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Thread: Does anyone rent a car to drive to Vegas?

  1. #1
    Here in Southern Cal we're about 4 hours from Vegas when we drive. Less if we don't have any delays from traffic or construction -- but it could take 12 hours at the end of holiday weekends when everyone is on the 15 Freeway at once.

    So, driving can either be a breeze or it could be like riding into a hurricane.

    Do you use your own car for the drive or do you rent a car? Some of my friends have suggested renting, but I have heard tht some rental companies tack on an additional charge if you do rent a car in the LA area to drive to Vegas.

    Advantages of a rental: you don't put the mileage on your own car and you don't have to worry as much about the valets. And if you go on particular days there can be lower rental rates. I know that the rental agencies that service some of the auto dealer repair shops have lower rental rates on the weekends since the auto dealer repair shops are not open and usually have all of the repair jobs done by Friday.

  2. #2
    When I lived in Phoenix and was a professional gambler going to LV almost every week for the better part of 10+ years, I only drove my own car maybe 5 times. As a schedule C filier I deducted everything having to do with those trips, and I rented a car almost full time every year. Having a rental also meant ease-of-mind when valet parking, which I did 95% of the time. I was also slammed into by a taxi on the Strip, and some sort of "closer" from the cab company came out, made me a unusually high offer to not report anything to their insurance company. After I got the repairs done I made over a thousand dollars.

  3. #3
    Rob-- NEVER take a cash offer NOT to report an accident to your insurance company. What might look like a big cash payout right after an accident might turn out to be "pennies" after you discover other problems with your car later -- or heaven forbid -- medical problems develop.

    I'm not sure how it is in other states, but in California your rates can never go up if you were not at fault, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by reporting all accidents caused by others to your insurance. And if you happened to have caused the accident or contributed to it, you definitely want to have your insurance company looking out for you which is why you paid them those premiums.

    You always want to report all accidents to your insurance carrier and I learned that early-- in my teens. I lightly tapped a guy in stop and go traffic near my home and I called my insurance company just as I learned to do in driver ed even though the other driver said that for some "cash" he would forget the little ding in the back of his ten year old station wagon. Well a week later I got in the mail a letter from his lawyer saying that I slammed his brand new luxury car and he was injured and required medical care and I was being put on notice that a major lawsuit would be filed. Well, you guessed it -- my insurance company handled the whole thing.

    And then a few years ago I was rear-ended by a girl friend as we were both driving from an event (separate cars). I stopped at the red light and she didn't and plowed into my Mercedes. I let the insurance companies handle it -- so did she -- and two weeks later we weren't dating any longer. And then a month later my back started hurting. Get the picture?

    The bottom line: don't do anybody any favors because they're not doing you any favor.

  4. #4
    I know what you're saying, but in this case I wasn't concerned with the rates going up. When issues come up I'm only interested in making them non-issues. The thing is this was a rental car I had for 3 months straight, and I would have paid for the damage myself without reporting it anyway if this closer didn't appear. I never told the rental company anything. The repair bill was $5400.

  5. #5
    Rob, that it was a rental car made it even more important that you reported it to your insurance, and rejected the "closer's" offer. What if the rental company had come back to you and said there were additional damages, you had failed to report the damages. Don't overlook the possibility that later you discovered injuries linked to the accident.

    Nope, you made a mistake but I am glad you lucked out and no other problems showed up later.

  6. #6
    Once the rental car is returned, accepted, and paid for the contract is closed. By my paying for it in this way I also accepted the self-insurance aspect of it, because is anything really ever "closed"? Any injuries on my part would have been taken care of by my health insurance. I know this wasn't't the standard or even the mainstream best way to handle it, but I saw an opportunity to greatly lower the hassle and it was right for me. The small "profit" was inconsequential. And remember, at the time $6400 was something I could have made up for in one single vp hit and my gaming bankroll made the incident look lost, so the risk just wasn't there.

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