Info – Rent a Car in United States

Whether you are just a tourist or a traveler, renting a car will mostly be helpful in United States. It lets you to decide your own pace to explore the country and for travelers it lets you visit the hidden gems in small towns and places that most of the tourists miss out.

There are numerous Car Rental Company available in the country and one can rent a car on daily, weekly or monthly basis (or longer). The car leasing should be considered If the car is needed longer than a month.

Prerequisite to Rent a Car

Car renter should be of age 25 and above. However few Car-Rental company would allow you to rent the car if you are under 25 with an extra charge.
Car renter should have valid driver’s license from their Home Country. In case your driving license is not printed in English then consider to get an IDP from your country before travelling to US.
The primary Car renter should have a valid credit card.

Consider the below factors before Renting a Car

Traffic – If you are travelling through busy cities like New York or San Francisco then be aware of the live traffic. It may slow your normal schedule.
Toll Roads – There are toll roads and if you need to pass through one of these then get ready to pay for it. I have seen where the rented car had the EZ TAG ( or whatever is applicable for the state) on the car and so the toll cost gets added to your final bill automatically. In other cases you may opt to pay it online on the state provided Toll sites or the car company would charge your credit card with few extra charges.
Drop off location is different than Pickup- You may need to pay extra if your drop off location is different than your pickup location and you need to inform them while booking the car.
Insurance – You will need liability insurance at minimum, in case you are in an accident. Also it is recommended to purchase Collision Damage Waiver in case you land up damaging the rental car itself. Few of the credit card like Bank Of America Travel Credit Card covers the CDW if the card is used for the rental transaction.
Gas- Usually you would get the rented car with full tank gas, in case it’s not full then it will be noted in the rental agreement document and you are expected to return the car with gas at the same level at which you have picked up the car. In case you couldn’t fill the tank while returning the car then you will be charged almost double the cost of actual gas per gallon.
Pricing- Rental amount is based on the car type and duration of the rental and also on the Car Rental company. You may get better rental deal for longer duration. There will be multiple choices on the car and based on your budget you can either prefer compact,mid,standard,full or luxury cars.
All other services are subjected to incur extra charges eg: renting a GPS etc.

How to Book a Rental Car

Online and telephone Booking – The car can be booked online on websites like Kayak, Expedia, Car rentals etc or to their own official websites like enterprise.com Hertz.com etc. Alternatively you can call their official customer service number to book a car reservation.

Walk-In – Most of the rental car companies has counters on all major international and domestic Airports and you can directly walk-into their counter for the booking. In case you are not flying to the airport then you may want to visit one of their agencies available near to your location. Few of the Rental Car companies offers free pickup from your stay to the agency when you are ready to pick up the car.

Useful Information

Enterprise

www.enterprise.com

1-844-362-0816

Hertz

https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/reservation/

1-800-704-4473

Avis

https://www.avis.com/car-rental/avisHome/home.ac

1-800-633-3469

Budget

http://www.budget.com/budgetWeb/home/home.ex?HP