Jaunted

Rental Cars / Cars / SEA / Airports / Airport News / Seattle Travel / → All Tags

Seattle Cuts the Ribbon on One Slick and Sexy Car Rental Facility

Go ahead and call us picky, but one of our travel pet peeves is landing at a beautiful airport and then suffering through a horrible shuttle ride over to an outdated and poorly lit rental car lot. We’re big fans of oversized rental car facilities where we can walk, bus, or train it over to our rental, so that’s why we’re pumped to hear about the plan over at Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle.

Costing around $400 million buckaroos, the new place takes up like 23 acres or so of space, and there’s plenty of room for rental everything, from big SUVs down to Chevy Aveos. It’s even freeing up around 3,000 parking spaces from other spots in and around the airport, so that’s a positive for those who arrive at the airport the old fashioned way—by taking their car. The new rental car palace has room for over 5,000 cars, and the plan is that it can process as many as 14,000 cars during a single day. We just wonder how it’s going to hold up during its first Memorial Day weekend.

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Rental Cars / Cars / Road Trips / → All Tags

Chevy Finally Decides to Upgrade Its Rental Car Favorite

When public transportation isn’t really an option we’re always eager to head over to the rental car counter to see what we scored. Thankfully some perennial disappointments like the PT Cruiser and HHR have faded off into the sunset, but there is still one clunker that is always considered a bummer—the Chevy Impala. However, that won’t be the case for long, as it looks like the kind folks over at General Motors are finally giving the full sized sedan a long overdue update and upgrade.

The Chevy Impala has been a stalwart option in rental cars but for those looking to zip and zag around new roads and through new towns it’s always been a major buzz kill. Thankfully the car is due for a total renovation, as the 2014 Chevy Impala might just be something you'd want to take for a spin.

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Rental Cars / Bill Diffenderffer / SkyBus / SilverCar / → All Tags

SkyBus' Former CEO is Back in Business...Running Rental Cars

We’re all about awesome rental cars, so we’re especially intrigued about a new rental car company that’s poised to hit the scene sooner rather than later. Of course we’re excited to see what kind of awesome wheels will be available to the masses, but we’re also kind of pumped to hear about the company’s management team. Usually we couldn’t care less, but this time is different as the former CEO of SkyBus is apparently behind the new venture.

SilverCar is an Austin—of course—based start-up rental car company, and according to government paperwork they’ve already raised around $3 million bucks towards their hopes and dreams. The website for the new idea is still lacking, but it does look like they’re describing the endeavor as “a technology company that will make renting a luxury car as simple as pushing a button on your phone.” We love luxury cars and pushing buttons on our phones, so we’re pretty much sold.

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Travel Deals / Rental Cars / Cars / Arizona Travel / Road Trips / Hertz / Budget / Avis / → All Tags

Grab $5 One-Way Rental Cars from Arizona While the Deal is On

There’s already a few rental car deals kicking around the Sunshine State—we’re still waiting to hear from Hertz—but it looks like it’s also the season to depart Arizona as well. The rental car companies are slowly but surely releasing deals here and there. So if you’ve always wanted to go on a road trip across the Southwest now is the time to do it. There’s probably a one-way rental car deal to meet you budget and needs, and this is especially true if you’re able to swing $5 per day.

Hertz is leading the pack when it comes to these rental car drive out deals. The rental car company is offering rental cars for as low as $5 per day as long as you’re willing to pick up your car in Arizona and then return it somewhere else. There’s unlimited mileage, no drop off fees, and plenty of places to pick up and return your car. Return options include states like California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Texas. The deals are available now thanks to rate code DRV5—for economy and compact cars—but you have to travel between April 4 and June 30. The deal is good for like 14 days, so just make sure your road trip doesn’t take too long.

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Rental Cars / Cars / Driving / Car Sharing / Wheelz / → All Tags

What is 'Wheelz?' Just a Car Sharing Program Primed to Take Over the World

We’ve mentioned the new trend of peer-to-peer car rental before, as companies look to rent out your own car to other drivers instead of relying on gobbling up oodles and oodles of their own PT Cruisers and related rental relics. It looks like Wheelz is one of the latest rental car shares to hit the scene, and they just might be the big thing. It doesn’t hurt things either that they just got quite a little cash infusion from the rental car pioneers over at ZipCar.

Wheelz does its thing by hooking up people who need some wheels with folks who aren’t using their wheels. That means you might just be taking out your neighbor’s car for a spin. The premise is simple, and they even have a cute little animation to explain things to you. Basically Wheelz installs a little bit of travel technology within your car—free of charge—and then you’re ready to rent it out.

Rentals are covered with 24/7 tech support and there’s also a million bucks in insurance coverage—just in case. The Wheelz app can help you pinpoint a car, book it, and pick it up. Rates start around $50 or $60 per day depending on what you choose, so it's pretty darn affordable.

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Travel Deals / Rental Cars / Cars / Florida Travel / Road Trips / Hertz / Avis / Alamo / National Car Rental / → All Tags

The Mega Rental Car Deal Returns: Cheap Rentals Out of Florida

Each and every year the rental car companies call upon intrepid road trippers to help them out, as they have just too many darn cars hanging out in the Sunshine State. Start planning where to go and when to travel, as one-way rental cars heading out of Florida can be had for a steal.

Hertz is leading the rental car convoy this year, and they’re doing it with the $5 per day deal. There’s really no catch, as all you have to do is promise to rent a car in Florida and return it to another state. Book now and do your thing on the open road between April 24 and June 12, and you should be all set. The code you need to use is "DRV5,” but if you click right here you should land right at the booking page.

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Rental Cars / Travel News / Travel Hell / Bad Ideas / → All Tags

The Stupidest Rental Car Story You May Hear This Year

This is not her car, but still WTF

We often wonder if one week will ever pass in which there’s just not some totally obscure travel story. This week isn’t going to be it, as we’ve already found the winner for a huge "WTF."

A Houston woman was doing her best to navigate her rental car towards a hotel room for the night when she veered off the road and got the car stuck in a drainage pond in Idaho. However, instead of getting out of the car and making her way to safety, she just decided to hunker down and wait for help in the car. For like three days. We’re thinking she must have really liked her rental car, and maybe she scored some kind of sweet upgrade.

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Car Sharing / Cars / Rental Cars / Miami Travel / Herz On Demand / Hertz / → All Tags

Cruise Down Collins with Miami's First 'Hertz On Demand' Car Sharing Program

There’s no longer the need to walk from Fontainebleau all the way down to Shake Shack—trust us, it’s far—as car sharing is now making its way to South Beach. Sure there are plenty of two-wheeled options available in Miami, but sometimes you just need to put the pedal to the metal. After all, cruising down Collins isn’t quite the same with streamers coming out of the handlebars.

There’s no cutesy name or gimmick associated with the city’s new program, as they’re simply partnering with Hertz to bring the car share scheme to the masses. Thanks to Hertz on Demand, Miami Beach will now be the first city—at least by their math—to offer up a city-sponsored car sharing system in the Sunshine State. Things officially get underway starting today, and there’s even some kind of ribbon cutting ceremony at the Miami Beach City Hall Garage to celebrate.

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Rental Cars / Hertz / Cars / Travel News / Road Trips / → All Tags

Hertz Brings the Best (and Most Expensive) Rental Cars to the UK

We’re all about awesome rental cars, but the latest offerings from Hertz might just be the best ones for a reasonable amount of money. We’ve talked about the company’s “Adrenaline Collection” line of vehicles, but these are a step above—like a six-figure step above in some cases.

Hertz Supercars will be glad to meet you at the airport with a vehicle from its stables, and some of the options include marques that you’ve only dreamt about. Options from Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari—and even McLaren—are all available for the taking, but obviously you’re going to need some serious coin to pick up one of these vehicles. Oh—you also need to reside over in the UK, as this is exclusively an English option for the immediate future.

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Car Sharing / Cars / Rental Cars / Autolib / Paris Travel / Green Travel / Velib / → All Tags

Autolib. It's Like Paris' Velib Bike Sharing, Just with Cars.

Back in October we heard that bike-sharing was turning into car-sharing thanks to the Velib spin-off—Autolib. Initially the rental cars were part of a test run, but the program has been pretty popular and now it’s time to go all-in.

The plan is to eventually add more than 3,000 emission-free cars to the streets of Paris, but for now new cars will be added each and every week. The system works just like the bikes—with a slight increase in cost—and you can pick your car up in one location and drop it off in another. The cars are all battery powered, but the Bluecar electric vehicles should be able to spin around for at least 150 miles before requiring another fill up of electricity.

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Rental Cars / Cars / Car Sharing / RelayRides / → All Tags

RelayRides, Like the Airbnb of Cars, Gets a Boost from General Motors

There’s all kinds of options when it comes to rental cars and car sharing, but one of the most interesting new options has to be borrowing a car from a complete stranger. We’ve mentioned this before, but it looks like the idea is getting a little bit of momentum. It certainly doesn’t hurt that General Motors is now getting in on the fun, so we can all look forward to more broken down rental cars—we’re kidding GM, that’s the PT Cruiser’s job!

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Isle of Man Field Trip / Isle of Man Travel / Island Travel / Britain Travel / Photo Gallery / Sports Travel / Racing / Rental Cars / Cars / Road Trips / → All Tags

A Weekend on the Isle of Man: Driving a Mountain Race Circuit Without Speed Limits

The Isle of Man is a mysterious place, a nearly sovereign territory out in the middle of the choppy Irish Sea between England and Ireland. What sort of people live there? What's there to see and do? These are all questions we wanted to answer, so we went ourselves...because why not? All this week we'll be sharing our experiences in this curious island destination.

Step off the jet catamaran ferry from Liverpool onto the pier in Isle of Man's capital of Douglas, and you'll immediately figure out why so many people enjoy venturing out to this island and especially with their cars and motorcycles: it's home to one of the most prestigious street race circuits in the world, a mountain course celebrated each year with a motorcycle race called the TT (Tourist Trophy).

The Isle of Man TT happens in late May or early June each year, and though our visit fell with about ten more months to go until the next one, TT souvenirs and flags were everywhere. The famous Manx roads—"Manx" is the word for anything Isle of Man-ish—are a year-round attraction, and you know we weren't leaving without some time spent on the race-striped curves and speed limitless roads. That's right—there's no speed limit in some parts of the island!

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