Today we're visiting Carrie's mom in Beaufort, NC for the holidays but in ten days we depart for Cape Town, South Africa. The bad news is that we have back to back red-eye flights to get there, with a long layover in London. The good news is that we used frequent flyer miles to get business class, lie-flat seats so we can actually get some sleep.

Most of the time when we travel overseas we don’t rent a car. Cape Town, though, is one of those places where we know there’s enough stuff not easily accessible by public transportation, so we are renting a car there. Of course, we've done a lot of travel in the US, where you almost always need to rent a car, and much of that travel is to Denver, where rental cars are notoriously expensive. Sometimes the car rental is the most expensive part of a trip—more than the airfare or Airbnb! So I thought I would share some of the techniques that I use to try to get the best deal on car rentals.

Book Early, Book Often

What may not be obvious to those who don’t rent cars often is that rental car companies use the term “reserve” rather loosely. It’s not at all uncommon for you to get a different model of car than you reserve (usually a “free” upgrade, rarely a downgrade). Plus there are (usually) no penalties for canceling a reservation at any time, or even just not showing up for the car. Read the fine print, because you may occasionally see that there are penalties for not no showing or canceling a reservation (especially if you pre-pay). Mostly, I think of “reserving” a car more like I'm locking in a rate.

This means you should book your car early and often. As soon as you think you might be going somewhere, go ahead and reserve a car. Then, set a reminder for yourself to check the rates periodically. You should do this at least every couple of weeks, but it’s probably not worthwhile to check every day. Every 3-6 days is a good interval. Once you are less than a month from your departure, it’s unlikely that you'll get a deal so I usually stop checking at that point.

When you see a better deal, book it then go back and cancel the old reservation. Although there’s usually no penalty for no showing, it’s best to cancel to be safe and also to avoid confusion when you arrive at the counter and the agent sees multiple active reservations in your name. Using this technique I've seen my rates drop in half or more. I’ve also had times when I booked so far in advance that I rebooked a reservation six or seven times, each time lowering the total cost!

When you get a month or so away from your rental date, then I would consider the pre-pay option. Before then, I usually think I can get a better deal by waiting. But by a month out, I don't generally expect to find any better deals.

Where To Look

Get yourself a Costco membership. This is easily the number one tip for getting a deal on a rental car. There’s a good chance that your first car rental will save you the membership fee (and Costco will refund the membership if you decide later it didn’t make sense for you). I actually can’t remember the last car rental I reserved in the US that Costco didn’t offer the best deal (Costco doesn't do much car rentals internationally). Not only is it the best deal, but it always includes your spouse as an additional driver for no additional charge.

If you don’t plan to get insurance from the rental company and don’t need an additional driver, you should start your search on autoslash.com. Autoslash is like Expedia on steroids for rental cars and will find deals through Costco, AAA, credit card offers, and many other obscure promotions. However, they won’t take additional driver or insurance fees into consideration. You might find a better deal than Costco, but if you need your spouse to also be able to drive, usually you find that the fees for that make it more expensive.

Deals and Codes

Rental car companies often offer discount codes or “special deals” through airline and hotel sites. The vast majority of the time, using a discount code or booking through the airline you bought your flight from is actually more expensive than not using the code. Yes, you heard that right: using the “30% off" code is often more expensive than without it. I almost never even bother to look at these.

There are a number of corporate codes that can get you a good deal on rentals. These codes are intended for employees of various large companies who negotiate special deals (Google around to find these if you are curious). I think that you can get good deals this way but the down side is that it’s pretty tedious. Each rental company has a different code for each corporate client so you do the same search over and over trying each code, for each of the rental companies. I've never really found a better deal than Costco, so I don’t waste my time with them anymore. If you do go down this road, be aware that there is a chance that the agent will ask for an employee ID when you pick up the car. If they do, and you don’t have one, you’ll be stuck paying the exorbitant standard rate instead of your discounted rate.

Go Off Airport

Tourists are a popular target for politicians to tax. They don't live there, so they can’t vote against them. As a result, most airport car rental locations pass along lots of taxes and additional fees to renters. But since non-airport rental cars are generally for locals, these taxes don’t apply. If you need a car for a week or more, it may be a better deal to rent your car off airport, then take a Lyft or Uber from the airport. Of course, you have to consider the cost of the ride to and from the airport, so for a short car rental this is unlikely to make sense. But for longer rentals this can save you a lot of money.

In my experience, this is often a better overall experience than renting at the airport. Most airports have moved their rental car center far from the terminal and require you to stand around waiting for a long, cramped shuttle ride. Then you stand in line with a thousand people to get to the counter, then you sit in the car waiting for the security guard to look at your rental agreement before they let you leave the garage. But if you rent off airport, you just hop into your Lyft and arrive at a local rental office where there’s usually no line at all.

Be careful, though! In some cities (I’m looking at you, Denver) they may be required to collect the airport taxes even off airport if they know that you are coming from the airport. So when you book an off airport location, don’t put your flight information on the reservation and if they ask, never tell them you came from the airport.

Finally, keep in mind that many off airport locations are only open 8-5 or similar business hours. Make sure they will be open when you will need to pick up and return the car. Also, keep in mind that your arriving flight might be delayed. If I reserve off airport for a late afternoon arrival, I'll sometimes also make a second reservation for the airport rental car location for a few hours later (making sure there's no penalty for canceling or no-show) as a backup, to avoid getting stuck paying “standard” rates. Sometimes I'll even book my second, backup reservation off airport but for the next morning. If my flight is delayed and I miss the first one, I'd use Lyft for the first night and pick up my backup rental the next day.

Additional Drivers

If you need more than one person to be able to drive the car, check the policy for your rental company very carefully. Some rental companies charge $15 per day for each additional driver. That fee might be more than the rental costs! Other rental companies let a spouse drive for no additional charge. It varies wildly, so you have to check each one. This is another benefit of booking through Costco: spouses can always drive free.

Insurance

In short, you should (usually) never buy the insurance from the rental company. Your personal auto policy almost always covers you and if you use mid to high tier credit card it will give you extra coverage for free. However, you really should review your personal auto, home, health, and umbrella policies before deciding. For reals, review them before you decline it. Most of the time you don't need the extra insurance, but if you guess wrong it can be very costly. If you think you need more insurance coverage or don’t have an auto policy, search the intertubes for one of the many insurance companies that sell rental car policies direct for much lower rates than the rental companies do.

Tolls

Nowadays, most cities and states are switching their toll roads to cashless. This means that if you don’t have a transponder in your car, they snap a picture of the license plate and use the registration information to mail a bill to you. If you’re renting a car, it’s the rental company that will be billed. But if you think they won’t trace this back to you, I have some ocean-front property in Montana I’d like to sell you! Not only will they charge you the tolls, but they add on ridiculous fees for the courtesy. The fees are usually much, much higher than the tolls themselves! Fees of more than $50 are not uncommon and fees in the hundreds of dollars are possible on longer rentals.

The rental car company will often provide you with a transponder you can use, but the fees for these are almost as bad. In my experience, you can do just a little research and easily sign up for your own account with the toll billing service for a cost much lower than the fees charged. Most of the time it’s a fee of like $10 (to cover the cost of the transponder they will send you) plus a refundable deposit into your account of $10-25. Your future tolls are deducted from this amount and when you close the account the remainder is refunded. Often the tolling system covers many cities making it an even better deal.

We have E-Zpass, SunPass, and Express Toll… it’s a one-time hassle to set it up, but pays off over and over in the long run. As soon as you pick up your rental car, before you even drive off the lot, remember to log into your toll system account and add the rental car so that the tolls aren’t charged to the rental company!

Avoid Early Returns

Finally, be careful about returning your car too early. Sometimes, the rate you’re getting actually requires you to keep the car for the duration of your reservation. If you return one day early (returning a few hours early on the final day of your reservation shouldn’t be a problem), that may change your rate, which can more than double the cost of the rental. This may be the case regardless of how you booked the car. So when you pick it up, be sure to ask if there’s a rate change for an early return.

Pre-paying For Gas

I used to think that if I knew I was going to use the whole tank, I would prepay. But I've since come to realize that often I would end up getting gas multiple times to try to avoid returning the car with much gas in it. It's just easier to fill it before I return it than try to manage the tank in the last few days before returning. The exception to this is if I have to return the car very early in the morning.

Rental Car Alternatives

It may be worth checking out Turo: think Airbnb for cars. You're renting from an individual, not one of the rental chains. I've never found a great deal there myself, and there are many fees and catches that make me reticent. For example, most rentals require you to clean the car yourself (or pay a cleaning fee), many have mileage limits, late returns can be a real problem, etc.

I also recommend really thinking about whether you need a rental car at all. With the ubiquity of Lyft and Über, bike and scooter rentals, plus public transportation options, it may actually be cheaper to not rent a car. If you do, in fact, need a car for a day here or there, you can always do a one day rental or try one of the short-term self-serve hourly car rental services popping up in many major cities.

Do you have a tip for saving money on rental cars? If so, please share in the comments below!