*** Here’s another blog from Brian about how to save money on your rental car. This little tip has saved us hundreds of dollars on rentals over the past few years, so check it out!***
I’m not sure how I stumbled upon my Auto Rental hack, but I’ll be honest I was pretty skeptical at first. For the first several years of our road trips, we drove our mini van all over this country. But after several trips, it got to a point that we would waste a few extra days, just driving past states that we had already driven through, just to get to where we were wanting to go. So we started flying, and then renting a van. You can check out how we fly for cheap/free here).
I rented vans for a couple of years, without any major problems. It would cost a couple of hundred dollars, and I would chalk it up to saving wear and tear on my personal vehicle. When we began planning our west coast trip I knew we would end up having to do a one way rental because we were flying to Los Angeles, driving to Seattle and then flying back. One way rentals are insanely expensive, so I started investigating my options. I came across a site called AutoSlash.com. AutoSlash is an internet aggregator that constantly searches for discounted rates. It works through Priceline.com and allows you to enter your booking information, and it finds the cheapest rental car for the dates/times/specifics that you listed. After you book the rental car, you can go back to the site and “track” your rental. This is where the magic happens! This tool now crawls the internet 24/7 searching for cheaper rates. As soon as they find one, they will email you with a link to book the new rate. Auto rental rates change daily, so this is a great way to track them.
The beauty of booking a car rental is you can cancel them at any time. Heck you can even just not show up and you won’t be charged (confirm that with your rental company, but I’ve done that before and wasn’t charged).
So back to our trip on the West Coast. This site, literally saved me $400 from my original auto rental! I couldn’t believe it! Check it out and let me know what you think. Also if you have any other auto rental tips, comment below!
Traveling Light 