hey everybody, I'm here today to talk to you about five things that you should know about renting a car, if you're gonna rent a car—whether it's for a day or for a month or for even longer—then you should definitely know these five things. All right, without further ado, let's get right into the video. Number one is that there are a handful of big rental companies, and with these big rental companies they pretty much own a huge, massive stock of cars, and because they own that huge amount of cars that means that they can obviously dominate the market.
So whenever you go look for a rental car you'll notice that there are a handful of basically big rental companies, and those big rental companies even sometimes own some of the smaller brands, so even though it seems like you're renting it from a smaller brand it's really just a sub‑brand of this big rental company. So it's just important to note that because when you do your research and you're comparing companies you know you might be thinking that you're comparing this brand to this brand, but meanwhile it's owned by the same company, right? So just keep that in mind.
The second thing that you should know about renting a car is that you can get upgraded—now, just like when you go to a hotel—let's say you go to a hotel and they have a better room available; you paid for this room, but they have this room available, and you know you talk about it with them, you might be able to get upgraded. It's the same thing with the car rental business: let's say they have this car available that you paid for—this lower level car—and they have a mid level or even a luxury level car—you can get upgraded to that car if the car that you are supposed to get lets say doesn't work. So let's say you have the last lower level car on the lot and the car is not working properly, it's all shaky and stuff like that—well then they might almost be forced to fulfill their agreement to upgrade you to a better car, because they need to give you a car as a rental and they only have better cars available, so you might be able to get upgraded.
So just ask them nicely—you don't have to complain—you can just ask nicely if you know you can get upgraded into a better car. A lot of the times the employees will just say sure, like it's really that simple. A lot of the times all that you have to do is ask, and as long as they have it available they don't mind, or they'll give you a discounted rate to upgrade.
The third thing that you should know about renting a car is that younger drivers may pay more, but you might not have to. So generally speaking, on car insurance companies and car rental companies, I should say they will charge you based on what they know the condition that they think the car is gonna come back in—if they think there's likely to be some damage to the car or that you're gonna abuse it they're gonna charge you more. So if you're a younger driver, like oftentimes if you're under the age of 25, you might have to be a premium for the car rental or for the insurance of the car rental, but you might not have to—just speak up and ask them like, “Do I have to pay this?
Why do I have to pay this? Look at my driving record; it's completely clean. ” Just speak up, and it's not about complaining; it's just about opening their eyes to the fact that you shouldn't have to pay more.
Now, if you have a horrible driving record then guess what you're probably gonna have to pay more, because I don't want to say you deserve to pay more, but you know what you are an increased risk of that car coming back with damages to it or being abused. So have a clean driving record and outline that for them, or at worst‑case scenario just ask them “why do I have to pay more? What can I do to get around this?
” The fourth thing that you should know about renting a car is that it might be cheaper to use a ride‑sharing service to go everywhere that you want to go. Now it depends on how much that car will be parked—if you're renting a car and the car is gonna be parked for like 22 hours a day and you're only gonna be driving for like an hour in one direction, and an hour back, it might actually be cheaper to just get a ride‑sharing service this way; someone can drive you there and back, and you don't have to worry about storing the car, paying for parking fees, paying for the insurance on the car, and blah‑blah‑blah‑blah. It might be cheaper just to take a cab, and you don't have to worry about storing the car paying for parking fees paying for the insurance on the car and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.
It might be cheaper just to use a ride‑sharing service, so just look into it. I'm not saying it will be cheaper, but it might be. Last but not least, the fifth thing that you should know about renting a car is that you can rent older cars for a cheaper price, oftentimes.
When people think about renting cars they go to these places that rent these cars that are only like you know up to three years old kind of thing, fairly new, and they pay a premium for that. While they don't care about the condition of the car they just want the car to drive around in, let's say a new area, so you're paying a premium to have a relatively new car there. There are lots of companies, lots of smaller companies, that will rent out older cars or cars out of ten years old but are still in great condition, but older cars nonetheless, for a much cheaper pricing, much much cheaper price.
Right? The rental price of the car is dependent on the value of the car, so an older car is gonna have a cheaper value, therefore they can charge less to rent it—it's as simple as that. It's the basics of business, and that's it.
Those are five things that you should know about renting a car. If you like this video, please be sure to give it a thumbs up, let me know what you think down below as a comment, and of course be sure to subscribe for more great car and driving videos just like this one. That's all I have for you today—thanks for watching.
