If I say Costco, what comes to mind? You probably thought about purchasing large bags of chips, family size boxes of cereal, mammoth containers of ketchup and $1.50 hot dogs.
What probably did not come to mind is Costco Travel. Through Costco Travel you can find deals on cruises, travel packages, book airline tickets and hotels. The other thing that you can do is rent a car.
When trying to book items, such as rental cars I think it is always best to have as many tools in the tool box to get the best possible deal. So, let’s dive in on 12 tips pertaining to renting cars through Costco Travel.
1. Need Costco Membership to use Costco Travel
If you want to try to rent a car through Costco the primary driver must have a membership with them. Other people who are authorized drivers do not need to be a Costco member to drive.
Costco has two membership levels. The Gold membership cost $60 and the Executive membership costs $120.
Executive membership’s earn 2% on any travel through Costco.
2. Book online or call
The fastest and easiest way to book a rental car through Costco is on the Costco Travel site. You will need to set up a travel account since it is not the same as the main site.
You don’t need to be a member or have an account set up to check the prices of rental cars on Costco’s Travel site.
To book a rental all you need to do is call 866-921-7925 and speak to a representative.
3. Costco works with Four Different Rental Car Companies
Costco does not have their own fleet of rental cars but they have partnerships with four different rental car companies. The companies include: Enterprise, Alamo, Budget and Avis.
The four companies that they work with are very reputable but since they are limited to four companies they may not always be the cheapest way to go.
4. Easily compare prices on Costco’s site
When you go to Costco’s Travel site, you will need to click on rental cars and you get the following page below.
You need to complete the form putting in your pick-up and drop off locations, dates and times.
The example below is for Seattle-Tacoma International airport. Picking the car up on a Tuesday and dropping it off the following Tuesday.
Once you click on find my car, it will take you to the following page. There are many more cars available than what is being shown.
As you can see, it shows you all four of the rental car companies and the prices for each of the different types of cars. So, it is easy to see what car and price that you want to go with.
What is also nice about the price that you are being shown, is that it includes taxes and fees. It is the price that you are going to pay.
If you don’t want to rent at the airport or if you want to see what rental prices are in the city that you are in, it is easy to do.
Instead of picking the airport, you can just pick the city that you are at along with all of the other information as before.
When you click find my car, it will take you to a page with all the available rental car companies in the city you are at. You can select any four rental car locations to see the cost at each by clicking on the plus sign on the far right.
They list the rental car locations by order from closest to the city center and further out.
Once you select the four that you want to compare, you will select “continue” at the top of the page. It will then take you to a page showing each location and the prices for the different types of cars.
5. Lowest or Competitive Prices
Costco is not always going to be the lowest price but many times they are going to be the lowest or near the lowest.
As I mentioned before, having Costco as an option is another tool in your tool belt in trying to find the best price for a rental.
On our last family vacation, we rented the vehicles through Costco. They had the lowest price for the cars that we wanted.
6. Loyalty Programs Work through Costco’s site
Most of the time when you don’t book through a company’s site, you are not going to be able to get points for your stay, flight or rental if you belong to the company’s loyalty program. This is not the case when booking through Costco Travel.
Enterprise, Avis and Budget have loyalty programs and you can enter your loyalty number before you checkout to receive the loyalty points.
7. Can rent cars places other than the United States
Besides renting cars in the United States, which also includes Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, you can also rent vehicles in the following places:
- France
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- Spain
- Canada
- Germany
8. Don’t have to prepay
When renting a car through Costco, you don’t have to give any credit card information when you reserve a car. You will pay for the car at the counter when you pick it up.
I like this feature because the less I have to give out my credit card information the better.
9. Can rent car if under 25 but for a fee
You can rent a car with Costco if you are under 25 years of age. You will have to pay a small fee per day to do so. People still receive the Costco discount for the rental no matter what your age is.
You must call 866-921-7925 and select option 1 to reserve a car if you are under 25.
10. Free Additional Drivers
When renting a car through Costco, it can save you money if you need an additional driver added to your booking since Costco does not charge for an additional driver.
Enterprise and Alamo don’t charge for an additional driver in the US, Canada, UK, Spain, Ireland, Germany and France.
Avis and Budget don’t charge for an additional driver in the US.
Additional drivers must be present at the counter with the primary driver. They must meet all of the rental requirements along with having a valid driver’s license and a credit card in their name. They don’t need to be members of Costco.
Alamo, Enterprise, Budget and Avis don’t charge for an additional driver if the person is a spouse or partner of the primary driver. So, what that means is that you can add a third person to drive at no cost if one of the people is a spouse or partner.
We did that on a family trip. We had two SUVs and each primary had their spouse added along with one other person from the other couple in the car.
It made it nice when people wanted to go somewhere. A person that was an authorized driver would have had to go along with them, otherwise.
11. Easily Cancel or Change Booking Online
One nice feature of Costco is the fact that you can cancel or change your reservation easily online at no cost.
The one nice aspect to this is that you can book a car and keep checking back to see if the price has dropped. If it has then you can book the car at the new price then cancel the previous car.
To cancel a reservation online you can follow these steps.
- Log into your Costco Travel account
- Select the booking you want to cancel
- Near the top click on “Cancel”
- Click the “yes” button when the pop up asks to confirm the cancellation
- An email will be sent to you about confirmation of cancellation
To change a booking online
- Book a new vehicle
- Cancel the old vehicle
12. Have a wide selection of vehicles to choose from
Costco in 2021 expanded the number of different types of cars that people can rent. At the time of this writing, Costco has 25 different varieties of cars to choose from.
Some of the different categories you can choose from include:
- Compact Cars
- Sports Cars
- Standard SUV
- Mini Vans
- Full Sized Vans
- Luxury SUV
- Convertible Cars
- Electric Cars
Final Thoughts
I personally like to have Costco as an option to have when looking for a rental car. They have many nice features that can save you money, such as no extra driver fees and discounted prices.
There are times when they are going to be the cheapest and if not they are going to be competitive. So, the next time that you are planning a trip and you are in need of a rental car, you will want to checkout Costco Travel to see what they are offering.