Rent or Take: Carseats and Travel

Posted on 05 21, 2009 under Money by schneidermike | View Comments

Last weekend we took a quick trip to Omaha to see my folks and grandparents. My wife did all of the planning including the the car rental. She rocks. You should be so lucky to have someone plan entire trips for you.  She asked the car rental company, Hertz, if they would provided a booster seat.  They said, no problem.  In my mind, booster seats and child seats in rental cars are as important as safety belts.  I feel like they should be provided as a courtesy to a customer.  I appreciate the fact that they need to pay for, maintain and clean them though and so this time we figured I would save ourselves some hassle and trying renting a booster seat.  

Bad idea.  Hertz charged us ten dollars… PER DAY! I could practically have bought a friggin booster seat for that.  So here is what I suggest.

 

Unless you're the Kaiser of Utah or have a trust fund,  I suggest bringing car seats along if you are staying for more than a day or so.  If you just have too much to bring with you, have a relative pick one up and meet you at the airport or rental care company with the car seat.  

 

 

 

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  • rupertz
    Interesting, we just travelled and rented with Budget. No few for a car seat for our 3 year old and a booster for our 5 year old...try Budget I guess?
  • ds
    Good post, it never would have occurred to me that car companies would take advantage of a necessary safety feature for infants and toddlers. I wonder what each rental companies policy is on car seats. At many airports they have 3-5 different companies to choose from. Before having a kid I would\'ve made my decision based on which one has the most bad-ass vehicle available. Now, if one of them provided complimentary (or the cheapest) car seat I\'d go with them.
  • hb
    Same damn thing this past weekend with Hertz, but we have twins! Not to mention that one of them was broken (car seat, not twin), and the other one dirty (car seat and twin). On my way to buy 2 new seats.
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