give you or wants you to buy.
UM check with your own insurance. We talked about that.
You know, there may be a premium credit card that
offers same travel insurance, you know, rental car insurance. UM.
Let's see check the check the car carefully before you
leave a lot. That's what we've already talked about. Uh,
(29:47):
so have an official of the company uh noted on
the rental contract before you leave. Now that's a good idea.
And you know I do that when you get to
the gate, when you get to the place where there's
uh you know, severe tire damage if you back up
at that point. Um, when you're right there, there's usually
guard that will check your check your information at that time,
have them initial the damage report that you've filled out,
(30:08):
and oftentimes to leave and take a look at what
you've actually marked on the thing to make sure that
it's accurate, you know, missing hub gap, whatever it happens
to be. Uh. Oh, here's a good one, Ben that
we didn't talk about. During peak season, make sure you
can find an affordable car before you buy a nonrefundable
airline tickets. So yeah, it's very smart. So you know
their peak travel seasons, peaked times. You know that your
(30:31):
exactly when the kids are out of school, everybody's going
to Disney World. There's going to be major markups on
cars down in Orlando. You can bet that. So you know,
make sure that you can find an affordable car before
you you get this ticket that you can't really change
because you're able to be able to fly to an
airport that's just outside of town and get a cheaper
rental car there, and and it's the same exact trip.
(30:53):
You're just paying a little less in both cases. So
that's fantastic advice. Um, here's one that we mentioned. Rent
the smallest car well at the cheapest rate. That's uh,
there's something I always do usually. Um. Also, he says
about half the time the rental company won't have the
actual small car you ordered, because you know, when you
get there, they've got a minimal stock. They don't like
to keep a lot of cars sitting around, and it
(31:14):
just happens to be that, you know, they don't have
the the subcompact that you rented, but they do have
a mid size and they're gonna give you that one
for the same price. And that happens often. It happens
a lot to me as well. Yeah, And one of
the reasons that happens often is because a lot of people,
for one reason or another, even if they would usually
plan in events, a lot of people do end up
(31:35):
just um s ol sorely out of luck at the
airport gate in need of a car, and so they
have to go up there without any prior planning and research,
and they say, give me the smallest, cheapest option you
have and then boom, they've got your car. Yeah. I
guess so that may work for some people, right, you know,
it's it's rolling the dice, man, I think it really is.
(31:57):
I would never take it. I would never take the
chance of going into an airport rental car um desk
and saying, what have you got for me? But that's
that only would happen. I think if somebody was having
really crazy extenuating circumstances during the last minute of flight,
maybe there's a a family emergency of some sort. Sure
(32:18):
that that's how that stuff happens. No one, No one
is going to get rich at all. No, no, I
could see that happening. But if you if you have
advanced knowledge of your trip, and you know the exact
days that you're gonna be gone and the airport you're
flying into and etcetera, etcetera, you should be able to
do enough research ahead of time to be able to
get the best deal. Yeah, there's no there's no excuse.
(32:39):
Some people swear by that that that that method though
that you say and say, I always get the best
deal by doing this, But there's gonna be times when
that's not the case and they're not gonna have anything
except you know, the giant suv of the available and
that's that's eighty five dollars a day compared to the
you know, twenty day cost for the I don't know,
the subcompact. We only have Lincoln navigating exactly. Yeah. Yeah, So,
(33:02):
um and the last two or something that we've already mentioned.
I guess, um, you always take the car with a
full tank of gasoline and return it with a full tank.
So he's he makes the extra point to mention make
sure it has a full tank when you leave a lot. Um.
I guess that's something on the inspection that we forgot
to mention is just make sure that everything is running okay, okay,
you know it's not running hot or you know it's
got it's got you know, full tank of gas, that
(33:23):
type of thing, washer fluids there, whatever. Al Right, next
thing is um and the last thing really we've already
mentioned this. If you're running a car for five days
or more weekly rental rental will provide a large discount.
And that's uh, that's the absolute truth. I've had this
a couple of times where you know, you run on
a weekly rate versus a day rate and you end
up with a much better deal. Yeah. And let's see,
(33:44):
you said there were a couple more things about picking
or dropping off the car. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now you
get these are simple things that really really need to
to remember. Um, the contract we talked about this early
on and we just wanted to make sure we got
to this point. Um, the contract has an exact day
and time that you need to bring the car back.
It's usually a very small window of time, and it's
(34:04):
usually typically based on your flight time, and they kind
of understand, like, okay, you can bring that back by
three o'clock because your flights at five. Um. So they'll
usually set that up for you and they kind of
look at you when they say it. They say, so
you can have the car back by three clock that day,
and they look at you and if you say, yes,
that's fine, that's that's it really is. And you can
say you can kind of adjust that a little bit. Um.
(34:26):
I think it's usually you know, in a twenty four
hour block so let's say it's noon at this on
this day, and you know they want you to bring
it back at noon on Tuesday or whatever day it
happens to be coming back. But I think you're able
to adjust that a little bit and if you make
that window slightly bigger, they gives you a little more leeway.
So you know, you can actually be charged a fee
if you if you drop it off early, which I
didn't know. This is insane people. That's one of those
(34:48):
fees that you know as a hidden fee that you'll
never find out about ahead of time. But if you
you drop it off early, which seems like the good thing,
that the best thing to do, they charge your fee
because they have to find a place to put that
car on the they're not expecting it at that time,
so so that's an additional fee. Uh. If you drop
it off late, that's also a fee, of course, because
you know they're expecting that car. And that's where the
situation comes in that you know they don't have the
(35:10):
car avavable for the next person because they have to
uh if they wash it, they have to make sure
that the files stopped off. They do their own inspect
exactly they do their own inspections. So, um, just make
sure you know, if you're gonna be in traffic and
you're running a little bit late, call the rental car
agency and say, you know, I'm gonna be a half
hour late. I just want to let you know. And
you're calling them within the window, you know, not after
(35:31):
you're already late. Don't call them. Wait, you know ahead
of time to be proactive about it and maybe won't
incur one of these fees. Um. The other thing is
your personal belongings. Just check everywhere. Make sure even if
you didn't even put anything in the glove box, checking
the glove box to make sure that's nothing there. You know,
your wife or kid didn't stuff something in there, you know, sunglasses, phones,
or whatever, because you're never going to get that stuff back,
(35:53):
and it's rare when that stuff is turned in. Um,
you know, it's usually just thrown into a big pile
off to the side and you're already on a plane
out of the states at that point or out of
the country, and uh, you know, good luck getting your
sunglasses back at that point. Yeah, that reminds me. Um,
this is totally a tangent here, Scott, but there is
(36:14):
a huge warehouse. Uh, somewhere in I want to see.
It's in Texas and not on this where all of
the stuff that couldn't make it onto flights they do
the t s A something or lost luggage has been
eventually shipped to. Have you heard about the space. I've
heard about it, Yes, I have. Yeah, And there's a
there's a small version of that right here in Tucker,
(36:34):
Georgia there was and uh and that it's loaded with
things like pen knife and uh and and scissors and
tweezers and all kinds of stuff that you know that
the t s A felt they needed to take off
of somebody's person and you know that it was unsafe
for the flight. But this place and wherever you say, Dallas, Uh,
it's somewhere in Texas. Somewhere in Texas, Okay. It's so
(36:55):
it's a warehouse size I'm talking about, like more like
a flea market size type thing that happens. And I
think it's kind of irregular when it shows up. But um,
I'm kind of interested in this now because that type
of stuff fascinates me. I wonder what people I love
looking at the display that shows what they've removed from
people's luggage or persons and uh, and there's amazing stuff.
(37:15):
I mean, people bring these just amazingly big fire fireworks
display packages and things like that. It's like, what made
you think you're gonna get on a plane with with this?
It's such a it's such a thousand dollars worth of fireworks. Yeah,
it's such a side note. But I do have to
wonder if stuff left in rental cars ends up migrating
to places like that, or if people, uh maybe not employees,
(37:39):
but if something's been there for years to somebody just
say okay, I'm taking these aviator glasses. Maybe maybe it
happens like that. I don't know. I mean I I
don't know where it ends up. It's kind of a
black hole of of personal belongings there. Maybe someone who
works at a rental car company can tell us what
happens to that stuff. I have just a couple of
things school as we're wrapping up here. Uh, First, I
(38:01):
do want to I do want to point out that
the people who work at rental car companies are not
trying to screw anyone over. And as long as you
know what you're getting into, know what you're agreeing to,
which you should anytime you sign a contract, then you
are going to get through there with the service that
(38:21):
you paid for. I have just a small word that
I want to mention about that in a second to
but the last thing I guess and that the I
mean to offend. But the last thing on the drop
off that I wanted to mention has been interrupting the
drop off. That that's okay, no problem. We got off
on that side. Note with the fireworks and I don't know,
lighter shape like a hand grenade or whatever that stuff
in those cases, it's just amazing alright. So, um, the
(38:44):
last thing I want to say about the drop off
is that have an attendant check the car with you
when you're done. I mean, they'll usually do a fast
walk around and uh, and they're not going to catch
every little tiny dent and scratching the thing or every
little you know, rock mark on the front bumper. But um,
you a lot of stuff is just considered considered you know,
normal use, daily use, whatever it is. Yeah, scuffs on
(39:05):
the bumper, you know, when you're loading the luggage, things
like that that happens. They understand that. Um. In fact,
a lot of things that I've marked on. You know,
when I'm picking up the car, I think, like, that's
a pretty big scratch, and like that's just normal wear
and tear. Don't worry about it. I think, man, that's
pretty big for normal wear and tear. I would I
wouldn't like that normal wear and tear on my personal vehicle.
But you know, a lot of times they'll have a
little machine in their hand. They will print you a
receipt right there while you're standing with them. That's kind
(39:28):
of the final um. You know, I've, i've you know,
check this out, everything's fine, this is your final cost,
and make sure you get that and hang onto that receipt.
That's a that's a big deal, um, because they still
have your card number and there could be fees added
to your card later. Exactly. So if this guy, you know,
the guire girl who's walked around the car and said
everything checks out fine, here's your final receipt, hang onto
(39:50):
that final receipts and nothing's added later, you know they
won't say that, you know, it's missing two hubcaps and
we're gonna charge you a hundred and sixty bucks for
those two hubcaps. And stuff like that does happen, So
make sure that you're you hang onto that receipt. That's
really important. Um And and that's not anything hard to get.
There's usually someone right there for you. Don't just don't,
you know, pull into the place, jump out of the
car and run to the shuttle and then you're gone.
(40:11):
And that's it because you never know what's going to
happen after that point. Yep. Again, prior planning, there's a
there's a wealth of statements about it exactly. But the
last thing that I wanted to add before we close
out here, unless you got something, well, I guess you
got well, you know, we mentioned just the signing and
know what you're signing, right, and then I'll let you
(40:31):
get to that. But um and again on on Clark
Howard dot com, um, he mentions that a lot of
times now at these rentaldusts, you're signing, um a tablet.
You're signing something electronically, And the downside of this whole
thing is that you're only seeing a little tiny portion
of that whole contract when you're signing that tablet. And
the problem is, you know, if you didn't scroll up
(40:52):
or scroll down to see what you're signing, there may
be little clauses and additional taxes and fees and things
like that added in. So that's where you know, just
make sure that you're reading all this stuff. And again
it takes an extra forty five seconds to just skim
the stuff and make sure there's no added search charges
that you're not not familiar with. You know, on you're
based on your earlier agreement with them. You know, if
you're earlier reading in the document, hopefully you did that.
(41:15):
But but these little electronic tablets that you're signing oftentimes
that can be trouble. So just take a look, you know,
just take forty five seconds to a minute or two
minutes or whatever it takes. Don't worry about the people
behind you, because it could end up costing you quite
a bit of money. So that was his advice, m
about these things that just make sure you know that
the total cost and hopefully these dudes and don'ts will
(41:37):
let you avoid future horror story car rentals. You know. Uh,
the what we've done is just talked about some of
the basics here, um, the things you need to have
on your end, the best way to get a good price,
and the stuff you need to know about dropping off
your car, especially things like dropping it off early. Yeah,
(41:58):
I know, it's a it's just little tips and tricks
and things that you learn along the way that you
know you can you can pass on to somebody else
and hopefully they'll they'll, you know, understand that it will
sink in and they'll remember and then maybe they can
pass that on to somebody else and it can save
you hundreds of dollars. Exactly, it can. It can literally
be you know, the difference between you know, maybe the
type of hotel that you're able to stay in. You know,
(42:19):
because your your budget, you goes up for the hotel
part of the trip versus you know, the rental car
part of the trip, which can be equally expensive. Sometimes.
With this in mind, I would like to I'd like
to put out a call to your listeners. If you
have experience, especially if you have horrible experience with a
rental of some sort. Don't don't tell us the name.
(42:41):
We're not here to denigrate people, you know, but we
would love to hear about it, and we would love
to have have a chance to give any tips or
tricks that you have learned to the rest of our listeners.
So you can write to us and tell us about
that on Facebook. You can drop us a tweet on Twitter,
You and even send us an email with all the details.
(43:02):
Our address is car stuff at Discovery dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, this is
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot com Walking the
Car Stuff. I'm Scott Bensman and Ben Boward. Ben. We've
got a topic today that you you came to me
with last week and said, I would really like to learn,
uh not learn that, maybe teach our listeners about about
(00:25):
renting cars. And I thought that was a fantastic idea
because we've talked about in general. You know, when you
go to pick up a rental car, here's a couple
of things you want to do, but we've never really
said anything about about maybe tips or tricks for renting cars,
getting the best deal, what you should do and pick
up and drop off, um, kind of all the all
the stuff that goes along with a vacation. So so
(00:46):
this I thought it was a good idea, And and
here we are, so let's just let's get to it.
Oh yeah, the um you know why I got this idea, right, Well,
I recently lost my job, one of my jobs, really
got another what's well not anymore. This is a door
to door car rental salesman. That's a terrible job. You
(01:06):
know a lot of people, it turns out, already have
cars at their houses and uh, and what reason would
they need to rent a car when they're sitting on
their couch anyways, Well, I'm charismatic, so it did make
a close a few sales, but it's just stressful man.
So um, let's excise that part. We're not going to
talk about door to door car rentals except to say
(01:27):
that you shouldn't mess with that business. If someone does
try to rent you a car at your door, close
the door. Fantastic advice, then yes, this podcast will be
full of fantastic advice. Scott, so Um, let's go with
the very very basic things. What do you need to
rent a car? All right, fair enough? Then, so what
(01:47):
is it? What do we need? Well? Uh, first things, first,
you do need a license that is not an urban legend. Uh. Secondly,
there are age requirements and if you're sixteen, you're probably
not going to be able to rent a car anywhere.
That's a good point because you know a lot of
younger drivers that are you know, just now driving and
they've just got their license, even past you know, learner
learner permit, they've got their their full fledged license. Uh,
(02:10):
they are unable to travel and rent a car. Somewhere
else or rent a car in their own city if
they wanted to, because I think a lot of them
are restricted to as an eighteen or twenty one even
maybe in some cases, because really you're signing a legal contract.
And that's what it all comes down to. It's not
so much that you have a license and you can
drive and be on the street. It's that you're going
to be signing a document that's legally binding, uh, that
(02:33):
that you know you're agreeing to all the terms and conditions,
and you know a lot of states don't allow that
until you're eighteen or twenty one, right and additionally, even
in your twenties. Um, now you know you'll hear different
things with people saying you can't rent a car until
you're twenty three or your twenty five. But even at
that point, when you rent a car in your twenties,
it's just going to be more expensive. There's nothing you
(02:56):
can do about it. Your hands are tied, your hands
are hide by statistics. Really because you're going to be
a less safe driver. I mean nothing personal, but just
just know that. But also you'll need to, uh, you
need to make sure that you have your own valid
insurance the rental company will have an insurance agreement with you. Um,
(03:17):
let's talk about some dues and don't sounds good? Okay,
we can, we can toss back and forth. I'm just
gonna I got a little list here. I'll just run
down some of them and stop me or add to
this whenever you've got So that's fine. I've got some
stuff too, Okay. So, Uh, one thing that a lot
of people don't think about avoid the airport rental places.
(03:39):
If you can avoid the airport rental no kid, I
know it's a huge thing and it's a huge hassle
to avoid them. They are super convenient, but you'll get
a better price somewhere else. Yeah, I guess. So if
you travel a few miles outside into into the city
proper and uh, and you find a location that's you know,
like just some kind of off the main road, off
off main street type play instead of right there on
(04:01):
the airport property, you're gonna avoid a lot of extra
taxes and search charges as well, for sure. And it
all goes down to convenience. Another thing which I know
you and I say this often, it's kind of a
monstro of ours. Uh, you just have to have as
much prior planning time as possible because you, uh, you
will benefit greatly if you're able to shop around to
(04:25):
check you know, a this hurts all of the big
name guys in advance. And then you can also hunt
discounts because there's so many discounts online. I'd like to
recommend specifically a place called auto slash dot com. They,
in addition to not paying me to say this, have
have a great, um, great strategy and it's easy to
(04:46):
navigate the website and find discounts. Hard Where you got
that auto slash dot com shirt you wearing today? Oh yeah, yeah,
I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I can't, but really that's a
good one. So that's that's a place that you go
and check it out because then you can get some
deep discounts there and look at look online. You can
also um, you can also prepay um when you know
when you're planning this, say if you almost treat like
(05:09):
a plane ticket and you say that I'm going to
buy the I need this car a month from now. Yeah, Ben,
you know what, I've I've got a lot of experience
running cars, have done it many many times. My wife
does most of the work on this stuff. I can't
take credit for a lot of it, but but we've
runned cars often, so I know the pickups and the
drop off procedures and all that and how we go
(05:30):
about it and and booking the car is really one
of the biggest key key points that it needs to
be put out there is that do this way ahead
of time. Anytime you've got a chance to do do
extra research on it. You're able to find the best deals.
You're able to shop around, you're able to price and compare. Um.
One thing you need to do though, and when you're
doing your research is, uh, after you do book a car,
(05:50):
make sure you get a confirmation number UH and hold
on to that print the email or whatever they send
you that you know has that confirmation number, the booking number,
and then we can take that with you to the asking.
That way, there's no confusion about where your reservation is
or what you have because you've got it all printed
out right in front of you. It's a it's really uh,
it's really it's a big, big time saver to have
(06:10):
that in your hand when you walk up to the counter.
Yet and then also speaking of the counter times here, UM,
this is something a lot of people don't know. I
at least haven't run into a lot of people who
are aware of this. Renting a car is a bit
like buying a car in that negotiation is expected. You
(06:33):
can do it. You're not going to be a jerk,
you know. It's not like going into Target and trying
to get a DVD for eight dollars. See. I never
ever have done this. I've never bargained for a rental car. Well,
you can try, you can. I mean, it depends on
it depends on how much the money matters to you.
I suppose so. And I think I think I've heard
some people at the counter doing a little bit of
(06:54):
bickering back and forth about you know, the size of
vehicle that they're getting. And we'll talk about that too,
about the vehicle choice that you have when you're there.
But but I've heard people say like, well, man, you
don't have my car available, why don't you give me
this one at the same price, and I'll take that
um And they say, no, well, we can't really do
that because that's three steps up. We can usually do
one or two steps up in size or class or
(07:16):
whatever they call it. UM, So there's a little bit
of that back and forth. But I've never heard of
bickering for the price. I guess, um. I know that
you know online you can search for the prices and
and the little side don't that I've got here about
um prices. Um. You know that the rental car prices
can change hourly, even they change all the time. So
so you've got to check back often and uh. And
(07:39):
when you do check, you know, check back, make sure
you note the time, note that note, the note the price,
and if you don't reserve it, you're you're out of luck,
of course at that point. But if you check back
and think you're gonna find a better deal, you know,
in twenty four hours, by all means, do so. But
it may go up or down depending on the supply
and demand. I guess for that day, if there's a
convention in town, if there's something else going on in town,
you know you're gonna pay a hefty price for that car. Um.
(08:02):
But if it happens to be a weekend, a slow
weekend or slow week uh, you may get a pretty
good deal on the same vehicle. So and check back
and forth between different brands, and there's a lot of again,
the research is really important. So there's a lot of
this back and forth looking around. You can also find
coupons when you do reservations. You off, that's a that's
a lot when you're talking about you know, four or
five day rentals or even longer um and speaking to
(08:25):
that four or five day rentals um if you're going
beyond five days. It's also recommended that sometimes you get
an extended weekly rate, and a weekly rate is cheaper
than a day rates. Instead of paying for six individual days,
you pay for a week rate, and uh and oftentimes
it's a much better deal. A lot of people don't
think about asking about, you know, these longer trips, you know,
(08:46):
weekly rates versus day rates. That's a good point. And
one thing with a length of reservation, it may behoove
you to get a margin of error by making the
reservation a little bit longer than you actually expect to stay,
because you don't know what might happen. I know, I
sound really cynical and pessimistic, but you never know. Murphy's
law might kick in. Also, well, I don't know, like
(09:08):
maybe maybe like half a day longer or something not
not a full day. I wouldn't think I think a
full day would be too expensive. We're talking about something
right more right. But a half day gives you gives
you a margin America, because as you know, the pickup time,
which we'll get to has some has some rules that
can be kind of stringent. Yeah. One thing with negotiation
(09:30):
that going back, I'm I'm talking well, I'm talking about negotiation.
I am talking about the upgrades, downgrade things, um, not
so much as specific price, which brings us to amenities
and hidden fees. You know. So let's say you're gonna
you're going to rent a Mustang, very nice, great car,
great car, It's going to be up there in the class,
(09:52):
it will be in the hierarchy of the vehicles. And
you realize that the price you were quoted, just quoted
when you ask them for a quote over the phone
or something, is way lower than the price they're asking
you to pay. And you start saying, well, what what
are what are all these fees? Why is that? Yeah?
(10:12):
Why is that? Well, let's say that the Mustang they
quoted you on, uh, didn't have all the bells and
whistles that the Mustang they're trying to rent you does.
So the Mustang that you were gonna pay X amount
of dollars for is now a Y amount of dollars
because this one has you know, it's a convertible. It's
got UM on Star GPS saying. See this is where
(10:37):
paying for the vehicle ahead of time with a credit
card online is maybe the best deal so that you
can get You've got that deal locked in, you know
exactly how much it's gonna cost you, and all you
have to do really then at that point is signed
the paperwork adding fees things like that. That's something that
these uh, these that a lot of rental cars are
rental car companies are notorious for UM and it's it's
it's these hidden charges. These like airports search rig is
(11:00):
that we mentioned because they're on the airport property. UM
additional driver fee so if you know you want another driver,
you want your husband or wife to be able to
drive as well as you. UM and then maybe like
even a kid that's old enough to be able to drive,
that's a fee also UM fuel search arge. Don't return
it with the proper amount of fuel. The insurance that
(11:22):
you know they add on, which we'll talk about, I'm sure,
UM just local taxes, you know, federal, state, whatever, I'm sorry,
local and state brother, just fee after fee after fee
can be tacked onto this thing. And then by the
time you know, you get to the end and you're
ready to sign, suddenly that cars, you know, double the
price that it initially was when you when you made
the reservation if you don't pay for it ahead of time.
So again, lock it in ahead of time. That's the
(11:45):
way to do it. Excellent. An additional thing that's tremendously
important if you were a member of the military, or
Triple A or a ARP, numerous groups, perhaps even your
employer may have an organizational discount of some sort, right,
that's a very good tip. Yeah, that may impact your
decision because they may have an agreement with just one company,
(12:08):
you know. Yeah, And you know, I'm going to mention
a company as well, because I think I read somewhere
that Travelocity if you if you lock in a rental
agreement with Travelocity, um, they guarantee that the price of
the rental car will will be within one percent of
the actual price or the quoted price rather for that
rental So one within one percent, that's reasonable. I mean,
you may see a couple of little things added on
(12:29):
here there, but they guarantee that one percent um is
the most that it could go up. So so that's
pretty safe bet in that case. I mean, but we're
not talking something that doubles it, you know, or anything
like that, because that that does happen, and you know,
it could be as simple as what you mentioned before.
You know, they add on um, you know GPS, so
they say, we don't have that car available, but we
have this one and it's only seventeen dollars more per
(12:50):
day um. But you know, over the time of your vacation,
that adds up, and then their additional fees on that
so um, all this all this adds up. Um. So
you know it's just the research part. We can't stress
this enough. That's that's so so important. Right do you
are you familiar with a rental car company already? Like
Scott you said you and your wife often rent cars
(13:12):
because you guys travel a lot. Uh. Do you guys
go to different companies or do you have perhaps a
loyalty prob Absolutely, we go to different companies all the time,
and it's just really comes down to who's making the
better deal at that time. Um. You know, it's great
to be a member somewhere and to be able to
have all the perks that come along with it. But
oftentimes that that that gets expensive as well. And I
(13:32):
know that some people are just willing to pay that
because they like to be able to step off the
airports shuttle and walk over to a car and know
that the keys are in the car, and all they
have to do is just is just you know, flash
their their membership card when they drive out a lot.
That's perfect, you know, good for them. But I would
prefer to shop around and get a better deal. If
I'm going to make a trip for seven days or
ten days, or you know, even if it's three days. Um,
(13:54):
I just want to be able to know that I'm
getting the best deal. And I often you know, been
just between us, between us, between us and everyone on
the internet. Most of the time, all we do is
just get you know, we just rent the absolute minimum,
lowest economy car that you possibly can whatever they have,
because really we don't need a whole lot of extra space.
We're not carrying a lot of lugga journeying with us. Yeah,
(14:15):
most of the time. Now, let's say you're gonna take
a we took a trip a couple of years ago
around um, around the Southwest, did a lot of driving,
a huge, huge amount of driving, just a great, big
circle several states. We knew that, you know, in a
compact economy car might not be the best bet for
something like that because you gonna be on the road
a lot. But we don't also need a huge luxury
vehicle something in between. So we got like the midsize
(14:36):
Sedan and that was perfectly comfortable, a lot of room
for our luggage because it was like a seven day trip.
I think there's a ten day trip maybe, and I
don't know. It just seem exactly perfect for us. I mean,
if we if we were you know, really really wanted
to be uh, you know, pampering ourselves live in the
left luxury, we could have gone with you know, a
great big suv or something, or you know, something that
(14:57):
had it all long. Yeah, something with a h and
something of the long wheelbase. You know, we could have
gotten the Lincoln town Car whatever that Uh it was
very plush, but was it necessary not really, And you
know we'd rather spend our money somewhere else, you know,
like maybe a better hotel room for the night. Um.
So so you know, what kind of it's give and
take whatever you feel that you need for that trip.
And that's really really important when you're talking about like
(15:19):
maybe going uh, you know, snow skiing or something you
may want to. You may need an suv that has,
you know, four wheel drive so you can get up
into the mountains, or you may need something that has
the ability to go off road if you have to,
um ski racks, things like that. I mean, it's it's all.
There's a lot of important things to think about. So
it's important to know where you're going. One thing that
(15:39):
we should mention, going back to our earlier Mustang comparison
and um to the point you've already made, Uh, you
can save money by letting go of a big brand
name when it comes to a car. That's a good point.
Some people are stuck on. I have to rent a Ford,
I have to rent a Chevy I have. Some people do,
and I understand that if you're with Thick Corporation. Let's
(16:01):
say that you're you're traveling with the Ford Motor Company.
Oh yeah, well yeah, you had better run a Ford
motor car motor company rental car when you get to
wherever you're going, right, That makes sense. Totally understand that.
But you know, just average Joe traveler doesn't matter if
you're drive in Adihatsu or whatever they happen to have
on the lot. You know, it just doesn't matter. But again,
some people are very particular about what they drive, and
(16:21):
you know, it just it's it's it's a mental thing
that you have to get over, I guess. And now,
speaking mental things, what we're going to do in a
minute is go to the hypothetical buying of the car,
the rental car, the inspection, if you will. And let's
assume we did, and we will talk about that right
after a brief break for our sponsors. All right, we're back,
(16:47):
and as promised, we're going to now talk about the
actual rental itself. Right when you rent the car. When
you're there, you've got everything, You've got all your ducks
in a row, You've done your research. Yep, you've got
your paperwork in hand or email with a confirmation number,
and they say, you know, sign all the paperwork, here,
your keys, sir, head out to the lot. It's the
it's the third car on the left. And and then
(17:08):
what do you do? Then, Well, the first thing you
should always do is inspect it, preferably with someone from
the car company. Ah, you know what, I'm going to
tell you that that is nearly impossible. Yeah, they won't
be there, No, they won't be there. It's usually a
desolate lot that you're going to. There's nobody there except
at the at the checkout area, you know, like the
(17:28):
gate that lets you out where they check your paperwork. Um,
so you're oftentimes left to do this on your own. Look,
but Clark Howard, for instance, would would want a rep
there just case. But if you can't have a rep,
there is another thing. This is not hopeless. You know,
I'm going to mention Clark Howard later, So I'm glad
you mentioned. He's like the hero of this stuff. So
you need to have a camera with you. Really Well,
(17:49):
I think it's a good idea because if you're going
around the car, do a walk around before you get in,
and you should inspect it, check the tires. Don't assume
that anything that is already messed stuff is gonna be
uh is going to be considered their responsibility. Oh yeah,
it's not gonna be previously marked on that on the
slip or anything. To have your phone out if you
have a smart phone and just take a photo if
(18:11):
you see a dent, if you see some paint chips.
That's a great idea because almost everybody has a phone
now that can take a photo, of course, And it
seems like a simple thing to do. And you know,
I drive my wife crazy with this stuff when I
get there, because I I will take five minutes and
inspect the car, and she's ready to go, ready, ready
to get in the car and go to whereveryone uggage.
She's already on vacation at that point, you know. And
(18:31):
I'm and me, you know, I've loaded the stuff in
the car, and I'm I'm taking the walk around the car,
and it takes me a couple of minutes because I
just don't want to. I don't want these additional charges
to show up on my card later for something that
I didn't didn't do. And I'm I'm looking inside and outside,
you know, make sure that there's no uh, you know,
chips in the glass, making sure that you know all
the hub caps are. They're simple things like that, you know,
(18:52):
the big things first, and then maybe take a look
at it kind of in you know, squint with one
eye and look down the side of the car, and
see if there's a big dent in the door or
something like that. Make sure that the gas cap is there. Um,
all kinds of things. We We had a rental car
not long ago that it was just a piece of
junk when we picked it up. I don't remember where
it was, but it was a big name company. But
it looked like it had really been just and put
(19:14):
away wet. Absolutely, Yeah, it was just really bad shape.
And um, you know, I marked so many things on that.
You know, there's a little diagram of the car. I
marked so many spots on that thing. And I felt
at that point, you know, it wasn't just like there's
a little scratch in the front of the rear bumper
where people loading the luggage or something like that. I
felt that I needed to talk some to somebody. So
I went back in and they didn't have another car
(19:36):
available for us to take. It was that bad. There
were all kinds of things wrong with it. UM short trip,
but so I wasn't really too too worried about it.
But UM, I checked off all these things and I said, look,
here's this. And they came out with me and they
looked at all the stuff and said Okay, we've we've
noted it, so that's fine with sign your and they
initialed my my little sheet and then we were on
our way. Note the damage. That's going to be our
(19:58):
takeaway from this out. One thing that's weird that other
people might not think about is that you should contact
your insurance company just say, what what's the policy of
rental cars? If I rent a car and something happens,
is there coverage for me? Is their liability? I say
this goes ahead at the research area, talking about research,
(20:19):
because then you're, you know, ahead of time if you
need to sign that little waiver that says that I
agree to the you know, fifteen dollars a day extra
that it costs to ensure this car for collision, when
really your your your basic personal insurance already covers you
for collision or possibly even ben some some credit cards,
some of the bigger name credit cards, will also have
a rental car provision that allows for collision coverage. Nothing else, no,
(20:43):
no other additional coverages, but just collision coverage. And that's
that's good enough in most cases. But you will be
charged if you do crash a rental car, if you
do put it out of service in some way. They
will charge you for the days that the vehicle is
not on the road, and that's a lot of That's
one thing that a lot of people don't really realize
is that let's say you bring a car back and
(21:05):
it's got a you know, she's I don't know, bent
frame or whatever. It happens that a big one, something
big like that, and uh, something that you know, it
makes it renders it undrivable and it's your fault. Well,
you're gonna be charged for the days that that vehicles
in the shop because they're not able to rent that out.
So they're gonna they're gonna give you the maximum rate
for that vehicle all the days that it's in the shop,
(21:26):
and that can really add up. H that's uh, that's
so uncool. But I understand it's in the uncool situation.
I guess. So I pictured as if I rented my
car to somebody, you know, and they brought it back
to me, and they'd be responsible for that that price,
I guess. I mean, I kind of I kind of
get that one back, you know, I understand that. So
(21:49):
we've got our inspection and our hypothetical car, we've got
the price we wanted for the time we wanted. The
luggage is piled in, We've done our diagram inspection. Uh,
let's see what's text. We're ready to just hop in
and drive this brand new car. Almost almost. Oh, but
where's your sensive adventure? Buddy? They have a sense of adventure.
(22:10):
But but you do need to figure out where all
the controls are. And every car is different, so you
gotta kind of figure things out. Make sure your mirrors
are adjusted, make sure your seats are adjusted. You know,
it sounds kind of silly, but when you get into
a car, yeah, yeah, exactly. Have you ever hopped into
a car and then you you're you're driving and they're like,
as nightfalls, like where that? Where's the switch for the headlights?
How does that work? Where? And pick up? And you're
(22:32):
looking around at the stick and you're going, which one
of these exactly, because there's several stocks that come off
the thing, and you're like the steering column and you're like,
which one of these? And you hit it, and of
course the brights come on, and you know, all kinds
of things happen. The rear wiper goes, the it shoots,
the oil slickjection seat exactly. So you know, I've I've
also picked up around cars at night and uh, and
(22:54):
that's really frustrating because you're in a dark lot. Sometimes
you can't figure out where anything is, you know, and
once you do find the lights, that makes things a
lot easier. But you know, trying to figure out where
the controls are for the mirrors and you know, all
that stuff, it's just it's it's just difficult. So so
just take a second to to just do that. And
I know it will drive your passenger crazy, but as
the driver, you really have to do something like that
(23:15):
because you know, when you're a block or two blocks
away from the airport, you're gonna realize all the stuff
that's just not exactly right for you when you're driving.
My my girlfriends had a job for a while where
she would travel extensively and she would go she would
fly out from the airport here in Atlanta, which is Hartsfield,
and then she would land in the airport usually somewhere
(23:36):
in the southeast, and pick up a rental car and
have to drive to these fairly remote locations to take
pictures of furniture. It's a weird story. But what's interesting
about what you say there is that she often would
have to end up dropping off or picking up the
car in the dead of night because of the schedule
for the driving, you know, and she was able, she
(23:59):
was will do with it. But one of the things
that she did very early on which she said, you know,
I don't I want to sit down and figure out
all of these controls or I leave the parking lot.
It really pays off. I guess if you're in desolate
areas in the Southwest as well, no lights out there,
I mean, you're gonna be really stuck if you're driving
and suddenly it's you know, nightfalls, and uh, you know,
(24:21):
because it happens fairly quick, and you know, if you're
kind of on the edge, you pick it up in
the evening, you know, late in the evening, and you
don't really familiarize yourself with everything, you like, where the
radio controls are, any of that stuff. Um, that that's
something that really pays off in the long run, and
and you know, soon enough you'll become accustomed to where
everything is. It's pretty easy to get around. But um,
it sounds like it's a simple thing that you know
(24:41):
a lot of people just uh, they just forget it. Okay,
so boom, we have rented, successfully rented our car. We've
picked it up. We paid a little extra because we're
both driving, and we go on a great road trip.
Where are we going? Let's say, how about car hinge? Oh,
that that is the correct answer. That is where we're going.
(25:02):
Cadillac's buried up, you know, nose into the ground. Perfect.
That sounds like the place to go. So that's where
we're headed. We're going to take a brief break for
our sponsor, and then we'll be back to drop off
our rental car. All right, we're back, and I guess
we're at the point we're dropping off our car after
(25:23):
our trip to uh well, I guess i'd be down
Root sixty six somewhere right, Yeah, yep, And what a
time we had. I only wish we were there right now.
That would be so cool. So, but you know, we
have we do have to turn in this car. So
what do we need to know when we are turning
in a car. One of the first things I'll harp
on is fuel. So here's the deal with the fuel situation, Scott.
(25:49):
You know how it is whenever you even borrow car
from a friend of yours. It's common courtesy. I think
there should be a law that when you return somebody's
car after borrowing it, you feel up the tank for
at least bring it back to where it was. That's
what I mean, bring it back to where it was.
Now with the price of gas, it is unreasonable to
borrow some guys someone's card to go down the street
(26:11):
and then lose sixty bucks on their tank. But bringing
it back to where it was is required in rental agreements.
And that's really all they're asking you. Because it's full
when you pick it up. They want you to bring
it back full, and you can do um. You can
do a couple of things, one of which I would
advise against. You can fill it up yourself, which I
(26:31):
think is great and I think that's what you should
always do if possible. And then there are like gas
fueling up packages that you can buy. That's the one
you advise against, right, that's what I don't want people
to do. Yeah, Chick, I totally agree with that. I've
never purchased the prepaid fuel option on these things. You
know where they fill it up after you bring it back,
so you can bring it back bone dry and let
(26:53):
them fill it up and that's supposedly the deal. And
they tell you what they charge you per gallon, and
it's usually more than what it is outside of the airport,
but it's less than what it is inside the airport
because the the the fuel stations right near the airport
next the airport are really they're they're preying upon people
that are bringing back rental cars. They've got prices that
(27:14):
are marked way way up and uh, and that's what
they're counting on you buying. And they say, you know that,
we're gonna quote you this price. It's normally three eight
five a gallon, uh, just down the road here, but
we'll we'll give it to you for three seventy five
if you bring it back you know, empty, right, And
the actual price of gas in that area outside of
this weird shell game would probably be you know three yeah, exactly,
(27:38):
So it's a little cheaper and uh and it makes sense,
I guess to do it. But is it worth the
convenience I guess of having to stop somewhere and get it. Yeah,
you know, to me, it is. It's fine, you know,
when you leave the leave your hotel or whatever. If
it's near the airport, just somewhere five to ten miles
outside the airport, maybe you top off the tank and
then by the time you get there it's still full.
Of course, you know, you don't have to fill it
(27:59):
up right down the street. You can fill it five
or ten miles away and still make it to the
airport with a full tank. And that's all you really need.
What's the this is my question for you. Okay, what's
the Clark Howard stuff? You want to? Oh, yeah, we've
got um. You know Clark Howard. He's a h would
you call him? I guess he's like he's in Atlanta
based financial advisor, like a consumer expert. Maybe. Yeah, he's
(28:20):
like he's kind of like a one man consumer reports.
I guess so. Yeah, he's like kind of save money
and avoid being ripped off anyway and every way to
save money. And he's got the site called Clark Howard
dot com. And I think he's he's nationwide. I think
he's he syndicated. I think yeah, he is. He has
a lot of people can hear him everywhere, and I
don't know about outside of the United States. But but
(28:41):
if you, I mean, if you go to Clark Howard
dot com. There's a ton of of travel tips, rental
car tips, hotel tips. I mean, find everything, consumer electronics,
any saving for your kids, college funds, everything, anything and
everything to do with money. So you know, this is
the place I went to when I was looking for
a car, rental stuff. And he's got one too, maybe
six or seven tips here that I can just read
(29:03):
off real quick and see how they match up with
what we've talked about. UM. You know, I think I've
got a couple more things maybe that I want to
to mention on the drop off. UM, you know before
we go here, But um Clark's tips here, and this
goes right back to the beginning to get the best
deal when you book this book the car, when you
book your flight at the same time, and then always
continue to re check for a cheaper rate. We talked
(29:25):
about that, right, So we're on the same page with
that one. UM. Don't accept the insurance options the company
wants to wants to give you or wants you to buy.
UM check with your own insurance. We talked about that.
You know, there may be a premium credit card that
offers same travel insurance, you know, rental car insurance. UM.
Let's see check the check the car carefully before you
leave a lot. That's what we've already talked about. Uh,
(29:47):
so have an official of the company uh noted on
the rental contract before you leave. Now that's a good idea.
And you know I do that when you get to
the gate, when you get to the place where there's
uh you know, severe tire damage if you back up
at that point. Um, when you're right there, there's usually
guard that will check your check your information at that time,
have them initial the damage report that you've filled out,
(30:08):
and oftentimes to leave and take a look at what
you've actually marked on the thing to make sure that
it's accurate, you know, missing hub gap, whatever it happens
to be. Uh. Oh, here's a good one, Ben that
we didn't talk about. During peak season, make sure you
can find an affordable car before you buy a nonrefundable
airline tickets. So yeah, it's very smart. So you know
their peak travel seasons, peaked times. You know that your
(30:31):
exactly when the kids are out of school, everybody's going
to Disney World. There's going to be major markups on
cars down in Orlando. You can bet that. So you know,
make sure that you can find an affordable car before
you you get this ticket that you can't really change
because you're able to be able to fly to an
airport that's just outside of town and get a cheaper
rental car there, and and it's the same exact trip.
(30:53):
You're just paying a little less in both cases. So
that's fantastic advice. Um, here's one that we mentioned. Rent
the smallest car well at the cheapest rate. That's uh,
there's something I always do usually. Um. Also, he says
about half the time the rental company won't have the
actual small car you ordered, because you know, when you
get there, they've got a minimal stock. They don't like
to keep a lot of cars sitting around, and it
(31:14):
just happens to be that, you know, they don't have
the the subcompact that you rented, but they do have
a mid size and they're gonna give you that one
for the same price. And that happens often. It happens
a lot to me as well. Yeah, And one of
the reasons that happens often is because a lot of people,
for one reason or another, even if they would usually
plan in events, a lot of people do end up
(31:35):
just um s ol sorely out of luck at the
airport gate in need of a car, and so they
have to go up there without any prior planning and research,
and they say, give me the smallest, cheapest option you
have and then boom, they've got your car. Yeah. I
guess so that may work for some people, right, you know,
it's it's rolling the dice, man, I think it really is.
(31:57):
I would never take it. I would never take the
chance of going into an airport rental car um desk
and saying, what have you got for me? But that's
that only would happen. I think if somebody was having
really crazy extenuating circumstances during the last minute of flight,
maybe there's a a family emergency of some sort. Sure
(32:18):
that that's how that stuff happens. No one, No one
is going to get rich at all. No, no, I
could see that happening. But if you if you have
advanced knowledge of your trip, and you know the exact
days that you're gonna be gone and the airport you're
flying into and etcetera, etcetera, you should be able to
do enough research ahead of time to be able to
get the best deal. Yeah, there's no there's no excuse.
(32:39):
Some people swear by that that that that method though
that you say and say, I always get the best
deal by doing this, But there's gonna be times when
that's not the case and they're not gonna have anything
except you know, the giant suv of the available and
that's that's eighty five dollars a day compared to the
you know, twenty day cost for the I don't know,
the subcompact. We only have Lincoln navigating exactly. Yeah. Yeah, So,
(33:02):
um and the last two or something that we've already mentioned.
I guess, um, you always take the car with a
full tank of gasoline and return it with a full tank.
So he's he makes the extra point to mention make
sure it has a full tank when you leave a lot. Um.
I guess that's something on the inspection that we forgot
to mention is just make sure that everything is running okay, okay,
you know it's not running hot or you know it's
got it's got you know, full tank of gas, that
(33:23):
type of thing, washer fluids there, whatever. Al Right, next
thing is um and the last thing really we've already
mentioned this. If you're running a car for five days
or more weekly rental rental will provide a large discount.
And that's uh, that's the absolute truth. I've had this
a couple of times where you know, you run on
a weekly rate versus a day rate and you end
up with a much better deal. Yeah. And let's see,
(33:44):
you said there were a couple more things about picking
or dropping off the car. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now you
get these are simple things that really really need to
to remember. Um, the contract we talked about this early
on and we just wanted to make sure we got
to this point. Um, the contract has an exact day
and time that you need to bring the car back.
It's usually a very small window of time, and it's
(34:04):
usually typically based on your flight time, and they kind
of understand, like, okay, you can bring that back by
three o'clock because your flights at five. Um. So they'll
usually set that up for you and they kind of
look at you when they say it. They say, so
you can have the car back by three clock that day,
and they look at you and if you say, yes,
that's fine, that's that's it really is. And you can
say you can kind of adjust that a little bit. Um.
(34:26):
I think it's usually you know, in a twenty four
hour block so let's say it's noon at this on
this day, and you know they want you to bring
it back at noon on Tuesday or whatever day it
happens to be coming back. But I think you're able
to adjust that a little bit and if you make
that window slightly bigger, they gives you a little more leeway.
So you know, you can actually be charged a fee
if you if you drop it off early, which I
didn't know. This is insane people. That's one of those
(34:48):
fees that you know as a hidden fee that you'll
never find out about ahead of time. But if you
you drop it off early, which seems like the good thing,
that the best thing to do, they charge your fee
because they have to find a place to put that
car on the they're not expecting it at that time,
so so that's an additional fee. Uh. If you drop
it off late, that's also a fee, of course, because
you know they're expecting that car. And that's where the
situation comes in that you know they don't have the
(35:10):
car avavable for the next person because they have to
uh if they wash it, they have to make sure
that the files stopped off. They do their own inspect
exactly they do their own inspections. So, um, just make
sure you know, if you're gonna be in traffic and
you're running a little bit late, call the rental car
agency and say, you know, I'm gonna be a half
hour late. I just want to let you know. And
you're calling them within the window, you know, not after
(35:31):
you're already late. Don't call them. Wait, you know ahead
of time to be proactive about it and maybe won't
incur one of these fees. Um. The other thing is
your personal belongings. Just check everywhere. Make sure even if
you didn't even put anything in the glove box, checking
the glove box to make sure that's nothing there. You know,
your wife or kid didn't stuff something in there, you know, sunglasses, phones,
or whatever, because you're never going to get that stuff back,
(35:53):
and it's rare when that stuff is turned in. Um,
you know, it's usually just thrown into a big pile
off to the side and you're already on a plane
out of the states at that point or out of
the country, and uh, you know, good luck getting your
sunglasses back at that point. Yeah, that reminds me. Um,
this is totally a tangent here, Scott, but there is
(36:14):
a huge warehouse. Uh, somewhere in I want to see.
It's in Texas and not on this where all of
the stuff that couldn't make it onto flights they do
the t s A something or lost luggage has been
eventually shipped to. Have you heard about the space. I've
heard about it, Yes, I have. Yeah, And there's a
there's a small version of that right here in Tucker,
(36:34):
Georgia there was and uh and that it's loaded with
things like pen knife and uh and and scissors and
tweezers and all kinds of stuff that you know that
the t s A felt they needed to take off
of somebody's person and you know that it was unsafe
for the flight. But this place and wherever you say, Dallas, Uh,
it's somewhere in Texas. Somewhere in Texas, Okay. It's so
(36:55):
it's a warehouse size I'm talking about, like more like
a flea market size type thing that happens. And I
think it's kind of irregular when it shows up. But um,
I'm kind of interested in this now because that type
of stuff fascinates me. I wonder what people I love
looking at the display that shows what they've removed from
people's luggage or persons and uh, and there's amazing stuff.
(37:15):
I mean, people bring these just amazingly big fire fireworks
display packages and things like that. It's like, what made
you think you're gonna get on a plane with with this?
It's such a it's such a thousand dollars worth of fireworks. Yeah,
it's such a side note. But I do have to
wonder if stuff left in rental cars ends up migrating
to places like that, or if people, uh maybe not employees,
(37:39):
but if something's been there for years to somebody just
say okay, I'm taking these aviator glasses. Maybe maybe it
happens like that. I don't know. I mean I I
don't know where it ends up. It's kind of a
black hole of of personal belongings there. Maybe someone who
works at a rental car company can tell us what
happens to that stuff. I have just a couple of
things school as we're wrapping up here. Uh, First, I
(38:01):
do want to I do want to point out that
the people who work at rental car companies are not
trying to screw anyone over. And as long as you
know what you're getting into, know what you're agreeing to,
which you should anytime you sign a contract, then you
are going to get through there with the service that
(38:21):
you paid for. I have just a small word that
I want to mention about that in a second to
but the last thing I guess and that the I
mean to offend. But the last thing on the drop
off that I wanted to mention has been interrupting the
drop off. That that's okay, no problem. We got off
on that side. Note with the fireworks and I don't know,
lighter shape like a hand grenade or whatever that stuff
in those cases, it's just amazing alright. So, um, the
(38:44):
last thing I want to say about the drop off
is that have an attendant check the car with you
when you're done. I mean, they'll usually do a fast
walk around and uh, and they're not going to catch
every little tiny dent and scratching the thing or every
little you know, rock mark on the front bumper. But um,
you a lot of stuff is just considered considered you know,
normal use, daily use, whatever it is. Yeah, scuffs on
(39:05):
the bumper, you know, when you're loading the luggage, things
like that that happens. They understand that. Um. In fact,
a lot of things that I've marked on. You know,
when I'm picking up the car, I think, like, that's
a pretty big scratch, and like that's just normal wear
and tear. Don't worry about it. I think, man, that's
pretty big for normal wear and tear. I would I
wouldn't like that normal wear and tear on my personal vehicle.
But you know, a lot of times they'll have a
little machine in their hand. They will print you a
receipt right there while you're standing with them. That's kind
(39:28):
of the final um. You know, I've, i've you know,
check this out, everything's fine, this is your final cost,
and make sure you get that and hang onto that receipt.
That's a that's a big deal, um, because they still
have your card number and there could be fees added
to your card later. Exactly. So if this guy, you know,
the guire girl who's walked around the car and said
everything checks out fine, here's your final receipt, hang onto
(39:50):
that final receipts and nothing's added later, you know they
won't say that, you know, it's missing two hubcaps and
we're gonna charge you a hundred and sixty bucks for
those two hubcaps. And stuff like that does happen, So
make sure that you're you hang onto that receipt. That's
really important. Um And and that's not anything hard to get.
There's usually someone right there for you. Don't just don't,
you know, pull into the place, jump out of the
car and run to the shuttle and then you're gone.
(40:11):
And that's it because you never know what's going to
happen after that point. Yep. Again, prior planning, there's a
there's a wealth of statements about it exactly. But the
last thing that I wanted to add before we close
out here, unless you got something, well, I guess you
got well, you know, we mentioned just the signing and
know what you're signing, right, and then I'll let you
(40:31):
get to that. But um and again on on Clark
Howard dot com, um, he mentions that a lot of
times now at these rentaldusts, you're signing, um a tablet.
You're signing something electronically, And the downside of this whole
thing is that you're only seeing a little tiny portion
of that whole contract when you're signing that tablet. And
the problem is, you know, if you didn't scroll up
(40:52):
or scroll down to see what you're signing, there may
be little clauses and additional taxes and fees and things
like that added in. So that's where you know, just
make sure that you're reading all this stuff. And again
it takes an extra forty five seconds to just skim
the stuff and make sure there's no added search charges
that you're not not familiar with. You know, on you're
based on your earlier agreement with them. You know, if
you're earlier reading in the document, hopefully you did that.
(41:15):
But but these little electronic tablets that you're signing oftentimes
that can be trouble. So just take a look, you know,
just take forty five seconds to a minute or two
minutes or whatever it takes. Don't worry about the people
behind you, because it could end up costing you quite
a bit of money. So that was his advice, m
about these things that just make sure you know that
the total cost and hopefully these dudes and don'ts will
(41:37):
let you avoid future horror story car rentals. You know. Uh,
the what we've done is just talked about some of
the basics here, um, the things you need to have
on your end, the best way to get a good price,
and the stuff you need to know about dropping off
your car, especially things like dropping it off early. Yeah,
(41:58):
I know, it's a it's just little tips and tricks
and things that you learn along the way that you
know you can you can pass on to somebody else
and hopefully they'll they'll, you know, understand that it will
sink in and they'll remember and then maybe they can
pass that on to somebody else and it can save
you hundreds of dollars. Exactly, it can. It can literally
be you know, the difference between you know, maybe the
type of hotel that you're able to stay in. You know,
(42:19):
because your your budget, you goes up for the hotel
part of the trip versus you know, the rental car
part of the trip, which can be equally expensive. Sometimes.
With this in mind, I would like to I'd like
to put out a call to your listeners. If you
have experience, especially if you have horrible experience with a
rental of some sort. Don't don't tell us the name.
(42:41):
We're not here to denigrate people, you know, but we
would love to hear about it, and we would love
to have have a chance to give any tips or
tricks that you have learned to the rest of our listeners.
So you can write to us and tell us about
that on Facebook. You can drop us a tweet on Twitter,
You and even send us an email with all the details.
(43:02):
Our address is car stuff at Discovery dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, this is
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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