Car rental coupons

  Car Rental Strategies

Most online businesses have a single “promotional code” mechanism, which you can use to take advantage of special deals. But, car rental companies have two:

• You can add a rate code to get a better base rate for the rental, and…
• You can add a coupon code that gives you an additional discount (or car class upgrade) on top of that discounted rate.

Once you’ve found a great rate, you can almost always add a “coupon”, to save even more money. It only takes a minute or two to find a coupon and knock $15, $25, or more, off the top of your already discounted rental rate.

Add your coupon later, if you can’t add it when you make your rental

Some of the websites that you might use to reserve your car don’t have a way for you to enter a coupon code at the time you make your reservation. However, unlike discount codes, you can always add a coupon afterwards.

The smoothest option, particularly for people who will be going directly to their car at an airport, is to add the coupon ahead of time. You can usually do that by looking up your reservation on the car rental company's website; and you can almost always do it, by calling them on the phone.

If you neglected to take care of this ahead of time, you can always apply your coupon, when you show up to pick up your car.

Typical coupons

Coupons are available from many different sources, but they often provide a similar set of discounts. While you might occasionally find more unique offers, the following are the typical coupons you’ll run across:

• Free weekend day. Often the most valuable coupon, it gives you a free weekend day on a 3-day car rental (staying over a Saturday night). Using this coupon generally requires renting an intermediate car. Rent a car for three days, and pay for two. Nice.
• $25-30 off a weekly rental. Rent the car for at least five days, and get $30 off the top.
• $15-20 off a weekend rental. Rarely better than a free day, but it can typically be used on a wider range of car classes.
• $5 off per day on shorter rentals.  
• Free car class upgrade. Sometimes, the only option for a single day rental. Better than nothing, but not by much.

Finding Coupons

We don’t recommend that you keep a pile of printed coupons around the house. When it is time for you to make your car rental reservation, you can go online and very easily find coupons to use.   

Autoslash.com has probably the best single collection of coupon and discount codes. 

If you belong to a car rental program like Costco, AARP, or AAA, they provide a decent set of coupons for their partners.  Two more convenient places to look for coupons and discount codes are retailmenot.com or groupon.com. Finally, you can look directly on the car rental company’s website.  

	Autoslash	Company Website	RetailMe Not	Groupon	Other
Advantage	View		View
Alamo	View		View	View	Costco
Avis	View	View	View	View	Costco
Budget	View	View	View	View	Costco
Dollar	View		View	View
Enterprise	View		View	View	Costco
Fox	View		View	View
Hertz	View	View	View	View	AAA
National	View	View	View	View
Payless	View		View	View
Silvercar			View	View
Sixt	View		View	View
Thrifty	View		View	View

Rules for using car rental coupons

• Most coupons are only good for rentals in the US and Canada. Coupons for international rentals are still available, they are just harder to find. You need to look carefully at the fine print and may need to rely on a search engine. Try searching something like "Avis Coupon International"
• Most coupons can be used with any reservation, even if they say that they must be used with a specific rate code.  If you look at the fine print on many coupons, they indicate that they need to be used with a specific rate code, or they have a specific rate code printed on the coupon. For example, the coupons in the Entertainment book are supposed to be used with the Entertainment book rate code. However, in most cases, you can use any coupon with any reservation. Try adding the code, if it works, you’ll get the discount. If it doesn’t, the booking website will let you know.
• Some coupons exclude a few expensive locations, such as New York City. If this is true, it tends to be true for all coupons from a given car rental company. So, if your first set of coupons doesn’t work, you probably won’t find ones that do.
• Coupons often can’t be used for one-way rentals. However, sometimes they can, so you'll need to read the fine print or try to add one to your reservation. If the coupons you already have don't work, you probably won’t be able to find ones that do.
• You often need to rent at least an intermediate car in order to use the coupon. While we typically recommend that you rent an economy car (and count on being upgraded automatically to a larger one), it can be worthwhile to rent a mid-size car to take advantage of a coupon. The mid-size car may only be a few extra dollars per day, and the coupon will likely be for more.
• You’ll need to use special coupons for anything other than “standard” car rentals. Regular coupons generally won’t work for SUVs, minivans, trucks, luxury cars, convertibles, and other non-standard vehicle types. However, there are often special coupons available that offer discounts on these additional car types, and you can save even more money per day on these expensive reservations. 

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