Don’t Make This Family Car Rental Mistake: AKA That Time I Almost Killed My Kid
I’m sharing with you a family car rental cautionary PSA
To be honest, eleven years later I hate thinking about it- one of the scariest minutes of my life. But it’s an important story you need to know so you can easily prevent it from happening to you. I still see rental cars all of the time where this could easily be you.
In short, I took basic safety for granted and it almost killed my kid.
Here’s the story:
The overnight flight and connection in Paris to Malaga couldn’t have gone more smoothly. I dutifully strapped Deal Kid, 2, into his car seat in our rental car and off we went blazing down the Mediterranean highway at 70 MPH (the speed limit) on a perfect October morning. We were going West, so the best views of the sea were in the left lane. Traffic was light and the Spanish language radio was welcoming me “home” after two years of being stuck in the USA.
It was a very easy assumption to make, especially after an overnight flight with a two year old and a 30 minute wait at the rental counter in Malaga: that since I was a parent with a young child and used safety locks on the back seats, everyone did. I didn’t learn of my lapse in judgement until about 20 minutes into the drive…when his door flew completely open.
As I was driving 70 miles an hour on the freeway in the left lane.
Looking back eleven years later, it’s funny what occurs to me:
- I remember thinking, besides “$@#$@%$%@#$%!” , “Oh, that’s what they mean by ‘drag’ “, as the car lurched to the left, almost hitting the guardrail and careening over the fifty foot drop to the Eastbound lanes below.
- When you have to do an emergency stop at 70MPH from the left lane of a freeway, what’s behind you is scarier than what’s in front of you.
- Seat belts are strong. REALLY strong.
- Deal Kid laughed through the whole thing as if it were a ride at Sesame Place.
But the main thing that occurred to me EVERY single time I rented a car from then until Deal Girl could be trusted with a door was what I want you to remember now:
CHECK THE CHILD LOCK SETTINGS ON YOUR RENTAL CARS!
Do you need a taxi to the airport? Rent a car instead!
I learned something new today worth sharing: did you know most car rental agencies will let you return your car to a different location in the same city? This little trick can save you a bundle if you’re in a town that has a high airport tax rate or high taxi rates from downtown the the airport, or at least give you some fun day-trip options you might not have considered.
Here’s is an example: next week I’m renting a car in downtown Montreal to drive to Quebec, then back to the airport. The cab rate is $34.75 + Tip. The car rental rate on Avis or Budget, picking up downtown (.7 miles from my hotel) and returning to the airport, is $36 a day including all taxes. So, for the same price, you can pick up a rental car, enjoy it for a day-trip out of the city, and return it to the airport on your way out of town.
This made the difference for me between going to Quebec and not going to Quebec. I was having trouble justifying the car rental as an extra expense, but knowing that 1/2 of it is paid for by saving on an airport taxi made the extra stop make much more sense.
Hertz Gold Rewards is My New Luv
In travel hacking you learn something new everyday. Today I learned that Hertz Gold Rewards, a program I formerly thought was fool’s gold, is actually a gold mine. I’ve long blasted Hertz Gold Rewards because I’ve never been able to use the points: and I’ve tried at least 20 times in many different markets at many different times of year. Every time I get the dreaded “Hertz Gold Rewards are not accepted at this location” error message at the last screen.
As is often the case, the jackpot is in the fine print. Check out the transfer ratios for Hertz Gold Rewards to other loyalty programs.
That’s right. For some reason the points gods have assigned Southwest points over twice the value of other miles when transferring from Hertz Gold Rewards. Considering they all transfer from fixed rewards programs at the same rate I consider this manna from rewards heaven. Especially since it’s basically free points as Hertz Rewards were previously almost worthless to me.
Unfortunately, there’s a devil in the details: transfers are not instant. Hertz’s site says they take up to 8 weeks. I did one today and will keep you posted as to when they actually post. You also can only transfer in increments of 600. However, as long as you have any activity in your Hertz account once every two years the points don’t expire so they can sit until you have enough to transfer.
Hertz regularly sends out “we miss you: here’s 500 points if you rent one day” mailers that I’ve been throwing away. I’ll be paying a bit more attention to the next one.
The Road Trip Mistake I’ve Now Made Twice
Greetings from the Country Inn and Suites in Lumberton, North Carolina! I’m doing the I-95 drive from DC to Florida AGAIN and wanted to dash off a quick PSA before I forget. Check in last night, well this morning, was a lot more painful than it needed to be because I’ve now made the same road trip mistake twice.
The East Coast slog from DC to Orlando can take anywhere from 12 to 15 hours depending on the traffic. Because of this I tend not to make hotel reservations en route as I don’t know how far I’ll get or when I’ll get too tired to drive.
The first time I made my mistake was in June returning from Orlando with Deal Girl. We pushed until after 1AM and I pulled over and grabbed my cell phone to take a look at what hotels were nearby. I saw a Hampton Inn that had rooms listed around $80. (Hilton was even having a 2x points promo, bonus!) Exhausted, I tried to make a reservation online.
See my mistake yet?
Well, online systems didn’t understand why I wanted a room YESTERDAY. The room I saw was actually for the next night. Fortunately the hotel did have one room left when we pulled in but I could have saved a bunch of worry if I’d booked at 11:59 PM.
This time I left DC around 6:30 PM and made it almost to the South of the Border and its folksy racism. Remembering my mistake, I pulled off north of Fayetteville around 11:45PM. Surveying my options, I found a Club Carlson property that only cost 15,000 points 90 minutes down the road- perfect.
Except for two things.
- The clock on the dashboard was 5 minutes slow- so it was actually 11:50.
- I had to reset my #$@@#$%@ Club Carlson password. Note to Club Carlson: Why do you need a CAPITAL LETTER, a lower case letter, a number, & a symbol in your password? Your points just aren’t that valuable!
So by the time I got the password reset email it was 12:01AM. Crap.
Sure enough, the flummoxed overnight desk clerk and the club carlson rep (who was a gem) needed 20 minutes to work through how to book points in the past. 20 minutes I could have been sleeping.
So I hope you learn from my mistake: book your last minute hotel room before Midnight EST.
