Car Rental

It’s that time of year again when rental car companies have too many cars in Arizona and Florida, and start offering big discounts for one way rentals up north. Are you going to try and take advantage? In the right situation you can save big money! Here are the deals we are currently seeing:

Budget: Pick up a car at participating Arizona Budget locations and drop it off at participating locations in the Western U.S. Rates start at $16 per day, the deals expire on May 31, 2012.

Alamo: The one-way deal with Alamo is for $19.99/day from Florida only, but you can return the vehicle anywhere in the continental U.S. outside Florida. This deal is valid between Mar. 23 and May 31, 2012.

Avis: Avis is offering one-way deals from both Arizona and Florida, starting at $16/day and $112/week.

National: The same as Alamo – one way rentals from Florida for $19.99/day, and the car be returned virtually anywhere outside Florida. The deal runs from March 23 through May 31, 2012.

The other major car rental companies will likely come out with deals of their own in the coming weeks – we’ll keep you updated. Good luck saving money!

We’ve updated out car rental coupons pages for 2012 with some new features that will make them much easier to use, and will make it easier to save money.

1. Coupon Testing: We now have tools that test the coupons we post! Every day we check each and every code on the site, ensuring that they are valid, unexpired, and provide the savings that we say they do.

2. Date Checking: When every page gets updated, they get a date stamp. That way you know how fresh the coupons are on every page.

View the dozens of coupons we have every day on our exclusive pages:

Budget Car Rental Coupons
Avis Car Rental Coupons
Alamo Car Rental Coupons
National Car Rental Coupons
Enterprise Car Rental Coupons
Thrifty Car Rental Coupons
Dollar Car Rental Coupons
Advantage Car Rental Coupons
Hertz Car Rental Coupons

And as always, if you come across a coupon code that we don’t have, let us know! We get many of our codes thanks to the wonderful efforts of our users, let’s all save some money on travel this year!

3. New Relationships: We have coupon code sharing relationships with several dozen websites, including most of the major car rental companies. We absolutely have the most rental car coupons and discounts, all of which are valid and accurate, and it’s been that way for over 10 years!

The results are in of the annual Car Rental Satisfaction Survey, taken each year by J.D. Power and Associates. In a bit of a surprise, the top car rental company for 2011 is ACE Rent A Car.

A bit of an unknown to many travelers, ACE received high marks across the board but was especially good in pricing, and in shuttle service. Enterprise came in second place, while National ranked third. Last place was occupied by Advantage, Fox Rental a Car and Thrifty.

To view all the ratings, visit JDPower.com/
To help save money on your next car rental, visit our car rental coupons page.

Things happen. And due to these things, you need to rent a car right now. Did you that most major car rental companies have a section on their website listing last minute car rental deals, both in the U.S. and around the world? They do, and it’s one of the first places you should look for a car rental at the last minute – other than our City Deals, of course! Here’s a list of the major car rental companies, with links to their last minute rental cars:

Alamo Rent a Car
National Car Rental
Budget Car Rental
Dollar Rent a Car
Thrifty Rent a Car
Avis Rent a Car

No last minute deals:
Enterprise Rent-a-Car
Hertz Car Rental
Advantage Rent a Car

Last minute car rentals at the consolidators:
Travelocity
Expedia

One extremely frustrating bit about the consolidators. From our testing, you actually have to click through to each “last minute deals” page and search on the form at that page to get the deal – the regular car rental search form does NOT pull up last minute rates, for some reason. I know, I know, that sucks. But unfortunately that’s the way it currently works. But that’s for Expedia and Travelocity only.

Budget Car Rental has just come out with some fantastic new coupon codes, offering rates as low as $17/weekend day or $129/week for economy or compact cars, or $22/weekend day or $149/week for intermediate SUVs. These great rates are good all the way through December 15, 2011. Here are the specifics:

Economy/Compact Deal: Use BCD D454300
Intermediate Deal: Use BCD D454301

Take advantage of the rates while you can, the price can’t be beat! If these deals don’t fit your needs, be sure to check out the rest of our Budget coupons, we have over a dozen current coupon codes!

Need a rental car for a few hours, and you don’t want to pay a ton for it? A new startup called Getaround is looking to help. Getaround helps private car owners rent their personal cars, often for as little as $7 hour. You can go through the entire rental process on your smartphone, and signup is completely free. They currently are available in San Francisco and San Diego, and have around 2,000 cars. Insurance is completely covered by Getaround, so there’s no risk to the renter or the car owner.

Getaround seems like a perfect deal for budget travelers needing a car for an afternoon. Traveling to San Francisco, but you want to jump up to Napa for the afternoon? Rent a car for $10/hour, and you’re worry free! No dealing with the hassles of a regular car rental, and it’ll cost less than $50! I love it!

Now they just need to expand to Seattle so I can make some money. Many car owners report that they rent their car enough to have the payment covered!

Check out Getaround

Almost everyone knows about the Entertainment Book, your go-to guide for half price local restaurant and activity coupons. But did you realize that the Entertainment Book has a whole section of stellar car rental coupons? Six car rental companies (Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz and National) offer car rental coupons through the Entertainment Book, and in big news this year the Avis and Budget coupons are completely reusable! That’s right, you don’t have to give the booking agent the paper coupon at the time of your rental, so you can use the discount over and over again – and the coupons don’t expire until June 30, 2013, so that could be a lot of use!

Here’s a small sample of the discounts available: Avis offers 25% plus $25 off weekly rentals, Budget offers 20% plus $20 plus a free upgrade on a weekly rental, Hertz offers $35 off a weekly rental of a Hertz Collection vehicle, and Enterprise offers a free double upgrade! There are a total of 30 coupon codes between the six companies, so there’s plenty of money to be saved. And that’s all on top of the restaurant discounts available in your area. To view the specific coupons for each rental car company, go to the specific coupon page – we’ve listed them all out for you (Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise, Hertz and National).

View your local Entertainment Book here

Rent a SUV in Atlanta, and instead of paying around $300 pay only $88. That’s an impossible to pass up bargain, right? There’s only one small catch – the car will be wrapped in advertising during your rental. Would you still do it?

Budget Atlanta locations are trying out a new program where renters are getting significant discounts – 50%-75% off their rental – if they choose a vehicle featuring very prominent ads. Called “Sponsored Rentals”, the ads are on about 20 full-size sedans and intermediate SUVs. For big savings, you promote a new caffeinated gum product. It’s an interesting idea, and one that I’d probably jump on. I’d be slightly embarassed driving one of these cars around, but to save a few hundred dollars I think I could live with it!

Check out the Budget Atlanta website for more information.

Travel geeks and fans of the classic TV show “Firefly” will love these: and I’m both!

View at ThinkGeek

Rent a car for a one-way rental for only $1/day! It’s true!

The catch is that you have to pick up the car at Portland International Airport, and drop it off in the Bay Area (San Francisco International Airport, San Jose International Airport, or Oakland International Airport). But if you’re looking for something fun to do for Spring Break, why not drive to San Francisco for cheap?

View deal at Thrifty.com