Transcript of Podcast #7: Renting a Car
In Attendance: Aimee Jiang (she/her), Maryam Hassani (she/her)
Aimee: Hello, everyone welcome to another episode of the GIC podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about how to rent a car. My name is Aimee Jiang. I am the International Student Support Officer for Graduate Division, and I will be your host today, joined by Maryam, and I will have Maryam introduce herself.
Maryam: Thank you, Aimee. So I’m Maryam Hassani. I’m an Informatics P.h.D. student. I’ve been here at UCI for the past 4 years, and I’m an international student. So I know a little bit here in there. I’ve experienced renting cars, and I think I can help you navigate your initial at least couple of months here, renting different cars.
Aimee: Yeah. So I think the first question that we’ll jump into is, what are the available options for renting cars, so you can rent on an hourly, daily, in some cases weekly or monthly basis. So what are the pros and cons and and where, what are the available options?
Maryam: So I’ll share on my end. Aimee feel free to jump in and share yours. So given the options available, there are some options available on campus. So you can book them an hourly basis on a daily basis, which are called Zipcars. The cars are a little bit more efficient in regards to being cost effective. And it’s gas included, insurance included. So it’s great for students who do not have do not want to get a car who do not want to go to a rental car company. They are just on campus in different locations. You can just go and get it. There are some not benefits to that as well. But so these are options that you can have hourly or daily. But on the other end you can book from rental cars. These come from daily to couple of days, weeks, even months, as you need.
Aimee: Yeah. And I think some of the pros and cons I’ve seen is like distance, like I need to go drive to Arizona. I’m probably going to go to a a longer term rental car company, or I’m flying in somewhere. I’ll not do a Zipcar, if I’m you know, going to a conference in like Washington, DC. where I was recently. If I need a car, I’m going to rent from the airport, probably. There are lots of different options, but I think definitely the biggest benefit the I see from Zipcar is just the convenience of it being on campus. You don’t have to find your way to another company somewhere off campus. Yeah, For a Zipcar. What are the steps you need in order to use Zipcar? And where can you pick them up?
Maryam: That’s a good question to answer. So Zipcar. The benefit about Zipcar is that you can access it. You can register for it for a specific baseline fee. You can access it throughout America. And I think some European countries. So it’s basically everywhere mostly on campuses UCI has 5 Zipcar slots that you can just go pick up a car if that’s available, kind of book in advance. So basically, you can not only use it in UCI, you can use it in other campuses, other different different cities. The initial step to use as a Zipcar is register on their website. It’s a $90 per year fee. But since you’re a student, you can register using UCI email address, they verify you right on the spot, and you pay $15 per year. So that’s like a baseline flat rate that you pay for per year. It’s like renewed every year. But given your usage, you basically book and pay per hour or day that you book. But you need to book in advance. So make sure like, if that’s a peak, it’s a holiday. You need to book advance, so you know that you have a car there. Otherwise, on normal days, like for shopping and stuff, you can generally find one across campus, mostly from grad housing. It’s a 5 to 10 min up to 20 min walk but it’s a very. It’s very convenient that it’s on campus, but you can use it across the for cities. I ended up using one in San Francisco. So you just basically register, get that your Zipcard, which is a card that you can access the card basically open locking out, lock the door. And you’re good. That simple.
Aimee: Yeah. It’s a very simple system. I see them going around campus all the time, especially like you said to grocery stores. we have a podcast on grocery stores, couple of them and one of the grocery stores we talk about, you really probably need a car is like Costco, because the things there are really bulky. So even if you could manage to bike out there, it’s really hard to get that stuff home. So just being able to say, Hey, I’m gonna I’m gonna run a bunch of errands. You’d be further away from campus, maybe go to Costco for 2 hours, being able to just rent a car for that short period of time is it’s such a big benefit? And I I’ve seen the slots. I know they’re near Aldrich Hall. Is there another location a pick up location as well?
Maryam: There are five locations active on campus. The ones I have used, one is next to Aldrich Hall, next to Palo Verde campus housing. There’s like right there next to the bridge. What is next? Engineering Hall, and the other one is near Anteatery, basically down campus like southern part of the campus. If I’m not wrong with navigation, but depends on like where you are. So the good thing is that depending on where your department is, or where your lab spaces, or where your housing is, there is generally one in the 10 to 15 min walking distance.
Aimee: Yeah, I was gonna say, I think I’ve seen people pulling out of parking lots kind of randomly around campus in the Zipcars, and they say Zipcar on the side. So it’s very easy to identify which ones are the specific cars you’re looking for. When you take the car back? This is just a question that I’ve always wondered because I haven’t used Zipcar before. Do you have to drop it off in the same location on campus, or if there was like an available one at Aldrich but you live near Palo Verde, and there was an available spot there. Could you drop it off in a different location, or does it have to go back to the same one?
Maryam: So amazing question to answer this, I will provide also some additional information. So basically, how you would book a Zipcar is you go to your app, you see what is available at each location, you book that, but depending on your day and hour, you pay it up front, and it’s there. At the time of your booking you need to go there right. But the thing about Zipcar is that each car is specific to a location. So you need. And they have, they have specified parking slots, so you can’t go and park it in a different parking lot, or even different parking spot within a lot. So if you do go park in a different place. You get charged. The charges are generally from like $50 up to couple up to 100 something, so wherever you pick it up, you drop it off at that place. It needs to be cleaned. I think if it is pet hair like any dirt $50 charge for cleaning that clean, not being clean. And you need to return it at least with one fourth of gas basically capacity, you can’t just go use your Zipcar and bring it out like very low on gas. It needs to be at least 25% full. Otherwise it’s again, there is a charging fee there. But it’s your responsibility as someone who books it for an hour or even more to return it to the same spot, 25% gas included and clean.
Aimee: Perfect. Yeah, I think that’s It’s always good to read those fine print things like no smoking in the car. We know some places, don’t let you have pets in the car. So you really always want to read the fine print, because if you use it for a purpose, if they specifically state you shouldn’t be doing you can get sometimes really big fees for that. Thank you. Which rental car service is the nearest and recommended?
Maryam: For my personal experience. The very first time I booked a car was through Enterprise I walked to the Enterprise, which is like the Enterprise Fletcher Jones. It’s a a center probably 2 miles away from us. I walked there, and to my experience it has been the most convenient, car rental company. I’ve used it a lot of different ones, but this one has been the most convenient one. You need to have a driver’s license. It can either be at driving license from your country, you need to have that trans transcribed and bring it here, but they accept that you can get insurance on that with an extra payment. But the most convenient and closest is enterprise.
Aimee: Yeah, and there’s a couple of different locations. So sometimes the car you’re looking for might be sold out. So you’ll look online, you can book it online. And if it says, like, you’re looking for a really compact car, or maybe you’re moving and you want a bigger truck so you can move a couch to a different location. If that location is sold out, you can search for other places. The only thing I will definitely say is, the airport generally has an up charge for it being the airport, which is fine when you’re landing at an airport, and you need a car. But if you’re looking around to just rent a car in town, I would recommend not booking one at the airport, because there is usually an extra charge, and sometimes it’s so, sometimes it’s a lot of money. And same thing with the Zipcar. You generally want it to be a drop off location back where you got it from. There’s usually an additional charge to drop it off at a different location, and you would have to notify them ahead of time when you book it that you need to add a different location. Yeah, there’s quite a few companies in this area. I would say, Enterprise is the one I’ve had the best of luck with as well. So hopefully others would. And then you talked a little bit about the requirement for renting a car so definitely a driver’s license, insurance is something that is, we’ll talk at a different podcast about getting your own car insurance, if you end up having an actual car, and sometimes you might need to rent a car on top of that. But what is it for Zipcar and like what is the insurance process for Zipcar? And then what is the insurance process for rental cars, because it is a little different from my understanding.
Maryam: So for a Zipcar, it has this baseline insurance that comes with it. And so basically because they state that it’s gas and insurance included. But if you are a new driver, they charge you new driver under 20, under the age of 24 they add an additional cost. But if you’re not, basically, you can use the base insurance. But but if you are a new driver, you can get an additional insurance on top of that, it’s like on a daily cost. So, for example, if you’re booking a Zipcar, so Zipcars are from 10, 13 to $15 on campus per hour, so they add like a $10 per day. I can’t remember the exact number, because I haven’t used them for a while, but they, you can get an additional insurance on that, especially if you’re a new driver, and if you ended up being in an accident, or any sort of a collision they out, the out of pocket cost is a thousand dollars. So you need to get pay the first $1,000, and they will chip in the rest. That’s how their insurance is covered, which is not necessarily the case with rental companies.
Aimee: Yeah, rental companies, the insurance can be kind of tricky. So I’ve rented while having my own car insurance and my car insurance covers rental cars. Some car insurance is don’t cover you in a rental car, one of my travel credit cards covers me in rental cars up to a certain amount but rental car companies one of the really difficult things. If you’re in an accident, especially if it’s your at fault for the accident, is you pay on top of what’s happening with the car you end up, usually paying a daily charge for them, not being able to use that car to rent out anymore. So you’re basically still paying daily for the car rental, because you’re at fault for why the car is no longer available for other people to rent. So usually I would recommend that a additional insurance that companies provide, rental car companies will usually try and sell you on it, and if you don’t have other insurance. It is required for you to have something. And you definitely want something, because if you’re at fault for an accident, and the car is worth brand new car worth $50,000. You don’t want to be paying $50,000 for that car. It’s a little different. If someone hit you. there’s usually, if they’re clearly at fault, there’s usually a little more coverage by the company. but it does depend on the situation, and those things can take a while to figure out.
Maryam: And to add to what you shared. Actually, you mentioned an important point. Some credit cards offer rental car insurance, but they constantly change their policies. So whatever you’re doing, make sure you have the latest policy. For example, Amex or discover does, or some visa cards do that. I’m pretty sure they are there. Basically. you have, you know, the latest policy, and they cover you. When you’re paying with that.
Aimee: Yeah, we call anytime before we rent a car we call the morning of and just verify that. Okay, we put it on this card, this is what we were expecting. If we’re in an accident or something happens. This is what you’ll cover. And we just verify that, that’s that’s still the current policy, because, yeah, they change those things. And they send an email. But how many of us read all of the fine print and all those emails that they send on a regular basis? I do not unless I need to. And so I definitely usually call and verify with customer service before I and do that, and sometimes like we have an amex card that we use when we rent cars, and it doesn’t always cover bigger cars. So for us it didn’t cover a moving van, but it covered like a traditional like big American style truck. You always have to be kind of cautious of those like little tiny differences as well. And so I think the other thing we really wanted to talk about was, if you’re looking at doing a driving exam and you don’t have a car is a rental car, an option, and is it a permissible option for you to use in your driver’s exam.
Maryam: Hmm, so I can chip in a little bit about this of my own experience. So with Zipcar, I would say, refrain from that, because, it is. They say, I’ve heard people do it. It is not the easiest. So I would stay away from that because the insurance is tricky and and it’s not literally registered under your name, so you’ll have issues with it. But what you can do, or this is my own experience. I booked a car from a enterprise. I got the full insurance. So these are the things you need for a driver’s driver’s license exam. You need insurance, you need the registration card. So I got that. I got the full insurance. You just need someone to have a driver’s license with you on the day of the exam so this will basically qualify you for having your exam with a car which basically the next, the driver sitting next to you is not responsible for and they are not stressed out. This is your car, your insurance. They’re just accompanying you to take the exam, and this is doable pretty easy, and I guess less stressful than the normal. Go with someone’s car to the driving exam sometimes you do not have that person.
Aimee: Yeah. And that cause that’s not always an option. And you know, that takes away someone else’s car that they may be needing. So just being able to find someone with the driver’s license. But if you show up and you don’t have a driver’s license and you’re driving a car that’s not going to go well for your driver’s exam, so definitely make sure you have somebody. And then we have a podcast coming up about the DMV and how to get your driver’s license or other ID options. But thank you for joining us, is there anything else that you want to add in on rental cars.
Maryam: I would just may, I have 2 tricks here if you are renting a car with the non U.S. Driver’s license, or I think, Michigan driver license. These are the 2 things that are tricky. Please please please make sure you check on check in before, because, for example, I’m from Iran. They accept Enterprise except my driver license from Iran before I get a U.S. driver’s license. But the insurance does not cover it. So this is something you need to check before. This is very important, and the second is, if you are going to use a Zipcar. There is a 50% summer offer right now, when we are recording this in July, in June 2023, that you can get a discount on your registration fee in case you were interested.
Aimee: Yeah, there’s a lot of deals that come about, especially during summer, or if you book during June for something, and maybe September, there could be some deals and maybe an off travel season. So we have a podcast coming up, in probably in a couple of months on deals like how to find deals on flights and rental cars will be a part of that as well. But that’s a great tip is sign up sometimes for these companies, too, because they’ll send you emails to let you know when those deals are coming in. I think for me any other things I would say is book ahead of time, if you can at the Zipcar., obviously you need to book ahead of time, so that you know you have a car but for other rental car companies. you’ll get charged a lot more if you book the day of, or if you just show up, and you’re like what cars you have? They could only have the top of the line fancy car left, and it could be really expensive. So definitely recommend, if you’re like, Hey, we’re gonna go on a trip. We should really book a car book as soon as you know the details and you can usually modify things a little bit. But there’s there could be changes in the pricing if you modify them. We hope that this helps you with renting a car especially as you’re navigating the process of maybe considering if you actually need a car, or if you’re just looking for something short term. We hope that this helps as you settle into your time here at UCI. Thank you for joining us.
Maryam: Thank you and enjoy driving in summer.