We’re planning a short trip in December to the San Francisco area to visit family and friends. I set up the basics, flights, rental car, and hotel reservation, over the summer. It’s a simple trip, one destination, one hotel, a car. All booked online.
But I’ve learned that it pays to check back later because there’s often money to be saved.
That proved to be the case again today.
When I originally booked a car through Costco, the price, after all the fees and taxes were added, was a pretty steep $588 for the 8 day trip.
This afternoon I checked again and I was able to save close to 20%. Same airport, same rental company, same class of car. Price quoted today was only $480.
Luckily, Costco makes it easy to cancel a reservation and then simply rebook it.
Usually I compare Costco’s price to the price if booked directly from the rental company. Costco usually wins. I also comparison shop with AAA, and AARP, which both offer travel services and car rentals.
I haven’t had as much success with finding better hotel deals, but I do make a habit of checking anyway. Several times. Just in case.
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I bow in your general vicinity for your attention to detail.
Word of caution. Car break-ins are rampant in San Francisco and Oakland. Try to rent a car with an actual trunk, not an SUV. And disable the trunk release that’s inside the car, so it can only be opened by a key or the remote.
Don’t load the trunk in a conspicuous place, as thieves can watch and know what you just placed in the trunk. Lots of precautions, but sure beats having your luggage and valuables stolen.
Probably not any worse than in Hawaii, so hopefully we all know to be just as cautious everywhere else we go. We have hidden things in clever ways that were stolen anyway because the thieves were watching from across the street at the beach. HPD educated us about that scam. Luckily they only bought gas on our debit card. I actually felt sorry for people who have to break into a car to afford fuel. I wanted to imagine they needed it to take their mother to a medical appointment or something. I would have bought them a tank if asked.
That is quite a big difference in price savings! It’s worth checking again, thanks for the tip.