We are driving from Virginia to Oklahoma on Thursday, and I don't trust our van to make it. Nor do I trust myself to make it, since the van doesn't have any air conditioning. So, renting a van to do a 2400 mile road trip??? Yes, indeed.
Usually I don't worry too much about car rental costs because I only rent them for business trips. Well, this two-week trip is part business part pleasure (if you count 20 hours in the car with two kids and the husband "pleasure"), so I'm in cheap skate mode. And here's how I worked the cheap zone, I'm quite proud of myself on this one.
14 day mini-van rental from Richmond, $1050 (2000 free miles).
This would not suffice, so I google-mapped my route and started getting rental quotes from nearby cities on the way west. (Good comparison quotes at Kayak.com) I found the cheapest rates were in Roanoke, VA. So I logged into my Budget FastBreak account. (ALWAYS join the frequent renter program when you rent a car. It can save lots of time at the airport pickup counter because they usually have a special line for you, plus you can link your reward points to the airline of your choice. Even if you never plan to rent there again- join.) So, I got a further discount from Budget:
14 day rental mini-van from Roanoke with Budget account, $870 (2000 free miles).
Then, I googled the term "Budget car rental discount codes," and I got tons of hits. Most were the typical waste of time, but I found a gem, and I will share it here (I KNOW this will double my readership of five...) www.rentalcodes.com. I found the code I needed, went back to Budget and entered it.
14 day rental from Roanoke with Wal-Mart discount code, $670, with unlimited miles.
Voila. An hour spent and 400 dollars saved.
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