hearna

I have been mostly toying with the idea of renting over buying a second vehicle. Credit card protects the rental, and my other vehicles insurance transfers to the rental for liability. If your looking at buying something in the 40+ range, renting becomes cheaper when you factor in payments, insurance, maintenance. Best part about it is you can terminate when ever you like. No being stuck with payments. Second best part is if after a month or two you dislike the vehicle you chose, your not stuck with it, swap. Third best part is you can seasonally change vehicles. If its nice and sunny, get something fun to ride. When its cold and snowy, get your self an SUV or something.

rtch92

my credit card provides 45 days LDW, also have home insurance to provide SLI. I've never had such an issue, but in the event some issue arises - I have confirmed I'm covered.

xuni4everx

I just started renting permanently at LAX, currently driving gmc yukon, I was wondering how i can keep this car for next 3 month? my rate was midsize, and i got the car from executive lot.

Tedgrrrr

I vaguely recall hearing/reading somewhere that this is only true if the car you own is parked while the rental car gets into an accident. If both cars are being driven, then the insurance does not "transfer" - did you look into that? May be a bunch of bs, but who knows.

hearna

Insurance with TD Meloch Monex (Canada), rentals are auto covered under the grand touring package (Annual fee of ~99$) but provides rental protection as well as a few other benefits.

hearna

Do you have a month by month contract to keep the credit card insurance, and are scared to loose it at the end of the month?

If so

1. When you take it back to the airport (be careful not to be boxed in), and simply explain to the return staff that you have another month long rental and would like to keep the car. Airport staff are usually very busy and if they can save a transport out for cleaning, then they will usually let you keep it.

2. If there is no inter city fee, bring it to a local national location and start your next months contract from there. Again saving them the hassle of cleaning it will most likely allow you to keep it, and save the airport taxes (assuming your rate is the same).

Option 2 does carry some risk if the location is limited on vehicles and knows yours is coming in and has put it aside for another customer that day. So for Option 2 it is better to make a rental but not tell the airport to change your drop off location so you arrive with a car that they did not expect.

bocastephen

It's much easier - and much cheaper - to do this process with local locations (ie Anaheim, etc) vs the airport. You'l save a ton on taxes and getting to know the staff means they won't blink when you pull up in something nice and want to keep it.

When you do this at the airport, don't go into the return aisle - just use the parking lot in the front, walk the paperwork upstairs and outside to the Emerald booth (don't talk to the general agents inside), ask them to process your return and re-rent with the same car. Worse case, they will send you downstairs to work with a manger near the return lane.

If they refuse and demand you return the car, tell them to keep the contract open and drive away to Anaheim or another local location and do it there.

Triggerhappy

If your contract is monthly, has a monthly posted rate, no coupons applied to it, and shows a max term of 300+ days on it, is there anything stopping you from just keeping the car and "extending" the 1 month rental without coming in?

Frowned upon for inventory management purposes yes, but you could just in theory call it in and say, hey, i'm keeping this car longer at the posted rate on my printed out contract. Correct? Or am I missing something?

matrixca7

You can call the branch that you got the car from and they will extend it for you over the phone with the same rate, but they cannot apply the coupon that you used again. If you'd like to use the coupon again, you gotta make a new contract with the coupon and visit the branch and they will just swap the contract for ya.

Triggerhappy

Hence the stipulation of no coupon in my original question. Problem is if I don't have a reservation and the current rate for that next month is significantly more, will they be guaranteed to close and re-open at the same rate?

hearna

Also consider your insurance, CC insurance does not typically cover a rental of more than 1 month.

jdb0822

Currently been doing this since October. My all in cost (rental rate, fees, taxes) is actually lower than my last car payment that I had. I rent one month at a time, and it usually is 10 minutes or less to drop off the old car and leave with the new one. Each rental is 4-weeks (28 days), which is under the 30 day limit for my credit card for insurance.

Friends thought I was out of my mind, until I showed them the math. ^

emilio911

Would not recommend. CC insurance policies usually require one full calendar day between each rental. Read your insurance policy!

Chihster

Sorry, one thing is not very clear to me... when you "rollover" the contract month-to-month, or even week-to-week, do you first make separate bookings online then just ask the car rental company to change to the new contract/booking after the first one expires?? Or do you ask the rental company to do a new contract using the same terms from the old booking??

The first way would mean prices would change from contract to contract, while the second way should mean prices are pretty much fixed.

Thanks.

JohnnyP

Also, be aware that some credit card policies stipulate that you cannot rent for more than X days in the last Y days (e.g. coverage is removed if a car is rented for more than 30 days in the last 90 days). It's worth spending time reading through the T&Cs.