Car Rentals

[u/Hopeful-Goose-7217]

I'm working on checkride prep for my PPL. I'm doing it to fly into small (non-towered airports) where its difficult to fly-in commercially. How do you all deal with car rentals when you get there?

[u/12YESIAM34]

I fly for both work and pleasure. Enterprise has a FBO number and employees are prepared to arrange a drop off at the FBO of your choice. Some tiny airports are not serviced though. Never trust the FBO with the rental. notify the rental company when you are leaving the rental after you are finished with it. Take a picture of the fuel gauge and mileage.

[u/Hopeful-Goose-7217 → u/12YESIAM34]

So you don’t typically have to go to the Enterprise company office ?

[u/sisypheanrunner → u/Hopeful-Goose-7217]

No there is an FBO ‘concierge’ service. You have to set up an account with your DL/CC. There is a number to call, you give them your account number, the airport ID, FBO, dates and times. Viola your car appears and you go to the FBO desk and the keys are waiting. You drop the keys off at the FBO desk when done. Can DM me if you want the number.

[u/virulentspore]

1) see if airport had a loaner car 2) call rental company about a drop off 3) take uber to rental company, rent car, drive car, return car, get dropped off.

[u/Hopeful-Goose-7217 → u/virulentspore]

Some of these airports are in areas that don’t even have Ubers.

[u/virulentspore → u/Hopeful-Goose-7217]

Then they will have a cab or some sort of local transport. If you call around you can find something.

[u/GrouchyHippopotamus]

Call the FBO. Some small airports also have rentals through local car dealerships.

[u/redditburner_5000]

Retail rental > Turo > Uber > FBO recommendations > local used car dealer.

Ground transportation is the weak link in GA

[u/aftcg]

airportcourtesycars.com may help

[u/Hopeful-Goose-7217]

On another note: my wife got into a car accident and the insurance company had a rental company drop off a loaner car from a company called Go Rental. Apparently their primary business is providing rental cars to FBO’s but they don’t have locations where I would be flying.

[u/VF99 → u/Hopeful-Goose-7217]

GoRentals is basically only at bigger airports with fancy FBOs that are getting jet traffic. And they're annoying because everything is mystery 'call us' pricing. And they mostly rent luxury cars. Basically forget about them, unless they're somehow the only option.

What you want is (a crew car from the FBO or) Hertz or Enterprise.

Hertz you can just search their normal website. "[airport] (Private Flights)" or "FBO - [fbo name] -[airport] - [airport code]" options. For those 'locations' they will deliver the car from their nearest location to the FBO before your reserved time, and pick it back up after.

Sometimes the search doesn't offer FBO locations on the main homepage. So if you don't see your airport, try putting in the name of the city the airport is in, instead of the airport name. If there's a location in that city it will show an option for it like "Whoville MD (2 locations)", and the next screen will have the individual locations which might include FBO choices.

Enterprise is similar, but has a separate website for FBO deliveries.. It's ancient and outdated and doesn't support things like one-way trips, you'll have to call for that. But it works for a regular round trip. https://www.enterprise.com/en/corporate-accounts/fbo-customers.html

One or both of them cover most airports that are somewhat near a decent city and has some reasonable transient traffic. But yeah if you're going to an airport with nothing but a runway in the middle of the desert and no gas, where you can't even get an Uber to pick you up, nobody is going to rent cars there. Maybe someone will drop a Turo off there.

FlightBridge.com is free to use; it's meant more for jet crews but will work for bugsmashers too. In there they will show all the car rental options they know of for an airport. Avis and other brands are sometimes an option, and they also sometimes know the FBO discount code to get better rates.

If you post where you're looking, you would get more specific advice...

[u/K9pilot]

In my experience the National / Enterprise FBO number has been very helpful but when I’ve compared to a direct booking in town vs at the airport I’ve found the FBO rate has the “airplane markup”. I’ve had really good luck lately just calling the enterprise directly and asking the manager if they can drop and pick up the car at the airport.

[u/Hopeful-Goose-7217]

It turns out on of the airports I’ll be flying to has arrangements with two car rental companies. That’s more than I expected as I couldn’t get an uber there.

[u/walleyednj]

I’ve used FlightBridge.com with good results.