I went to rent a car for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, and found out that a four day rental would be around $300. Not exorbitant by any means, but more than I wanted to pay. A friend said I should look into renting a moving van instead. I did so, and found that I could get a 4 day rental for around $120, for a savings of 60%. Except, of course, for gas. So, assuming that moving vans don’t get ridiculously low gas mileage, this is a great way to come out ahead.
Does anyone know if these vans usually have bucket seats or bench seats?
What sort of car do you want to rent that’s costing $75/day? I would try to refine your search a bit before settling on a moving van. Just cause I was curious, I did a search for rental cars at DCA and Enterprise is $25/day for their cheapest model over Mem. weekend.
Yes, yes they do. I’ve gone with UHaul twice and calculated a rate of 7 MPG.
Of course, picking up at DCA was just an example. I’d guess that DC has a large number of “neighborhood” rental locations scattered about the city. My local Enterprise even gives you half off over the weekend, so I’ve rented from them for about $14/day in the past. If you look on Travelocity, you should be able to put in an address and search for rental places close to your location.
From what city? I just checked DCA for New York City and the daily rate is $100. Even though my location is DC, I will be leaving from NYC.
For a van??? Or a U-Haul truck?
Sorry, I assumed you were renting in DC. I guess you might be better off with a moving van in that case, though I would still check into a neighborhood car rental location.
Have you checked Priceline’s ‘name your own price’ and Hotwire? You can specify ‘at airport’ locations and they are usually dirt cheap, although the holiday will make everything more expensive.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I booked a premium car in the Seattle area for a reasonable price during the Memorial Day weekend thru Alamo. They have some offer going on, information here.
I’m talking about the big boxes on wheels you normally get from UHaul. If there are rental trucks from UHaul that are open air, then I’ve never rented one of those.
And that was just the smallest sized ones. I imagine the larger ones get even less per gallon.