It seems I've been going to the Albany International Airport a lot these past couple weeks, for Make A Wish meet/greets and also to hang out with friends from out of town.
On one of the last visits I was there, I stopped into the Enterprise rental car business because I was wondering what their policy was on credit cards. The last time I rented a car, it was unfortunately because my other car was totaled, they needed a credit card to secure the car. My only problem: I don't have a credit card.
Well, I'm not sure I'd consider that a problem. I consider it a good thing that I am not sinking further into debt. I already have enough of that with my student and car loans, thank you very much.
So, when I rented from Enterprise in Troy they required that I bring in a pay stub and my National Grid bill to show that I had an income and paid my bills. Luckily, I have a lot of random things in my car and so I was able to produce these things.
One of my co-workers was recently asking me about rental cars because she is planning a road trip to Utah/Nevada. Actually, her vacation starts this weekend. I'm very, very jealous. But, I guess she had the same dilemma as me in the lackage of a credit card.
As it turns out, Enterprise at the airport does rent cars as long as you show your return ticket. My guess is it that proves you will not steal the car? And they assumed the same policy would apply for my trip to Northern Ireland, though they recommended calling the company.When I looked online, it did say you could use a debit card too.
I have yet to call them but while reading the New York Times today I saw an article that suggested using Autoslash.com to rent cars since they (like kayak or priceline) compare prices with many rental car companies like Hertz or Europcar, find coupons and then even apply the coupons after booking the car.
I went to their site and I did find better deals than I was expecting. Then, I looked at the fine on-screen print and noticed the cheap prices were only for manual cars.
Now I'm debating learning to drive standard (since the last time I did was for an East coast road trip several years ago where I only really drove on the highways and referred to my friend to drive in heavy traffic), maybe in this process I'll get a credit card too. We'll see.