Living in and around cities is pretty common for most of us. We all naturally like when we can get all the things we need to live and work as easily as possible, and the Bay Area is great for that! But it can be pretty frustrating when, for whatever reason, those nearby resources aren’t accessible. If you’re in a new city scouting apartments, working out of a different office branch for a while, or maybe waiting on your own car’s repairs, you might need to rent a car. Before you put your name on the line and drive off the lot with the first set of keys you can get, you can save on rental cars in Bay Area with a longer rental period.

Rental Cost per Day

You will notice pretty quickly at the rental counter that your rental rates will decrease on longer rental periods. Rental agencies often have daily rates, weekly rates, or monthly rates to offer you. When you are looking at rental cars in the Bay Area, it pays to do the math on how long you really need the car. If you’re in town for just six days, it might pay off to book the full week rental to save. If you’re in town for three weeks, it might end up saving you money to rent for the full monthly rate. Any dealer is unlikely complain that you returned the vehicle a bit early.

These savings could be even more advantageous for anyone in town on business with a limited travel budget from the office. Those savings can let you stretch your budget further. If your company makes use of rental cars in the Bay Area many times per year, consider working with a rental agency on a corporate level. It’s possible that they might reach a deal to secure a full year lease of the vehicle so that your staff will always have use of the company car at a moment’s notice to avoid future hassle.

Ease and Convenience

Too often, people look at the dollars and cents of a transaction and act as if that is the only thing that matters. Obviously, we can’t conduct business without those dollars and cents, but there is inherent value in time and effort as well. For example, if you’re using rental cars in the Bay Area for a month but only need a vehicle two or three times per week, you might end up saving money on the bottom line for just renting a vehicle for those couple of days. But what’s missed is all of the time it costs to perform those transactions. You need to arrange for a pickup to get you to the rental agency during the morning rush, then perform all of the paperwork to check it out, drive off with an unfamiliar vehicle, then be sure to return it with a full tank of gas. Then repeat these same steps again each week and drive off with a different car. If you’re on company time, each time you have to do this involves more expense reporting from you that your office accountants have to fully process. At the end of the day, it could turn out that it would have been cheaper and easier to rent the car for the full month instead.

Talk to your rental agent about rental cars in the Bay Area and possible savings. Make sure you keep the math in mind! Contact us for more details.