car rental

Best Money Tips: Save Money on Your Next Car Rental

Amy Lu — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 08:00:14 +0000

Welcome to Wise Bread's Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found articles on ways to save money on car rentals, home swimming pool safety tips, and money mistakes to avoid in your 20s.

6 Types of Travel Insurance Credit Cards Include That You Didn't Know About

Jason Steele — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 10:30:31 +0000

The right travel credit card doesn't just get you free flights, status upgrades, or zero transaction fees when using it abroad. The best credit cards come with numerous forms of travel insurance that may offer financial assistance or reimbursement for all sorts of things that may happen while on a trip. Look for these benefits in the credit cards you use for your next trip. (See also: Best Travel Perks You Didn't Know Your Credit Card Has)

1. Auto Rental Insurance

Most major credit cards offer some form of automobile rental insurance, often called a collision damage waiver, which covers you in the event of theft or damage to your rented vehicle. Although these policies vary by credit card, they all require you to use your card to pay for the rental, and to decline any optional insurance offered by the rental car company. Some cards offer primary rental car insurance, so you don't have to first submit a claim to your personal vehicle insurer — which could cause your rates to go up.

2. Trip Cancellation And Trip Interruption Insurance

Some premium travel rewards credit cards have policies that provide compensation when your trip is canceled or interrupted, as long as you booked the trip with that card. It can reimburse you for nonrefundable trip expenses, such as change fees, when you experience a delay or cancellation for a covered reason, including illness, injury, or severe weather. Some cards offer up to $1,500 of coverage for trip cancellation or interruption due to death, accidental injury, illness, or default by the carrier due to financial insolvency. There are plenty of exclusions, so read the policy carefully.

3. Lost and Delayed Luggage Insurance

If you travel often, it's only a matter of time until your luggage is lost or delayed. But once again, the right credit card will come through in a pinch with lost or delayed luggage insurance, so long as you used your card to pay for your trip. You might get up to $500 of lost baggage coverage for checked bags and $1,250 for theft from your carry-on bags. This coverage is secondary, so you will first have to file a claim with the airline and sometimes your homeowner's insurance. But after you've gone those routes, the credit card coverage can fill the gaps.

4. Roadside Assistance

Many credit cards offer programs to help you if you have car trouble on the road. Services often include towing, flat tire changing, lockout service, and delivery of up to two gallons of fuel. Some cards offer these services at no cost. Many other credit cards offer referrals to these services, but you'll have to pay for the service — for example the tow truck — yourself. Though you might be able to find faster or cheaper service nearby, it's nice to have a roadside assistance number always handy, for times you aren't able to search for a local place.

5. Emergency Evacuation and Transportation

One of the most costly consequences of becoming injured or ill while traveling can be transportation back home when you are unable to get good care overseas or when you need to complete your recovery at home. Some credit cards cover these costs when you charge your trip to the card. Some cards offer $100,000 of transportation benefits if a doctor certifies that you need to be evacuated and the benefits administrator approves the claim in advance.

6. Travel Accident Insurance

Should the unthinkable happen, travel accident insurance will cover you and your loved ones in the event of loss of life, limb, sight, or hearing during a trip paid for with your card. This can be up to $250,000 worth of this coverage.

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This article is from Jason Steele of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Getting Your Travel Rewards on the Ground

Jason Steele — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 10:24:30 +0000

Airlines were among the first travel providers to offer loyalty programs for their frequent customers, and when we think of award travel, we usually mean frequent flyer miles. And while air travel is often the most expensive part of our vacations, hotels and rental cars can equal or exceed the cost of airfare in some instances. Besides, once you have earned an award flight, your next priority is to shave as many other expenses from your trip as possible. (See also: Best Travel Rewards Credit Cards)

Fortunately, hotel loyalty programs can offer outstanding value with few of the hassles of airline frequent flyer programs. In fact, many of the most popular programs offer award nights in any available standard room, with no blackout dates or capacity restrictions.

So how do get the most value from hotel and other programs?

Hotel Reward Programs

Let's start where the savings are greatest — your hotel.

1. Find the Right Program

My favorite hotel programs include Starwood, Hyatt, Wyndham, and Club Carlson, but each has its own unique strengths.

Starwood offers award nights at mid-tier properties for as little as 2,000 points a night, while you can book the most expensive Hyatt rooms (that can sell for over $1,000) for no more than 22,000 a night. Clubs Carlson offers its credit card holders one free night with every award stay.

It can also be a good idea to consider some budget chains that offer surprisingly upscale accommodations overseas. For example, Choice hotels are often found near highway exits in small towns, but they also offer some remarkable properties in Europe.

On the other hand, several hotel programs now require tens of thousands of points for even modest accommodations as a result of recent changes. Hilton is one program that made some of the largest changes, while I have never been able to extract much value from Marriott Rewards and IHG Priority Club.

2. Choose the Right Credit Card

My love affair with the Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express is well known, but there are several other great hotel credit cards.

Look for programs that offer free nights at sign up, bonus points for spending at certain categories of merchants, and elite status that will offer you room upgrades, free Internet, and even free breakfast. For instance, the Hyatt card from Chase offers new cardholders two free nights at any Hyatt property and immediately grants them Platinum status.

3. Book the Best Awards

Finding a hotel award is incredibly easy compared to searching for airline awards. Nevertheless, travelers should follow many of the same rules they live by when it comes to airline awards, such as looking for awards that offer the most value per point. For example, leverage programs with no blackout dates or capacity controls when you need a room during the peak season or a special event. Also, when traveling overseas to extremely expensive cities like Paris or Milan, hotel awards can offer the most value per points.

Rental Car Awards and Travel Activities

After airfare and hotels, renting a car can be the largest expense of your trip.

Although some frequent flyer programs will allow you to use their miles for rental car awards, I have never found more than a puny one cent per mile in value from these offers. So for these expenses, I try to use points from bank rewards programs.

Capital One's Venture Rewards card offers double miles on all purchases that are worth one cent each towards any travel expenses such as rental cars.
Chase's Ultimate Rewards points can be used to book rental cars and activities, and holders of the Sapphire Preferred card receive a reasonable 1.25 cents in value per point.
Likewise, Citi's ThankYou Rewards program also offers points that are worth one cent each towards rental cars and activities. In fact, the Chase Ultimate Rewards program and the Citi ThankYou program both use the same travel provider.

Using these programs, I have also found valuable rewards such as airport transfers, adventure sports activities, and scenic tours.

Putting It All Together

On a recent family vacation, we tried to see how far we could go on points and miles alone, spending as little cash as possible. First, we transferred 80,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points each to United Airlines and booked three first class tickets from Denver to the island of Maui in Hawai'i. Then, we booked seven nights at the fantastic Hyatt Maui, which normally costs 22,000 points per night. Next, I used my Citi ThankYou points to rent a car, visit an aquarium, and even take my daughter on a submarine ride.

Of course, we still needed to pay for our gas, food, and some of our activities, which was more expensive than staying home. Yet considering that we made over $10,000 worth of travel reservations, and spent less than $1,000 in cash, there is no denying that getting serious about award travel is seriously rewarding.

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This article is from Jason Steele of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

12 Things That Will Be Less Expensive in 2012

Dealnews — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:48:17 +0000

Does the sagging economy, national debt, and our previous list of the 11 things that will be more expensive in 2012 have ya feeling down? Well, here's something to look forward to — to help counteract some of that 2012 gloom, we've gathered 12 items we predict will cost less in the coming year. From TVs to laptops, cash-strapped shoppers should keep an eye on prices for these items; even wine might see notable discounts next year! So cheer up and read on for the good consumer news. (See also: Deep Discounts on Schedule: The Best Days to Shop)

1. Apple iPad 2

The iPad 3 will not feature a significant price drop (if any at all), but one thing is guaranteed — Cupertino's forthcoming tablet will most certainly bring down the price of refurbished iPad 2s. (As the iPad 2 did for its predecessor.) The iPad 3 may even cause resellers to offer more deals on new iPad 2 models as they try to move yesterday's tech to make room for Apple's latest and greatest.

2. Wine

Oenophiles, perk up! Wine connoisseur extraordinaire, Robert Parker, predicts the coming year to be the "Age of the Buyer" — a prolonged period of time with stable or declining wine prices. With less disposable income, folks have left wines priced at $30 and above untouched on store shelves. So to move stock, retailers are expected to offer more sales and even flash deals on wines. Price is also affected by industry competition, as consumers note the quality-to-price ratio from wines originating in countries like Australia, Argentina, South Africa, and Chile. Aficionados should check out sites like Lot 18 for their boozy offerings.

3. Desktop Replacement Laptops

Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs may be dominating the laptop landscape, but it's AMD's recession-friendly Fusion APUs that are driving prices down, particularly in the realm of desktop replacements. The star of the show is AMD's A Series APU, which promises better battery life, better video playback, and more affordable prices among desktop replacements. Just last week we saw systems plummet to $350, an unprecedented price low for any desktop replacement.

4. Android Tablets

The Kindle Fire has been Amazon's most successful product ever launched. The release of this groundbreaking tablet has, a-hem, ignited a fire among tablet manufacturers as they scramble to match Amazon's $199 price tag. For consumers, the competition translates to better tablet bargains in 2012.

5. Solid State Drives (SSDs)

The floods that hit Thailand in 2011 created a shortage of hard drives and a subsequent spike in prices. Solid state drives, however, were not affected by the flooding and while their cost per gigabyte is still higher than that of a traditional hard drive, their demand is now greater. In addition, dealnews data shows that SSD prices are steadily dropping; in 2011 the price of a 64GB SSD drive dropped 33% while the price of a 128GB drive dropped 21% — a trend that we expect will continue in 2012 as more SSDs permeate the market in place of 2.5" hard drives.

6. Car Rentals

Gas and airfare may be going up in 2012, but car rental rates are expected to remain flat, as agencies across the country reportedly have excess cars available. More stock and subsequent competition is thus expected to keep rental rates low throughout the new year, and we anticipate to see an increase in the number of discounts on car and SUV rentals.

7. eBook Readers

Each new generation of Amazon's Kindle reader has chipped away at the eBook reader's price tag, sometimes by as much as 61%. Assuming there's a new Kindle in 2012 (rumor has it that an e-Ink update with video support will debut), we expect to see continued price cuts on Amazon's popular eBook reader, sending MacBook Air dropped from $849 to $699 (17%). Not bad for a notebook that's single-handedly changing the laptop industry. Apple is bound to refresh its MacBook Air in 2012, and the new model (which would be the 6th generation) is guaranteed to drive refurb prices down even lower. Don't care for a refurb unit? In 2011 we also saw aggressive deals on new, current 5th generation MacBook Airs with prices dropping from $999 to $850 (14%).

9. Standalone GPS Units With Lifetime Maps

The smarter our phones get, the greater the number of gadgets they're capable of replacing. And no gadget is as close to extinction as the GPS unit. So it comes as no surprise to see manufacturers slash prices on standalone GPS units with lifetime / live maps. dealnews data shows that in 2011, units that were once fetching around $160 reached price-lows of just $70.

10. Media Streamers

We love Roku, but when Blu-ray players with built-in streaming start to cost less than the price of a Roku box, it's time for the latter to get aggressive. In order to remain relevant in 2012, media streamers (such as the Roku player and Boxee Box) must out-price Blu-ray players. We anticipate seeing more deals and lower prices on these electronics.

11. 3D HDTVs

3D HDTVs are a tough sell. Not only are they pricier than traditional CCFL-based LCDs and standalone LED-based sets, but they also require a bigger investment as you'll have to purchase 3D glasses, a 3D Blu-ray player, and 3D Blu-ray discs to get the most from your 3D TV. In 2011, we saw prices for 55" 3D televisions drop 33% from $1,499 in January to $999 in December. The new year will bring an influx of new 3D TVs, which means vendors will try to combat lagging sales with discounts on 2011 3D HDTV models.

12. Home Prices

Despite record-low mortgage interest rates, United States home prices are expected to limp their way into the coming year. In 2011, average home prices across the country were down 3.4% (compared to the same period of August to October, 2010). And with unemployment expected to remain high, 2012 is looking like it will remain a buyer's market.

Excited for these less-expensive items next year? Start preparing by setting up a dealnews email alert now, so you'll receive a message as soon as we see a discount on the category or specific product of your choice. While we can't help you find a better price on a home, we can certainly point you toward cheaper electronics and other online goods.

This is a guest post by Dealnews.

From electronics to wine to even rental cars, savings-minded shoppers should keep an eye on prices for these items in 2012.

This article is from Dealnews of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

How to Travel in Style...For Free

Nora Dunn — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:12:37 +0000

Next time you book a hotel room, how would you like to stay in the presidential suite? Or drive that sleek convertible down the coast with the sun smiling down at you?

And of course, how would you like it all for the cost of the most basic economy option? All you have to do is ask. (See also: Negotiate All Your Travel: The Ultimate Guide)

Free Car Rental Upgrades

When you are renting a car, and they ask you if you want to pay an extra $20/day for the upgraded fancier version, say no. Then turn around and ask if they have any free upgrades available. Not only will they take the request in stride, but oftentimes they'll actually produce some amazing results.

I recently reserved the smallest, cheapest car I could find. When I was at the counter, I did exactly what I outlined above. Without batting an eyelash, the woman checked to see what they have in stock, and for the same price as my cheap crappy compact car, she gave me a beautiful convertible Solara, with free gas to boot.

The secret: Car rental agencies have a certain number of free upgrades available to give to customers…who ask. They won't advertise this little secret (because everybody will ask — duh!), but trust me — it works.

Free Hotel Upgrades

The premise above for car rental upgrades also applies to hotel upgrades. All you have to do is ask if they have any free upgrades available. At worst they will snigger and say no. Oops — nothing except possibly a little blush on your cheeks to show for it. At best, you will be relaxing in your king-sized hot tub in your full suite upgrade…for free.

If you are checking in (especially later in the day), the hotel already has an idea of how many suites are booked. Larger suites are usually pre-booked in advance, so if the room is available, they may well upgrade you. It shows well for the hotel (hey, if you got a free upgrade, you'd be talking the hotel up too!), and it doesn't reflect any additional cost to them. They may say that you can't have access to the mini-bar, or that the fruit bowl won't be forthcoming, but since it's a gratis upgrade, I don't tend to complain.

First Class Airline Upgrades

Heck, it even works with airline seats. Sidle up to the boarding gate agent when the time is right (not when the flight is boarding, please!), and after simply asking, you too may be relaxing with three times the leg room of economy class…for free. I can attest to this too — I've successfully been upgraded before.

So now that you are flying, driving, and sleeping in style, may your next trip be an epic one. Ask, and you just may receive.

This article is from Nora Dunn of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

car rental

Best Money Tips: Save Money on Your Next Car Rental

Top 5 Articles

Other Essential Reading

6 Types of Travel Insurance Credit Cards Include That You Didn't Know About

1. Auto Rental Insurance

2. Trip Cancellation And Trip Interruption Insurance

3. Lost and Delayed Luggage Insurance

4. Roadside Assistance

5. Emergency Evacuation and Transportation

6. Travel Accident Insurance

Like this article? Pin it!

Getting Your Travel Rewards on the Ground

Hotel Reward Programs

Rental Car Awards and Travel Activities

Putting It All Together

Like this article? Pin it!

12 Things That Will Be Less Expensive in 2012

1. Apple iPad 2

2. Wine

3. Desktop Replacement Laptops

4. Android Tablets

5. Solid State Drives (SSDs)

6. Car Rentals

7. eBook Readers

9. Standalone GPS Units With Lifetime Maps

10. Media Streamers

11. 3D HDTVs

12. Home Prices

How to Travel in Style...For Free

Free Car Rental Upgrades

Free Hotel Upgrades

First Class Airline Upgrades