As any frequent traveler knows, rental cars kinda suck. Picking them up is often a hassle, followed by the tricky tango to make sure you don’t get hit with any extra fees or unnecessary “upgrade” charges, and then you may end up having to pay a pricey parking fee at your hotel on top of it as well.
As such, most of the times when I travel, I try to avoid getting a rental car if at all possible and use public transit, ridesharing and taxis instead. Sometimes, though, it just can’t be avoided —like when you want to do day trips that are outside of a city center, as we did on last year’s Hawaii trip, where we spent the majority of our time at our beachfront resort but also spent one afternoon driving the Road to Hana.
Luckily, there’s yet another option called Car2Go. Car2Go has been around for several years now, and you’ve undoubtedly seen the compact white and blue smart cars (and their primo parking spots) around many US cities.
Once a member of the service, you can use a Smartphone app to “unlock” any nearby car, choose your rental period, and then enter a 4-digit pin on the car’s digital console in order to get the key and begin driving. You can choose to rent the car by the minute (at $0.41 cents/minute), hour ($14.99/hour) or day ($84.99/day). Car2Go covers gas, insurance, and parking associated with city meters and/or their designated private spots.
Up until now, though, we had never signed up — the $35 one-time membership fee, combined with no immediate needs for the service had dissuaded us. But right now, the service is waiving the sign-up fee, making it completely free to join. Just use code C2G15 at checkout, and they’ll remove the sign-up fee and also throw in your first 15 minutes free.
Considering that there are no monthly or annual fees associated with being a member, this is a great thing to do now, just as a back-up plan if you ever need it. With service available across much of the US, Canada, and Western Europe, it’s nice to know you can quickly and easily take advantage if you ever needed to.
Also, just as an fyi – I don’t get any sort of referral or kickback for this post, or if you use the above promo code. Just sharing the code for others’ benefit. So enjoy! And don’t forget to tell us about your Car2Go experiences in the comments.
Photo courtesy of Car2Go.
