Vehicles to rent have been scarce lately primarily because of the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus: after the pandemic was officially declared on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 by the World Health Organization, demand for rental cars precipitously waned…
Cannot Find a Vehicle to Rent in 2021? Too Expensive? Try This…
…and as the basic economic principles of supply and demand were applied — as demand for renting vehicles declined substantially — rental car companies either substantially reduced the inventory of vehicles in their fleets accordingly by selling them; declared bankruptcy protection, as has happened with both Hertz Global Holdings and Advantage Opco LLC; a combination thereof; or have gone out of business…
…but now that demand is spiking, fewer vehicles are currently available to rent — and because rental car companies cannot simply just order thousands of new vehicles at a time and have them immediately delivered to meet that demand, rates to rent vehicles have increased significantly.
As for what can you do to mitigate the financial pain of paying more to rent a vehicle, consider the 15 ways you can rent vehicles for less money — which can be combined — in this article…
…but some articles have surfaced which contain information about saving money by renting from companies such as U-Haul or Penske — if you do not mind paying as much as two dollars per mile and paying other possible fees which can dwarf the base rate of $19.95 per day for renting a cargo van or pick-up truck.
Fortunately for you, U-Haul and Penske are not the only companies which rent cargo vans or pick-up trucks. Rental car companies also rent them as well — and you could potentially save money.
As an example, I checked on the neighborhood location of Hertz in Kennesaw, which is located northwest of Atlanta in Georgia; and I chose the random date of Thursday, June 24, 2021 to rent a vehicle for the week…
The least expensive vehicle was a small commercial van or truck for as low as $345.07 for the week — including all taxes and fees — which is much cheaper than the next least expensive rental of a “manager’s special”, which was $568.38.
The most expensive vehicle to rent for the week was a large sport utility vehicle at $2,185.46. You read that correctly — for one single week.
I chose the Pay Later option so that I may cancel my reservation — which I booked solely for this article — without any cost or financial penalty.
Notice that this vehicle has unlimited miles — unlike a similar vehicle which one can rent from U-Haul or Penske. Unfortunately, it is equipped with only two seats, so it is not ideal for a family — and at 19 miles per gallon, this vehicle is not as fuel efficient as a car, which means that you will pay more for gasoline or diesel.
Even better is that you will only pay a total of approximately $322.80 — including all taxes and fees — if you are a member of the American Automobile Association; so you save even more money.
Hey — every little bit helps.
Summary
Note that not all facilities of rental car companies may have this pricing — but I have checked several neighborhood locations of Hertz, which had similar offers.
If you must rent a vehicle sooner than later, at least you can still save money — if you are creative enough and think that doing so is worth a shot…
…and hopefully, this dearth of rental vehicles will be over sooner than later.
All photographs ©2015 and ©2020 by Brian Cohen.
