by Ryan Embly – A lot of travelers will spend hours trying to find airfare and accommodation deals but they wont spend any time looking for a car rental. Prices can vary greatly when renting a car. It’s going to be expensive if you arrive at your destination and choose the first car rental agency you see. A lot of travelers are under the false impression that rental prices are the same from every company, but this is not the case. Shopping around is important. There are other tips and tricks for saving money on car rentals and we’ve included them below.

Be Careful of Extra Insurance

You obviously need your basic car insurance when you rent a car but be careful of all the extra insurance fees you’ll be offered. Many of them are irrelevant for your needs.

If you’re a poor driver, you might want to pick up some of these extras but otherwise they may just be costing you a lot of money.

Some credit cards will cover your collision costs if you book the rental with their credit card. Check with your card company and see if this applies to you – it could save you money on your insurance.

Make sure you also do a very thorough inspection of the rental car before you take it out and make sure the person working for the company writes down any chips or dings that you spot.

Go With a Small Car

This is a simple one that most people don’t seem to try.
A smaller car is almost always cheaper… it’s cheaper to rent and cheaper to fill up with gas. Plus a lot of agencies wont carry many smaller cars so you’ll often get free upgrades.

You’re on vacation to relax and have fun, not to impress your neighbors with your big car. If you pack light you’ll have less stuff to carry in and out of hotels too!

Avoid the Airport Fees

Showing up and having a car ready for you at the airport is very convenient. The only problem is that it is also very expensive so avoid the limo service and rent a car in advance of arriving. If you have to cab or bus a few minutes to the car rental agency don’t fret because you’ll likely be saving a lot of money.

Do Your Research

There are lots of car rental agencies and website around. Spend some time online looking for the best deals and discounts.

Take all the knowledge and searching skills you’ve acquired from booking flights and hotels and use that to help you find a great deal on a car rental.

This post was written by Ryan Embly from the car rental comparison website Car Rental Express. The website has lots of tips and useful car rental coupons for all your travel needs.

The ailing economy has had some positive effects on travelers recently. Namely, there have been some excellent deals on flights and hotels.

The same can not be said for the rental car industry however. Rental car prices have recently been higher than ever, and when you stop to think about it, it can all be explained by simple supply and demand economics.

Consider hotels. Hotels are fixed in supply. Once they are built, they have the exact same number of rooms available to travelers every night. In the recession, demand has fallen. So, if you recall your economics lessons, if supply is steady and demand falls, the price must also fall. This is evident in some of the great hotel prices we have seen recently.

Now consider how a rental car company operates. Their fleet of rental cars is very easy to manipulate.
They can either buy or sell cars to increase or decrease their supply of cars available for rental. This is what has been happening across the board among all major car rental companies recently. Large numbers of cars have been sold off resulting in fewer cars being available for rental. Analysts estimate that the total rental car fleet in the United States has decreased from 2 million cars 10 years ago to around 1.5 million cars today. The result is lower supply, and apparently demand for rental cars hasn’t fallen enough to offset the decline in supply, resulting in higher prices for rental cars.

With rising rental car prices prevailing, it is imperative that you search out good deals and coupon codes online to be sure you don’t overpay for your rental car.