How to Save Money on RV Rentals
Of all the trips we have planned and vacations we have been on, this one seems to be the most intriguing to most people we have spoken with about it. There is something alluring about driving through the United States in an RV, exploring the countryside and the open roads. It’s romantic, spontaneous, adventurous, and a little anxiety provoking, all at the same time. We had been eyeing up different types of RVs, from motorhomes to travel trailers to fifth wheels, for many years. We visited tons of RV shows (the Hershey, PA one is particularly good), but just couldn’t pull the trigger on actually buying one. Which was probably a great (non)decision, considering our only experience in an RV was borrowing one that looked like it could have been the meth lab from Breaking Bad. I started to do research about renting an RV to get more experience under our belts and to fulfill the RV fantasy/childhood dream of mine. But the prices just seemed so outrageous. With all of the free and cheap travel I can do with miles & points, I had a hard time justifying the expense of an RV rental. Then my research led me to this…Cruise America’s one way RV rental hot deals…and I learned how to save money on RV rentals for our family vacation.
Cruise America RV Hot Deals
Cruise America runs various HOT DEALS at different times during the year, and they seem to change often. Generally they are based on where Cruise America has an RV that needs to be delivered to a certain location by a certain date. I came across the “Rolling out of Chicago” section on the Hot Deals page (which is not there at the time of this writing), and I knew I had found “the one”. This was how to save money on an RV rental! Below are the deals that can be found on the Cruise America website at the time of this writing, but they do seem to change often, so there may be different options depending on when you are reading this.
Cruise America Hot Deals Page from their Website
For the RV Rental Hot Deal that we chose, Cruise America had listed several different RVs that they needed to have delivered to various locations across the USA from their factory near Chicago. These RVs are brand new (ours had 166 miles on it) and are being delivered to different rental locations. The prices were per day, and ranged from $19 to $59 per night. We could have chosen to deliver to a handful of locations, and most of the deals said to pick up by xxx date and return by xxx date (generally about a month apart), with the minimum being a week.
Picking up our rental RV in Chicago
We needed to chose a drop-off location that we could get to in a week, that was traveling toward home and also was South (wanted to avoid the ice and snow that can happen in certain areas, even in April). We chose to travel from Chicago to Manassas, VA (near Washington DC). We spent 7 nights driving through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. I will go into detail about our itinerary in other posts (preview: it was awesome).
Review of the Cruise America RV
We had a Standard, 25′ Class C motorhome that sleeps up to 5 people (there were 4 of us). It was brand new and in perfect condition. It was comfortable for our family of 2 adults and 2 youngish kids, but I was starting to feel cramped by day 7. There was a bed in the corner, a table that converted to a bed, and the bed above the driver’s seat area. They also rent larger motorhomes as well, but this was all that was available to us. The positive was that we were able to maneuver (and by we, I mean my husband, since he did all of the driving) around in different National Parks and cities. A larger one would have given us more space but would have taken more effort to drive (and would have used more gas). So there are pros and cons to each choice.
The different types of vehicles available for rent through Cruise America
Since the RV was brand new, it was extremely clean. I have read reviews of other RV rentals in which people complain about old or rundown RVs. This was one reason why we thought renting a brand new RV was a perfect solution to that problem. We experienced no problems at all with the RV. There are things that I would do differently knowing what I know now (saving that for another post), but our experience with Cruise America and this RV in particular was perfect.
How much money did we save on this RV Rental Deal?
You can compare the price we paid using this Hot Deal with the regular price (I picked a random week, not in high summer season).
1) The website reservations only give the cost for a roundtrip rental, so I am showing a roundtrip reservation quote from the location near Chicago where we picked up our RV. You have to call for one-way pricing, but it is generally more than roundtrip unless it is a Hot Deal price.
2) The website price only shows 700 miles (you pay $0.34 for each additional mile, so another $238 to equal our rental miles). Our rental had 1400 miles included in the price.
3) We paid $100 for a kitchen kit, so that is shown in both examples.
The cost breakdown for a random week for an RV rental from Cruise America
Our invoice from our Cruise America One Way RV Rental Deal
Our total was $569.43 and the above example is $1144.00 + $238 for 700 additional miles – so we saved over $800!
The View from the passenger seat:)
This was one of the best family vacations we have ever had! I am so thankful that we figured out how to save money on RV rentals so that it became possible for our family to have this experience. We would do it again in a heartbeat!
