Permanently Renting Instead of Owning
Aug 30, 2013, 5:49 am
#166
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Irvine CA & PEK
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium, Hilton Diamond, IHG Spire Ambassador, Qantas Platinum, United S
Posts: 664
I rented for 18 months straight and received 7 credits every month (they wouldn't do a contract for more than 30 days) except for one month when they closed out the previous month contract incorrectly. Emerald Club CS gave me the two credits I was missing. I believe the whole time still counted as a single rental towards status, but all of the days counted and I renewed my EE status by April of each year.
I even received credits for concurrent rentals (had the monthly at home and another when out of state) and they gave me credit for both for quite a while. Eventually they fixed that glitch though.
I even received credits for concurrent rentals (had the monthly at home and another when out of state) and they gave me credit for both for quite a while. Eventually they fixed that glitch though.
Did you tell the agent that you are going to rent for 18 months straight when you first checked in?
Also, did you use AMEX premium protection by the way?
Aug 30, 2013, 5:52 am
#167
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: TLV
Programs: UA Platinum, Avis Chairman, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, GA Pilot
Posts: 3,225
I did this for 3 years in Israel with Eldan. It was the same price as leasing a car from one of the leasing companies with a 2 year commitment but I was month-to-month. At a certain point I realized it would be cheaper for me to take taxis everywhere and I gave back the car and started cabbing it.
Aug 30, 2013, 5:54 am
#168
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Irvine CA & PEK
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium, Hilton Diamond, IHG Spire Ambassador, Qantas Platinum, United S
Posts: 664
So now the system looks like that National bills you each 30 days no matter how long you rent. And AMEX determines the length of your contract by billing you the time you are billed. Therefore you just rent for a year continuously without out all the location swap chore, and AMEX protection still works.
Just hope that when something bad really happens (God forbids), AMEX won't do nasty things like saying your actual contract is year long (more than 42 days), blah blah blah...
Just hope that when something bad really happens (God forbids), AMEX won't do nasty things like saying your actual contract is year long (more than 42 days), blah blah blah...
Sep 2, 2013, 9:41 am
#170
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: The place where it gets so hot in the summer some planes can't take off.
Programs: Marriott LT Titanium, WoH Globalist, National EE, United Platinum
Posts: 1,446
I am actually covered by a umbrella policy at work for liability, but also had a non owned operator policy through progressive so I could drive on weekends/non customer related travel. It later turned out that since I rent mostly for work (travel to customers across 2 states) that they should not have issued a policy and put me on non renewal. I looked into CC insurance but both Amex and Chase told me that although I may be covered, if the insurance agent did research and saw the length of the rental they could deny any claims.
I may try State Farm or someone else next year (I ended up buying a car), sell my car and do this again, but we'll see. I miss being able to get a new car whenever the old one was dirty
Sep 3, 2013, 8:36 am
#171
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Irvine CA & PEK
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium, Hilton Diamond, IHG Spire Ambassador, Qantas Platinum, United S
Posts: 664
I rented from the airport since it was the only National station and let them know it was going to be a perpetual rental. I got to know the girls at the desk very well and they normally found the car I wanted whenever I traded in.
I am actually covered by a umbrella policy at work for liability, but also had a non owned operator policy through progressive so I could drive on weekends/non customer related travel. It later turned out that since I rent mostly for work (travel to customers across 2 states) that they should not have issued a policy and put me on non renewal. I looked into CC insurance but both Amex and Chase told me that although I may be covered, if the insurance agent did research and saw the length of the rental they could deny any claims.
I may try State Farm or someone else next year (I ended up buying a car), sell my car and do this again, but we'll see. I miss being able to get a new car whenever the old one was dirty
I am actually covered by a umbrella policy at work for liability, but also had a non owned operator policy through progressive so I could drive on weekends/non customer related travel. It later turned out that since I rent mostly for work (travel to customers across 2 states) that they should not have issued a policy and put me on non renewal. I looked into CC insurance but both Amex and Chase told me that although I may be covered, if the insurance agent did research and saw the length of the rental they could deny any claims.
I may try State Farm or someone else next year (I ended up buying a car), sell my car and do this again, but we'll see. I miss being able to get a new car whenever the old one was dirty
Therefore, the AMEX system sees a billed rental each 30 days, and bills you 24.49 each time you are billed by National. The system thinks it is a new rental, but apparently you are assigned new contract numbers indeed.
However, you are right that if AMEX researches further and reveals that those "contracts" are actually one very-long contract separated by National artificially, claims can be denied.
Sep 4, 2013, 8:39 pm
#172
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: LGA
Programs: DL DM, UA Gold, Marriott Plat Prem., Hilton Gold, National Exec Elite.
Posts: 2,533
In my experience AMEX is extremely generous with its benefits, including things like "no questions asked charge-backs" and things like that. I don't think they are one to nickel and dime, so while I agree that you may be right, I think chances are that they honor the claim especially since they are getting their $29.95 or whatever every 30 days.
Sep 18, 2013, 11:16 am
#173
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: DEN
Programs: HHonors Diamond, Marriott Silver, UA Premier 1K, AA Gold (MM)
Posts: 390
Depends on Mileage
As with any program, YMMV.
My wife's former boss averaged about 60k miles a year, between sales calls and commuting between the office and his primary home (300 miles away in another city). With the miles he drove, he figured out early on that it was cheaper to rent than buy.
He had gone through situations where a local branch manager that he'd negotiated a deal with would leave and the new manager wouldn't do as good a deal. When this happened, there was always another branch manager at either another brand or another location that would work with him.
One thing he found was that he could get better deals by offering to take whatever they were having a hard time renting. That meant he drove a lot of SUVs in the summer and a lot of convertibles in the winter. @:-)
Curiously, he wasn't savvy enough to get the points and miles he could have and, since my wife didn't like him, we never told him.
My wife's former boss averaged about 60k miles a year, between sales calls and commuting between the office and his primary home (300 miles away in another city). With the miles he drove, he figured out early on that it was cheaper to rent than buy.
He had gone through situations where a local branch manager that he'd negotiated a deal with would leave and the new manager wouldn't do as good a deal. When this happened, there was always another branch manager at either another brand or another location that would work with him.
One thing he found was that he could get better deals by offering to take whatever they were having a hard time renting. That meant he drove a lot of SUVs in the summer and a lot of convertibles in the winter. @:-)
Curiously, he wasn't savvy enough to get the points and miles he could have and, since my wife didn't like him, we never told him.
Nov 18, 2013, 11:55 am
#174
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,154
Ok, thought I'd update things with my experiences now that my wife and I are three months into this experiment.
Got back from our summer vacation and we managed to sell the old 2003 VW Passat that we'd owned for 10 years, with about 239k miles on it. My rough estimate was that over the 10 years we'd owned the car, our average monthly cost to own the car was in the neighborhood of $500 (cost of original loan, plus the maintenance over the years). That was a number that was pretty astounding when I'd figured it out. Personally I was pretty happy that we'd managed to sell it, because I honestly thought we'd end up having to donate it or something.
My wife's a teacher in detroit, but we live in lansing. We went the first month sticking with just the one car we had at that point, since it was still summer and we can largely get away with only one car when she's not at work. Once it was time for her to start working again, we started doing the rental to see how this would work out.
So far it's been 3 months. We've been keeping the car for a month at a time (we've found it works best for us cost wise and convenience wise). We've rented out of the Lansing location so far, figuring since neither of us had status, we could live with the limited selection there, especially since it was slightly cheaper than renting out of Detroit. The CDP we use entitles us to LDW coverage, and it's legit for us. We still have insurance coverage in addition to that through our regular car insurance for the other car (I checked with the insurance company about doing this ahead of time).
Not suprising with Lansing, the selection of cars isn't exactly exciting. The agent there has pretty much been willing to give our choice of what's reasonably close to what we're renting, but this is a location that basically has about 12 spots, and some of those are taken up with returns. I can't remember what the first month's choices were, but we ended up with a (very base model) Sonata. The month after that we had a choice between a Sonata and an Altima. Third month our choices were something like a 200, a charger, or an Altima. We were going to try the Charger, but there was an issue with it, and took the Altima. Just swapped out for the next month over the weekend, and ended up with the most intriguing car we've had so far, an Optima Hybrid.
Wife wasn't really overly fond of the Sonata, but was pretty content with the Altimas, although if we ever bought one, I'd want one with a few more options. I didn't particularly like the seats though, although she didn't find them to be a problem.
Now, the obvious question comes down to "has it been worth it?". That's a lot tougher to quantify. We've halved our insurance rates. We're paying probably close to what we'd pay for a car loan for a new car (but that would be for a car that's somewhat better equiped than what we've been getting). We're about $100/month less in gas costs than what we were running with the Passat. We've averaged about 2200 miles a month on the rental cars - and to me, more importantly, we've been right around 1000 miles a month on our Jeep that we own, which if we'd bought a new car, would have been tough to maintain. It's given us a chance to drive long term a few cars that would likely be in the realm of what we'd consider buying if we went back to owning.
The obvious disadvantage is that we're paying similar to what we'd pay for a loan payment, but we don't gain any equity in the car. Of course, I've found that once you reach 5 years on a car, if you've already got in teh neighborhood of 125k miles on it, you're not exactly maintaining a lot of value in the car anyways, plus at that point you've also started to pick up reasonably decent sized charges of maintenance (figure, tires at at least once, possibly a timing belt, brakes, etc). None of that is something we'll see with the rental.
Our original plan was that we'd try this through when we left on vacation for Christmas, and reassess how we felt it was working after that. Obviously, the nice thing is it doesn't prevent us from changing our minds and buying a car at any point. At this point though, it looks like we're going to continue on with it, and start renting out of Detroit to try the greater selection. We'll probably at least shoot to finish off the school year doing this, and then can reassess again whether it's working for us.
Does it make sense financially for us? I'm finding it pretty tough to quantify that question, in particular because one of the large benefits for me in this is keeping the mileage of our owned Jeep. It's hard for me to put a number on how much that's worth. But if we weren't doing it, we'd also have a new car that already had almost 7000 miles on it in 3 months (unless we split mileage well on both vehicles, in which case they'd both suffer). I've definitely gotten a few odd looks from people when I explained what we're doing, although when I explain why, at least some of them seem to have a light click on and they'll acknowledge that it might not be as crazy as it sounds upfront.
One last little sidenote to all this. Lansing seems to get a *lot* of one-wayed vehicles, including a fair number from Illinois. Our first rental actually had Illinois plates on it. My wife went through a couple of yellow lights in succession in Detroit, and at the next red light had a cop pull up and have her roll the window down. He told her, "you know, in Michigan we stop for yellow lights" (it is actually illegal to enter the intersection on a yellow in Michigan, and I do know of at least one person that's gotten a ticket for it). It took her till a little later in the day to remember that the car she was driving had Illinois plates on it, and that quite possibly had gotten her out of a ticket.
So there's my long-winded followup that I promised to give after we'd tried this for a while. It's definitely been an interesting experience so far if nothing else.
Got back from our summer vacation and we managed to sell the old 2003 VW Passat that we'd owned for 10 years, with about 239k miles on it. My rough estimate was that over the 10 years we'd owned the car, our average monthly cost to own the car was in the neighborhood of $500 (cost of original loan, plus the maintenance over the years). That was a number that was pretty astounding when I'd figured it out. Personally I was pretty happy that we'd managed to sell it, because I honestly thought we'd end up having to donate it or something.
My wife's a teacher in detroit, but we live in lansing. We went the first month sticking with just the one car we had at that point, since it was still summer and we can largely get away with only one car when she's not at work. Once it was time for her to start working again, we started doing the rental to see how this would work out.
So far it's been 3 months. We've been keeping the car for a month at a time (we've found it works best for us cost wise and convenience wise). We've rented out of the Lansing location so far, figuring since neither of us had status, we could live with the limited selection there, especially since it was slightly cheaper than renting out of Detroit. The CDP we use entitles us to LDW coverage, and it's legit for us. We still have insurance coverage in addition to that through our regular car insurance for the other car (I checked with the insurance company about doing this ahead of time).
Not suprising with Lansing, the selection of cars isn't exactly exciting. The agent there has pretty much been willing to give our choice of what's reasonably close to what we're renting, but this is a location that basically has about 12 spots, and some of those are taken up with returns. I can't remember what the first month's choices were, but we ended up with a (very base model) Sonata. The month after that we had a choice between a Sonata and an Altima. Third month our choices were something like a 200, a charger, or an Altima. We were going to try the Charger, but there was an issue with it, and took the Altima. Just swapped out for the next month over the weekend, and ended up with the most intriguing car we've had so far, an Optima Hybrid.
Wife wasn't really overly fond of the Sonata, but was pretty content with the Altimas, although if we ever bought one, I'd want one with a few more options. I didn't particularly like the seats though, although she didn't find them to be a problem.
Now, the obvious question comes down to "has it been worth it?". That's a lot tougher to quantify. We've halved our insurance rates. We're paying probably close to what we'd pay for a car loan for a new car (but that would be for a car that's somewhat better equiped than what we've been getting). We're about $100/month less in gas costs than what we were running with the Passat. We've averaged about 2200 miles a month on the rental cars - and to me, more importantly, we've been right around 1000 miles a month on our Jeep that we own, which if we'd bought a new car, would have been tough to maintain. It's given us a chance to drive long term a few cars that would likely be in the realm of what we'd consider buying if we went back to owning.
The obvious disadvantage is that we're paying similar to what we'd pay for a loan payment, but we don't gain any equity in the car. Of course, I've found that once you reach 5 years on a car, if you've already got in teh neighborhood of 125k miles on it, you're not exactly maintaining a lot of value in the car anyways, plus at that point you've also started to pick up reasonably decent sized charges of maintenance (figure, tires at at least once, possibly a timing belt, brakes, etc). None of that is something we'll see with the rental.
Our original plan was that we'd try this through when we left on vacation for Christmas, and reassess how we felt it was working after that. Obviously, the nice thing is it doesn't prevent us from changing our minds and buying a car at any point. At this point though, it looks like we're going to continue on with it, and start renting out of Detroit to try the greater selection. We'll probably at least shoot to finish off the school year doing this, and then can reassess again whether it's working for us.
Does it make sense financially for us? I'm finding it pretty tough to quantify that question, in particular because one of the large benefits for me in this is keeping the mileage of our owned Jeep. It's hard for me to put a number on how much that's worth. But if we weren't doing it, we'd also have a new car that already had almost 7000 miles on it in 3 months (unless we split mileage well on both vehicles, in which case they'd both suffer). I've definitely gotten a few odd looks from people when I explained what we're doing, although when I explain why, at least some of them seem to have a light click on and they'll acknowledge that it might not be as crazy as it sounds upfront.
One last little sidenote to all this. Lansing seems to get a *lot* of one-wayed vehicles, including a fair number from Illinois. Our first rental actually had Illinois plates on it. My wife went through a couple of yellow lights in succession in Detroit, and at the next red light had a cop pull up and have her roll the window down. He told her, "you know, in Michigan we stop for yellow lights" (it is actually illegal to enter the intersection on a yellow in Michigan, and I do know of at least one person that's gotten a ticket for it). It took her till a little later in the day to remember that the car she was driving had Illinois plates on it, and that quite possibly had gotten her out of a ticket.
So there's my long-winded followup that I promised to give after we'd tried this for a while. It's definitely been an interesting experience so far if nothing else.
Nov 18, 2013, 12:20 pm
#175
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 826
I'm not sure if you know this but you could always start your contract in Lansing and swap out cars in Detroit. Just make sure that they don't close out your contract when you do it and this will have NO effect on your rate or contract. Particularly with the status you've obtained now, you could wind up driving much nicer vehicles. Also, if you are bringing nice cars into the Lansing branch it could win you a few favors from them later on down the road.
Nov 18, 2013, 12:39 pm
#176
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 4,396
Nice post piper28! I'm assuming your wife approves of this enterprise since she got out of that ticket? haha.
I've been permanently renting for several years now..totally worthwhile IMO if you live near a big city airport. I spend about $300/month on rentals, but recoup a significant portion back in frequent flier miles/hotel points. I probably wouldn't have been able to sustain this if the Washington DC area didn't also have an extensive and convenient public transportation network.
Sure I don't build equity, but I get to try brand new cars every week, and if you haven't guess already, I'm a huge car fanatic. I also don't have to worry about maintenance, getting safety inspections, or paying annual property taxes on the car. Car insurance premiums are also much lower too.
I just hope American Airlines runs that 3K miles/rental day deal again soon.
I've been permanently renting for several years now..totally worthwhile IMO if you live near a big city airport. I spend about $300/month on rentals, but recoup a significant portion back in frequent flier miles/hotel points. I probably wouldn't have been able to sustain this if the Washington DC area didn't also have an extensive and convenient public transportation network.
Sure I don't build equity, but I get to try brand new cars every week, and if you haven't guess already, I'm a huge car fanatic. I also don't have to worry about maintenance, getting safety inspections, or paying annual property taxes on the car. Car insurance premiums are also much lower too.
I just hope American Airlines runs that 3K miles/rental day deal again soon.
Nov 18, 2013, 2:28 pm
#177
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,154
I'm not sure if you know this but you could always start your contract in Lansing and swap out cars in Detroit. Just make sure that they don't close out your contract when you do it and this will have NO effect on your rate or contract. Particularly with the status you've obtained now, you could wind up driving much nicer vehicles. Also, if you are bringing nice cars into the Lansing branch it could win you a few favors from them later on down the road.
Nov 18, 2013, 2:38 pm
#178
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,154
Nice post piper28! I'm assuming your wife approves of this enterprise since she got out of that ticket? haha.
I've been permanently renting for several years now..totally worthwhile IMO if you live near a big city airport. I spend about $300/month on rentals, but recoup a significant portion back in frequent flier miles/hotel points. I probably wouldn't have been able to sustain this if the Washington DC area didn't also have an extensive and convenient public transportation network.
Sure I don't build equity, but I get to try brand new cars every week, and if you haven't guess already, I'm a huge car fanatic. I also don't have to worry about maintenance, getting safety inspections, or paying annual property taxes on the car. Car insurance premiums are also much lower too.
I just hope American Airlines runs that 3K miles/rental day deal again soon.
I've been permanently renting for several years now..totally worthwhile IMO if you live near a big city airport. I spend about $300/month on rentals, but recoup a significant portion back in frequent flier miles/hotel points. I probably wouldn't have been able to sustain this if the Washington DC area didn't also have an extensive and convenient public transportation network.
Sure I don't build equity, but I get to try brand new cars every week, and if you haven't guess already, I'm a huge car fanatic. I also don't have to worry about maintenance, getting safety inspections, or paying annual property taxes on the car. Car insurance premiums are also much lower too.
I just hope American Airlines runs that 3K miles/rental day deal again soon.
My wife hasn't had any real complaints about doing this, except one: so far the cars we've had don't have seat heaters
. She's also very happy to be not still driving the 03 Passat. For us, the worst case scenario is this is giving us a chance to do some extended testing of cars we might want to buy. Of course, she also understands the reasons we're trying this, so that helps.My only real complaint is I don't get a lot of chance to drive the rentals, because she always has it.
Nov 18, 2013, 7:43 pm
#180
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: LAX/TPE
Programs: United 1K, JAL Sapphire, SPG Lifetime Platinum, National Executive Elite, Hertz PC, Avis PC
Posts: 42,229
I don't think anyone is getting 300 per month...once my initial contract is off the airport (and airport taxes), my average week is about 115-125 depending on location, but that is per week using a coupon.
