Zipcar?

[randomness]

I'm considering getting a Zipcar membership. Anyone like them? Dislike them? Have any pointers or thoughts?

(Also, I see some interesting promotional codes floating around the intarweb: KQED (as in the San Francisco PBS station) gets you $50 credit, and VANCOUVERWEB gets you $75 credit. I don't know that either of them will work in Boston, as I haven't signed up yet. It's at least vaguely plausible that I might be a KQED member, while I'm not sure it's so plausible for me to use the Vancouver discount here. But hey, if someone's used it, I want to hear whether it worked. :)

dirque forwarded me a promo code, but for Flexcar, which sadly doesn't operate in Boston.)

Comments

[inevitablymango.livejournal.com]

There are a few really useful things about Zipcar: 1) not dealing with people at rental car places, especially stupid people 2) being able to do everything yourself online 3) being able to rent a car for only an hour or two at a time and not paying for an entire day 4) not having to pay for gas -- that's nice. You get a card that comes with the car and it's all taken care of.

That being said, I agree with the previous commenter -- I don't think the fees work out to be worth it. See if you can avoid the application fee; we got ours waived. Our membership is up at the end of September and I think we may not renew it.

Also: keep in mind how far you want to drive. We wanted to rent a car for weekend trips to places like Princeton. When you have to drive a few hundred miles there and back, Zipcar doesn't prove to be very useful; there are limits on the number of miles you can drive without paying a fee per mile.

[nhradar.livejournal.com]

I use it as a second car. It's great for anytime I need to move something in-town, or otherwise deal with cargo that my wonderspud has issues with. Great for grocery store runs, costco runs, moving a fridge from best buy to the house, etc.

I don't know where people find decent cars for $35/day rentals; that seems insanely cheap to me, so even the daily rental cost doesn't seem that bad (though I would not really expect ever to use it for that). Also, your membership works in every zipcar city (including london)

Harvard has some sort of reduced-pricing deal...$25 one-time fee for your membership, and the usual paygo or value-added rates. Not sure if it's the best deal, but it's a bit of a break.

Honestly, for a $25 one-time cost, it seems pretty painless to get the card and see if it's something useful to you.