Car-rental Experience

Sometimes you would just take a car and head without a planned route to unknown destinations, seeing places without a schedule and stay a couple of nights in motels on the road and on the next day drive again, alone or with somebody accompanying you. It is a perfect possibility to get away from the routine and you are the driver, you decide where you get and what you in the next hours. It is good when you have your own car, but those people who do not own one, sometimes dream about it and even do not think about such an interesting service as car-rental.

The reasons to rent a car are various. Some people live and work in a city where the public transport infrastructure is really good developed and there is no need to own a car to get to work, for shopping or even sightseeing in the local areas. Sometimes it is even financially not really clever to have a car in a big city, because the public transport does the same thing, even faster and the monthly ticket covers all the possible transportation means and is even cheaper than the fuel costs to get to work. But the idea to take a car and head to some location is still in the air and of course, most people would not buy a car just to use it on weekends.

Another reason to rent a car and not to own the same one for a long time – is the chance to try various cars, before you buy one, or just try something different, for example to compare Japanese and German cars.

Such a possibility is being offered for a reasonable price by various worldwide companies, such as Sixt, Alamo, Hertz. You could place a reservation for a car directly at the web-sites of these companies or use the service of such travel services consolidators as TraveLime.com or Expedia.com, who are contracting with most car-rental companies all over the world and will give you the price and class comparison to the given time of reservation.

These companies offer normally quite new cars, not older than for example 2 years. That depends on the legal regulation of each country where you would rent a car. For example in Europe they offer cars that are not older than 3 years. I have driven a BMW 3 Series that had only 200 miles on the counter. And I felt this amazing interior smell of the Bavarian beauty that has left the conveyor nearly a couple of weeks ago.

The funny thing about these companies is that they offer several classes of vehicles – for example A – some small cars like Peugeot 206 just to get from one place to another, B – a little bit bigger cars, like Volkswagen Golf, C – kind of BMW 3 Series and so on. And if you would place a reservation for a vehicle and when you come to the selected office to pick up the ride – and they do not have a car in that class at the moment – they offer you a ride from the higher class for the same price!

There are some secret tips to get almost always a car a class or even 2 classes higher. First you should choose an office for the pick up of the ride – that is not really a large one. Usually they try to have a couple of cars available from each class and the on-line reservations are normally offering all classes without checking the availability of the vehicles in each office. In fact, if a class is right now given away – they have to give you a car from the higher class at the same price. I have only once had an offer to take a car that had lower class – and only because this office did not have any cars from the ordered class and classes higher – they were all taken. And I got this ride almost for free for the whole weekend! Second, you should take some middle class that is actually most popular. People rarely take the smallest vehicles, because you step on the gas and wait minutes till it goes. And the higher classes are almost always available, because they are quite expensive.

I have driven many various cars for the price of previous or even lower class just because I have ordered always the same car and it was not available! I have been ordering the BMW 1 Series and I've always put a remark that I need exactly this model, because at most companies you have such an option – if you need a specific ride. I thought that I actually would not pay much, but at the same time I would not need to wait till this thing runs after I step on the gas, because it is still BMW. And it is from the middle class and it was always not available. I even did not drive it once in my life! And they gave me instead of it Audi A6, BMW 3 series and once I got the wonderful BMW 330 Coupe. That was a marvelous ride. And I got it for only 78 Euro with full insurance for the whole weekend!

So, even if you already own a ride, think about taking something different and use these tips to get the best out of it.

Have fun with the various rides in this life.