Car rental promotion San Francisco SFO

Costco Travel car rental savings for one way one day airport drive

Rene at Delta Points posted a tip yesterday about parking at an airport hotel as a strategy for saving money when taking a long trip. He is traveling to Sweden for more than a week. Airport parking at SBN South Bend Indiana is $8 per day or $40 week. The hotel has a rate of $3 per day.

Those rates tell me that he is not anywhere near San Francisco Airport. In the past 15 years parking rates have dropped in San Francisco. Ten years ago it used to be difficult to get parking for under $100 per week without a discount coupon of some sort. We would sometimes pay a high hotel rate close to $200 to get 10 to 14 nights free parking.

Burlingame Airport Parking at Hilton SFO Bayfront Hotel

Burlingame Airport Parking is adjacent and underneath the Hilton San Francisco Airport Bayfront hotel. They have space for hundreds, maybe one thousand cars. Their rates have been $50 to $70 per week for the past few years. Park and catch the Hilton hotel shuttle to SFO. Enter the parking lot gate north of the Hilton hotel, then drive all the way through the lot back to the Hilton and park in spaces beneath the Hilton Hotel. Wait in the comfortable hotel lobby for the airport shuttle.

Burlingame Airport Parking was $60 per week last time I parked in February. Online rates are posted as $105 per week now, except June 2015 is $50 week. That is quite a jump for summer 2015 parking rates at SFO.

Hilton SFO

Challenge to Solve: One way transportation from Monterey to San Francisco Airport

Our summer trip was put together around low WOW airlines tickets from Boston to Iceland to Copenhagen, Denmark at $480 round trip with checked bag and seat fees included.

Flying Delta Airlines from San Francisco to Boston and United Airlines from Boston to Monterey in July meant we could avoid parking our car for a couple of weeks at SFO, saving $210 or more in parking fees.

Our challenge to solve, how to travel most affordably to San Francisco Airport for our departing flights. San Francisco Airport is more than 100 miles, so Uber is not an option.

Public transportation is abysmal in this part of California, the most populous state in the country. I’ll tackle San Francisco Airport transportation in a couple of weeks. I am determined to find out how arduous a task it is to take public transportation from San Francisco Airport home to Monterey. Or I can cave in and pay $45 for Monterey Shuttle Airbus from SFO.

Monterey Shuttle at $90 for the two of us is my baseline price to beat for getting us one way to SFO for our summer trip departure.

Costco Rental Car One Way One Day Savings

One way car rental from Costco should be a simple solution. The price was $82 all-in when I checked after buying airline tickets 18 days ago.

The price climbed to $102 by the end of the week. That was 14 days ago.

Today I checked Kayak.com to see one-way car rental from Monterey Airport to San Francisco Airport dropped to $71 for a one day one-way rental from Budget.

Costco Travel rental price $61.05 after tax.

Costco Travel Car Rental savings comes through again for this one way one day airport drive. A discount on the standard rate for Budget one day one way car rental dropped another 15% through Costco Travel to $61.05 after tax rental rate.

No $200 airport parking fee for our summer trip to Copenhagen and London.

The car rental is about $75 all-in after we pay for four gallons of gas for the drive. We fly home to Monterey on United Airlines for $20 more than airfare ticket prices to SFO on our return flights from Boston. No parking fees necessary for our summer trip to Europe with a one way one day car rental to SFO at a discount rate from Costco Travel.

3 Comments

  • Charles Clarke May 23, 2015

    Is the Monterey Shuttle door-to-door for $90 or do you have to get to a designated pick-up place that is less convenient than the Monterey airport car rental? For $15 for 2 people, I’d probably go for the convenience and time savings of the shuttle if it is door-to-door.

  • swag May 23, 2015

    Don’t forget to let AutoSlash track the rental. They can track one-way rentals and may find an even batter rate. They won’t check Costco (membership required, so not a public rate), but if a public rate pops up that beats Costco, they will let you know.

  • Ric Garrido May 23, 2015

    @Charles Clarke – The shuttle has one pickup location in Monterey. The shuttle would be better for us if they picked up from the Monterey Airport. The airport is two miles farther than downtown Monterey. Airport has free parking. Downtown Monterey does not.

    @swag – Autoslash alert has been on. Their rate alerts have been $105 past two weeks.
    Have not received an alert yet about the latest public rate drop to $71.

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