Is Costco's Car Rental Really Any Cheaper? We Compared It To The Big Brands

Do you have a Costco membership and use it on a regular basis? We bet you have a shopping list every time you go. Maybe it's just a mental shopping list, but you want your trip to Costco to count. So, you remind yourself to pick up a pallet of toilet paper, a 40-gallon bag of popcorn, and oh yeah, a Nissan Versa to use for the weekend.

What? You didn't know that you can rent a car through Costco? A lot of people don't, and they could be missing out on savings. To be clear, you don't actually go up to the counter at your neighborhood Costco and tell them you want to rent a car. They don't have a fleet of rentals in the back parking lot waiting for you. The box store retailer lets its members reserve rentals from major rental companies on Costco's travel website at a discount.

But is it really cheaper to rent cars this way? We compared Costco's prices with the prices advertised by the actual companies Costco partners with, and found that, in most cases, Costco is cheaper, sometimes a lot cheaper. We looked at five major U.S. cities with their main airports and compared Costco's 24-hour rental prices with what you'd pay directly with the rental companies for economy cars, standard cars, standard SUVs, and luxury cars. Rental rates change daily and this is only a sample, but we found that the only rental company that beat Costco's prices at least some of the time was Avis, if you take their "pay now" option. Costco doesn't have that option, but its prices are still pretty close to Avis' "pay now" rates.

Costco's partners with four rental companies: Alamo, Avis, Budget, and Enterprise. But no information was available from Costco's website on cars from Alamo and Enterprise at the JFK International airport location. But we were able to compare prices with Avis and Budget. In most markets, Costco's prices are close to Avis' "pay now" prices and consistently beat Avis' standard rate. In New York, however, it's not even a contest. Costco's prices are lower across the board. Its daily rate for an economy car from Avis at the time we checked were $162, compared to the standard rate of $245.36 and the "pay now" rate of $209.10 on the Avis website.

As far as Budget goes, well, we think whoever named that company enjoys irony. Budget was often the most expensive of all five businesses in the five locations that we compared. To be fair, though, its prices were pretty close to that of Avis. But even Budget's "pay now" rates were still higher than Costco in most cases. The one exception we found was for a luxury car. 

Budget's "pay now" price was only about $3 less than Costco, though their standard rate was much higher — $399.81 compared to $324 from Costco. $142 would get you a standard SUV from Budget for the day if you reserved it through Costco, but you could expect to pay $289 going through Budget directly. By the way, it's a hassle to find the actual rate for a car on Budget's website. It takes two clicks to get to the actual price, since the first price you see doesn't include fees (car rental companies love fees). First world problems, we know, but Avis' website requires just one click and Costco's site shows you the total price up front.

You'll have more options if you want to pick up a rental car at O'Hare International Airport and reserve it through Costco. We found cars available at the Chicago location from all four rental companies, including Alamo and Enterprise. By the way, cheers to the teams that manage the websites for those two companies. The sites don't hide the car rental fees, but show the total prices up front.

Alamo and Enterprise aren't that much higher than Costco. Neither rental company offers "pay now" prices for the O'Hare location, but their standard rates were only about $9 or $10 more than Costco in nearly every example we looked at. Reserving an Enterprise economy rental from Costco costs $92 at the time of this writing, but costs $102.07 if you go directly through Enterprise. It's similar with Alamo, $85 from Costco compared to $94.52 directly from the company.

But standard rates from both Avis and Budget, on the other hand, are significantly higher than Costco. An economy car from Budget will cost $124 for the day, but just $103 if you reserve it through Costco. Avis' standard rates are similar, $127 for an economy car, but $116 with the Costco discount. The difference is more drastic when renting a luxury car – Avis' standard daily rates are $321, which is $31 more than Costco. But the "pay now" price is only $275, $15 less than Costco's. So, should you think about just taking the "pay now" option? That's one way to save. But, Avis' cancellation policy treats pre-paid reservations differently from other reservations. Cancelling at least 24 hours before the pickup time will cost you $50, less than 24 hours before will cost $150. Costco has no cancellation fee.

We were going to add LAX to this list, since we wanted to include at least one West Coast location, but we ran into a snag. We're not sure what's going on in L.A. this weekend, but it looks like all the rental cars from Costco's partners are sold out at LAX. We wanted to research the same dates for all of the rentals in each city, so we switched to San Diego. Apparently, San Diego is pretty quiet this weekend, as there were plenty of cars left at San Diego International Airport when we checked.

But we can say from looking at rental rates is that you should definitely check out Costco if you're planning on renting a car in San Diego. Reserving an economy or standard car from Alamo through Costco will save about $36 compared to dealing with Alamo directly ($84 vs. $120). The difference between Enterprise's rate and Costco's rate for an economy car was $40 when we checked ($87 vs. $127). Even Budget's "pay now" rates can't compete with Costco's rates (economy $111 vs. $132, luxury car $141 vs. $153).

One thing that stands out about San Diego is that Costco is more competitive with Avis' "pay now" rates. Reserving an economy car from Avis through Costco will cost $107, compared to Avis' $114 "pay now" option ($132 if you pay at the time of pickup). Rates for a standard car are similar — $95 through Costco compared to $106 through Avis and paying at the time of the reservation ($122 standard rate). Costco's rates and Avis' "pay now" rates are both about $90 for a standard SUV.

Renting a car is cheap in Miami, even if you don't go through Costco. On the right day, you might pay less for a BMW 3 Series there than you would renting a Mitsubishi Mirage in New York or Chicago. Of course, renting an economy car through Costco is the cheapest option, at a little over $40. You'd think Will Smith could have told us about this in his "Welcome to Miami" song.

That having been said, Costco's rates will save you money in just about every scenario. Probably the most dramatic difference at the time we checked was between Costco's rate and Enterprise's daily rate for a luxury car. Dealing directly with Enterprise was listed at $236, while you would have spent $178 going through Costco, almost a $50 difference. The differences are similar, though not as big, between Costco's rates for renting a luxury car and that of Alamo ($199 vs. $225), Avis ($170 vs. $191 standard rate), and Budget ($168 vs. $211 standard rate).

Costco's rates were cheaper in every comparison we made, except for Avis' "pay now" rates for a standard SUV (around $50 for both) and a luxury car. Reserving a luxury car from Avis through Costco was listed at $170 but going directly with Avis and taking their "pay now" option was listed at $164.

We highly recommend going through Costco if you're going to rent a car in Atlanta, or at least check out their rates. When we checked, there was around a $20 difference between Costco's rates and its rental partners, whether you rent an economy car, standard car, or standard SUV from Alamo or Enterprise. With both of those companies, Costco's daily rate for a standard SUV was listed at $83, while dealing with the rental companies directly would cost $111.

Avis and Budget didn't have that many cars available to compare. But Costco's rates blew Budget's out of the water for a standard SUV and luxury car. Even paying Budget's "pay now" price for a luxury car would cost $50 more than Costco's rate. Avis only had luxury cars available, and that was the only exception to Costco's cost advantage. Avis's "pay now" rate was about $8 less than that of Costco's.

Costco can definitely save its members on car rentals in most scenarios, judging from what we found. But we need to reiterate that this was just a sample — five towns, four rental companies, and the same dates. It should also be noted that most rental companies have their own memberships, discounts, and coupons, and only compared the standard rates. Finally, rental rates change at least daily, and some of the rates we looked at changed when we checked back a couple of hours later. Judging from the car rental experiences many of you have shared with us, some of you travel quite often. It might be worth it to get a Costco membership, if you don't have one already.