I try to make prudent money choices most of the time.
Yet occasionally I make purchases that are just plain bad… terrible for my budget.
The most recent example? Paying way too much for a rental car.
On a recent trip, I rented a vehicle from Enterprise at Philadelphia International Airport. My auto insurer — USAA — offers its members discounted rates with certain rental companies, and Enterprise happens to be one of them.
I selected an economy car listed at $22.57 per day. I had the car for two days. My final bill: $243.63.
Yep, that’s more than 10 times the advertised daily rate. (And that doesn’t include roughly $26 I spent on gas to refill the tank before returning the vehicle.)
Here’s the itemized account of my invoice and the errors I’ll try to avoid the next time I rent a car.
Don’t Overlook Fees and Taxes
The base rate for the car was $22.57 per day, so I paid $45.14 for the rental itself.
I was billed $76.33 in fees. That total included a $20.33 concession-fee recovery to reimburse Enterprise for airport-related charges, a $16 customer facility charge to help fund a new rental facility at the airport, a $4 public-transportation assistance fee earmarked for mass-transit support and a $36 one-way fee because I needed to return the car to a different Enterprise location.
I paid $20.22 in taxes. This covered a $3.23 vehicle-rental tax, a $4.07 Philadelphia vehicle-rental tax, $9.69 in Pennsylvania sales tax and $3.23 in Philadelphia sales tax.
And the kicker: I shelled out $101.94 for insurance and damage protection on the rental vehicle. The paperwork listed several protections, but basically the charges were $47.98 for a damage waiver, $12 for personal accident and personal-effects coverage, $11.98 for roadside assistance protection and $29.98 for supplemental liability protection.
Mistake #1: Buying Full Insurance Coverage
The biggest financial blunder I made with this rental was opting for the full insurance package — it made up roughly 42% of my bill.
I was in Philadelphia to visit my dad, who had been in a serious car crash earlier in the week. When the agent asked if I wanted to buy the comprehensive insurance, I said yes — just in case something else terrible happened.
But the truth is… I could have skipped that optional charge entirely. It turns out, my auto insurance policy already covered rental cars. Naturally, I only discovered that after the fact while researching for this piece.
Learn from my expensive (and embarrassing) oversight and do your homework before purchasing extra coverage for a rental. Don’t rely solely on memory about your auto policy. Some credit-card contracts also include rental-vehicle protection. If you’re a AAA member, check the benefits they provide.
To add to my chagrin, the rental agreement I signed even noted that the insurance offered might be covered elsewhere. But that caveat was buried in the multiple pages of terms I didn’t bother to read closely.
It truly pays to read everything you sign.
Mistake #2: Renting at the Airport
I’ve always heard that renting at the airport tends to cost more than renting off-site.
The $20.33 concession-fee recovery and the $16 customer-facility charge were tacked on simply because I rented at the Philadelphia airport. I might have saved money if I’d taken low-cost transport to a nearby rental office.
Sometimes the published daily rates at airport locations are also higher than at non-airport branches.
Mistake #3: Choosing a One-Way Drop-Off
This fee was tough to avoid given I was flying out of an airport roughly 100 miles from where I originally picked up the car.
That said, next time I will try to plan so I can collect and return the vehicle to the same branch.
The $36 fee I paid to change the drop-off location exceeded the daily rental rate.
Mistake #4: Rushing Through the Rental Process
Savinly Readers who hunt for bargains know the value of comparison shopping. I reserved the car after landing and collecting my luggage. I hadn’t looked into prices ahead of time or compared other rental companies to see what they might have charged.
I probably could have found a cheaper option if I had slowed down. At minimum, taking time to read the full rental agreement at the counter would have saved me more than $100 on unnecessary insurance.
In my defense, I was anxious about my dad’s injuries and booked the trip at the last minute. Making financial choices when you’re exhausted and upset rarely leads to the best results.
Mistake #5: Not Paying Off the Charge Immediately
When my next credit-card statement arrives, it will include about $4.60 in interest because I didn’t clear the rental charge right away.
If you use a credit card to pay for a rental, the smartest move is to pay the balance as quickly as possible — unless you’re still inside a card’s 0% interest introductory window.
Pardon me while I go take my own advice.
Riley Hart is a staff writer at Savinly. Writing about personal spending mishaps was uncomfortable, but he hopes it encourages others to make smarter choices.
For related tips, see how to rent a car without a credit card.
