Of all the things I need to spend money on when I travel, a rental car is at the bottom of my list.  I just want something that I can rely on to get me to the places I want to visit.  I’ve found that I can usually do a quick search with Expedia and find a car rental in most cities for about $20 a day.  At those rates, I don’t give a car rental a second thought.

I wish I could say the same for renting a car in Florida.  For some reason, Florida car rates are in a league of their own – Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando all run between $50-70 a day.  With these rates you might find yourself staring at the screen saying, this can’t be right!

Fortunately, these prices are merely a wish list for the rental agencies and there are ways to avoid paying the astronomical prices with a few extra minutes of searching. This is what I’ve learned from my travels to Florida — don’t rent without first combing the web for car rental discount codes.  When I rented a car in Ft. Meyers, FL a few months ago, Googling “car rental discount codes” instantly saved me $60 off a 3 day car rental. 

MouseSavers.com is an invaluable site to check for discount codes and worth adding to your favorite sites. I know someone who booked an upcoming trip to Orlando and saved over $200 off a 7 day car rental by using a discount code found on this site.  Although MouseSavers focuses on the Orlando area, some of their rental codes may work in other cities as well, so give it a try. MouseSavers.com also has some great car rental tips worth reading as well.

Some of their best tips:

• When booking online, always print out  & bring your booking confirmation with rental rate (the same applies for hotel bookings)
• CostCo or Sam’s Club offer car rental discounts to their members
• sometimes a 5 or 7 day rental can be cheaper than a 4 day rental

Just think of the fun things you can do with the money you saved!

Related link: MouseSavers