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Travel Tip Tuesday #15: Use club memberships to save additional money when renting a car

Jeremy B
Use club memberships to save additional money when renting a car

In our final Travel Tip Tuesday post for April we present our last rental car related travel tip for the month: Use club memberships to save additional money when renting your car.

This entire month of April we’ve been sharing Rental Car related travel tips during our deep dive into rental cars and transportation needs for frequent travelers. If you need to catch up, here’s what we’ve covered so far in April’s Travel Tip Tuesday:

And, of course, you can read all of the preceding Travel Tip Tuesday’s here.

So, we’ve come to the end…well the end of our focus on rental cars anyway. Next month we will focus on a new topic each Tuesday in our Travel Tip Tuesday series. But, let’s get to this last tip.

Travel Tip Tuesday:

As noted in the intro, the travel tip this week recommends you use club memberships to save additional money when renting your car. For example, if you are a AAA member you can use your code or account number (depending on the rental car company) to save a few extra bucks during the rental.

For example, Hertz offers 20% discounts for AAA members. Thrifty offers 10% discounts for car rental. The amount of discount for AAA members varies by company but almost all (I’ve yet to find a US company that doesn’t offer something) rental car companies offer AAA discounts.

AARP, also offers discounts for its members for certain companies. Avis, for example, offers 30% discounts for members of AARP and Budget does as well (same company, different rental car programs).

Big box retailer Costco also provides rental car discounts for its members. Take Enterprise Rental Car as an example. Members can receive special pricing (at time of booking – and based on destination, time of year, etc) when renting a car. See this link for more info on Enterprise & Costco. This program also applies to Avis, Alamo and Budget.

Costco competitor Sams Club also offers deals for rental car companies – check their home page for details.

Using your discount usually involves providing a code or membership number at time of booking. In many cases you can do this in your company’s travel system or (if booking personal travel) in the travel portal you are using, and of course directly with the car rental company themselves.

In some cases, you may have to book it through the retailer’s portal.

Some company’s strongly encourage employees who are participants in such programs to use them, whenever possible, and I’ve even heard of companies mandating it (for those that have such memberships.

And, of course, if you are booking personal travel, the use of these programs could save you some decent coin leaving you some extra cash to spend on trinkets!

PS…if you are feeling particularly unscrupulous, I’ve heard stories of folks booking using an outdated (or even fake code) to get the discounts. In most cases the rental car company is supposed to check the card when you pick up the car, but most don’t. We don’t recommend this because, well, it’s wrong…

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Hey…if you are looking for a cool gadget to take with you on your trip, look no further than an Air Conditioner Mounted Magnetic Phone Holder. You can mount this in your car and use your GPS app and actually see where you are supposed to turn while driving. I personally recommend the WizGear and you can read my product review here.

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Thanks for tuning in to Travel Tip Tuesday again

Thanks for tuning in this week and this entire month of April where we hit the subject of rental cars pretty heavy. We hope it was valuable for our readers. Next month is going to focus on Healthy Travel Tips…so be sure to subscribe to our blog!

And please do yourself a favor and check out 9 Secret Rental Car Hacks You Need to Know

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For readers interested in more travel tips and travel advice, you might be like these great articles:

 

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