Guide To Car Rental Corporate Codes, Deals, And Discounts

An important part to any trip planning is the car rental. It can also be one of the more expensive expenses. The good news is that, unlike flights, the car rental industry has a strong history of using codes to unlock different discounts and promotions.

In this guide, we’ll be breaking down different ways you can save money on your next rental car. By understanding car rental corporate codes, discount codes, seasonal promotions, and more, you’ll be well under your way to reducing your trip costs.

How To Save Money on Car Rentals

There are a lot of car rental corporate codes out on the market. These can be broken down into official codes that are offered to the public and others that are created generated for use by companies.

Official Car Rental Discount Codes

All car rental companies issue their own discount codes or general promotions that are accessible to the public.  They’re not a secret but sometimes they can be a bit hidden on their website or only shared through their newsletters.

The below is a list of all the official coupon codes and promos that everyone is free to use with no risk of improper usage.

Corporate Car Rental Coupon Codes

Corporate codes are for the employees that work at companies that have special relationship with car rental companies. They are meant to be used by employees and contractors that work for the companies.

In some cases, car rental corporate codes can yield significant discounts and in other cases, marginal savings. As an employee of a company that has these special codes, it’s always worth checking these rates.

That said, these aren’t the be-all-end-all of discounts so make sure to also head down to learn other strategies you should consider.

To learn how to apply the discounts, head over to the coupon code listings by company.

NOTE: We’ve removed Enterprise, National, Alamo, Budget, and Avis at their request.

What Are Acceptable Forms Of ID?

The customer service staff at the counter may ask you for your ID when processing your car rental at pick-up. Here are a few forms of ID that are commonly accepted.

• Badge or pass with the company name and picture.
• Business card that includes your name and company.
• Email (printed or on the phone) showing your e-mail address with the company name.

Disclaimer on using rental car corporate codes

Full disclosure, there’s inherent risk in using car rental coupon codes that belong to companies you don’t work for.

Corporate discount codes are generated for employees to use and if you use it as a non-employee, you expose yourself to some risk.  Here’s what could happen:

• They ask for your ID and you don’t have one – They could cancel your reservation which leaves you to make a new reservation on the spot which will be many times more expensive.
• They discover fraudulent use of a code during your rental – Since you haven’t returned the car and they haven’t billed you yet, they could revoke the code which means paying regular price.
• You get into an accident and your code includes insurance coverage – Whether it’s LDW, CDW or something else, if they find out during the claim process that you’re not an employee, they could null all insurance coverage.
• You get into an accident and you leverage your own insurance – Your own insurance company could null coverage if they find out your use of a corporate code.

Simply put, you should know what you’re getting into when using one of these corporate coupon codes.  Whether it’s ethics or risk, you need to make a calculated decision and be okay with the outcome.

If you’re not comfortable using corporate codes, look for promotion codes that aren’t tied to a company and you won’t expose yourself to any risk.

Coupon Codes By Car Rental Company

If you want to see the corporate codes for specific car rental agencies, go to the specific pages we’ve created that cover each.

Alternatives way to find deals with car rentals

Traditionally, most people will go directly to their car rental company of choice. It could be because of loyalty, familiarity, or convenience. That said, there are a lot of hidden offers and smaller car rental agencies that you might not know about.

When you book flights, many use Skyscanner and Kayak to search for the best prices. In a similar way, there are also aggregate websites for rental cars.

Here are a list of companies that you’ll want to bookmark:

• Discover Cars – Offers great car rental coverage around the world and is our go-to.
• RentalCars.com – Reliable platform run by Booking.com with great rates.
• Klook – This is a popular platform in Asia that’s best known for activities but they have great rates for car rentals and will often have their own discounts.

Similar to flights, these are an invaluable tool for price comparison and unearthing lower rates that you might not see when you go straight to your car rental company of choice.

WHAT WE RECOMMEND: Make it a habit to start your car rental search with the car rental aggregators. It’s quick and easy to do. Note down which one is the cheapest and then compare that the prices you can get when booking directly and when using special codes.

Seasonal Offers For Car Rentals

Car rental companies want you to book directly and so throughout the year, they’ll offer their own promotions to entice travellers to reserve with them.

We want to make sure you have all of the options available to you when you book so we’ve compiled all of the current discounts available right now.

ACE Rent A Car: Use code AWESOME24 to save 10% with ACE. No expiry. This is not a corporate code so it’s safe for everyone to use.

Avis: There’s a new code A519319 that gets you up to 30% off if you pay now. This isn’t a corporate code so anyone can use it and not have to worry about having your ID checked.

Avis: Use AWD A425857 and coupon MUXA003 to save 15% off base rates when you spend £175 or more on a minimum of 3 day rentals.

Avis: Use AWD A425857 and coupon MUWA014 to take £50 off when you spend £600 or more on a 28+ day rental.

Avis: Save 20% on Pay Now and an extra £15 off when you spend £175+. Deal ends on June 30, 2025.

Avis: A one-time class upgrade when you book through here.

Avis: Use code AA519321 to save 25% at more locations with fewer exclusions.

Budget: Get a free upgrade and up to 25% off base rates using BCD B204300 with their Spring Offer. You can book rentals between now and June 30, 2025. Offer ends late May.

Budget: Enjoy winter savings with Pay Now where you’ll receive up to 35% off. Deal is available from 12/9 to mid-March.

Budget: Code D822119 provides 35% off “Pay Now” bookings. Heads up that this is not a corporate code so it’s safe to use.

Budget: For a limited time, get a free upgrade + up to 35% off when you pay now.  Pick from one of our intermediate, standard, or full-size car rentals this winter.

Budget: Use code D822121 to save up to 25% at more locations with fewer exclusions.

Budget: Use code UUWZ042 to get a FREE UPGRADE + up to 35% off when you pay now!

Europcar AU & NZ: Save up to 20% for rentals between May 26 and December 31, 2025. Deal ends June 9, 2025.

Europcar: Save 20% on your next road trip in Europe. Good for rentals between May 6 and September 30. Deal ends May 18, 2025.

Europcar: Rent a car in Italy and save up to 15%. This is good for rentals between May 6 and August 31. Deal expires May 26, 2025.

Enterprise: Summer Offer – save 10% off when you book car rentals in advance. No known expiry.

Fox Rent A Car: Up to 12% off when you pay now. Code applied automatically when clicking “BOOK NOW”.

Hertz: Drivers over 50 can save 20% off base rates by using CDP 2007815. No known expiry.

SIXT: Save up to 15% off all rentals worldwide as part of Telus Health.

SIXT: Save 10% on prepaid rentals in the US (2-4 days starting Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday).

SIXT: Save up to 10% on base rates for the premium fleet.

SIXT: SUV rentals are up to 40% off.

SIXT: Save 5% for travel industry employees.

SIXT: Save 5% for senior citizens.

SIXT: Save up to 15% on their premium fleet worldwide. This deal is available in 105 countries.

Don’t forget parking at the airport

Something that’s easy to forget in trip planning is how you’re going to get to the airport and if you’re driving your own car, where you’re going to leave it behind.

That’s where booking platforms like Airport Parking Reservations and Park Sleep Fly come into play. Whether you need to get a hotel package that includes parking or just parking itself, they have you covered.

Use the code AWESOME7 to save up to £7 off of your booking.

Six Other Strategies To Consider

Car rental coupon codes aren’t the be-all and end-all.  There are other factors you need to consider when renting a car for your upcoming vacation.  Here are a few things you should consider.

1 – Alternative to car rental coupon codes

If you’d rather not use coupon codes, make sure to give Discover Cars and RentalCars.com a shot.

These are essentially online travel agencies/search engines that will look at the location that you’re interested and find the cheapest rates. The magic is that you might be able to find a rate with a company that you didn’t expect and this typically doesn’t even require a coupon code.

2 – Rent outside the airport

Simply put, airports are always going to be more expensive to rent than going into the city. 

Why? Airport sneakily add supplemental taxes and fees on top.  These are additional line items in the rate. They come in different names but they are essentially special surcharges.

These extra charges cover the cost of the premium location at the airport, special shuttles they might run for customers. It is ultimately a convenience fee.

PRO TIP: When you work out the differences, it might even be worth it to take a cab to an off-airport location to save on these fees.

3 – Watch out for sneaky fees and add-ons

Some, not all car rental companies like to add insurance coverage and other add-ons automatically when you make bookings online. 

When you confirm your booking and when you sign the papers at the counter, make sure you read all the inclusions and pay attention to anything they might’ve snuck in. 

Most common default additions are prepaid gas and insurance coverage.

4 – Don’t pay for insurance you don’t need

Where rental companies make money is in the additional insurance such as loss damage waivers (LDW), collision damage waivers (CDW), or personal effects coverage.

Thing is, if you’re already covered under your own car insurance,  you have something like CAA/AAA membership, or you have a travel credit card, you really don’t need to pay for extra insurance.

5 – Don’t pre-pay for gas

This can be a convenient feature to have for business travelers that don’t have time and just want to drop off a car without filling up but the reality is that the fuel rates they charge are inflated from the market rate.

Don’t get ripped off and fuel up your rental vehicle before you go. Make sure you decline the pre-pay gas option.

PRO TIP #1: When you first pick up your car, always take a picture of your car’s dashboard. Most car rental companies will give you car with a full tank but sometimes it’s not. A photo will give you a reference for later how much you need to fill.

PRO TIP #2: Depending on the car, the fuel gauge needle stays full for a good 20 kilometers or 12 miles. Knowing this, fill up your tank earlier so you’re paying less gas. Alternatively, you don’t need to pump your car full right before returning it, although this is much harder to do.

6 – Check the smaller companies

If there’s anything I’ve learned from recent trips to Japan, Iceland, Greece, New Zealand, and Easter Island, you can’t always rely on the big rental companies. In some cases, it’s because they don’t have a presence, in other cases, the local companies have better rates.

Every country is a little different though so some sleuthing is required to figure out who the local players are because the aggregators like DiscoverCars and RentalCars.com don’t show up.

In some cases, they may not have a strong online presence, and in other cases, you might be able to book online but it makes more sense to go in-person so you can negotiate.

Here are a few examples of real-life scenarios:

• Greece – In Santorini, instead of renting from the airport where the big brands were, we wanted a car rental company close to us in Imerovigli. We found a local company, walked in, and negotiated a cheap rate to rent a car for the day. We would not have gotten what we paid if we had reserved a car online.
• Iceland – We did a lot of price comparison online ahead of time and what worked out the best was Blue Car Rental which easily beat out the bigger companies.
• Easter Island – There simply aren’t any large car rental companies on the island. In addition, most agencies had terrible websites and poor communication in English. As a result, we risked it and hopped into a few offices on the main street and effectively pitted each other to give us the lowest price.
• New Zealand – From Queenstown, there were many of the big players at the airport but we dug around and found out there were so many other brands we’ve never heard of. We ended up picking Hitch (now Snap) because they had the best rates.
• Japan – Similar to New Zealand, local car rental companies dominate the market. What was different in this was was that the Japanese websites were difficult to navigate in English. As a result, it was often much easier to book from the platform Klook.

Step-by-step instructions for how to get the best deals on car rentals

This is a fool-proof way to make sure you get the best deal on car rentals. It’s really a matter of doing your due diligence and laying out all of the options on the table.

When doing your searches, make sure you use the exact same parameters and class of car (if possible).

1. Bookmark this page – So you don’t forget, make sure to bookmark this page or use our handy tool to have the link e-mailed to you.
2. Baseline search – Start your search with DiscoverCars and RentalCars.com to get a baseline of what the lowest total prices are. Mark down the total price inclusive of fees and taxes and note down which car rental company it is.
3. Check corporate codes – If you are eligible to use corporate codes, check the rate.
4. Check public codes and discounts – Car rental companies often run big promos throughout the year which we share in our seasonal offers section. Companies also have year-long codes that always work and aren’t corporate codes. For instance, Avis A519319 and Budget D822119 offer huge discounts. Also, if you’re a member of AAA, CAA, AARP, etc., you may also be eligible for excellent rates.
5. Research local car rental companies – The easiest way to see what companies are available is to go to the airport website and look for a car rental section. A plain old Google search for “[insert destination] car rental” will also work. Get the rates for each one.
6. Don’t forget about Europcar and ACE – Europcar is one of the anomalies of the industry where they just consistently have good rates and their seasonal promos make it even better. If you’re from Australia and New Zealand, employees of Linfox get exclusive discounts. HAPPYBD10 can also get you £10 USD off!. ACE Rent A Car is another because of our custom AWESOME24 code that’s always worth testing.
7. Pick the best rate and book – At this point, you’ll have a lot of data points. Pick either the best rate or the one that has the best balance of price and features (i.e. car class, mileage, bonuses).

9 Useful Car Rental Tips You Should Know

1 – Read the fine print for tax, fees, and information

Where car rental companies get you is in the fine print often times.  We can’t even count the number of times when I’ve seen a killer deal on a rental only to find that there are a ton of added fees on top or you realize it isn’t unlimited miles.

We typically don’t worry as much for the big rental companies but if you’re booking from a smaller unknown/local rental company, make sure you read the details.

2 – Make back up plans

One of the best tips someone every gave me about car rentals and the use of promo codes is to always have multiple reservations in hand.  If one fails because they ask for your ID or they flat out reject your reservation because the manager thinks it’s too cheap, you always have another one ready to go with another car rental company. 

This hedges your bets so-to-speak and it’s a great best-practice for all of you travel hackers out there.

3 – Don’t cancel your credit card

This turned out to be an issue for us in South Africa with Europcar.  I totally wasn’t thinking about this at the time but as part of the credit card churning that I do, I ended up cancelling a card that I made a reservation with.

During check-in they asked for my ID including the card.  By the time my trip to South Africa happened, I didn’t have the card anymore.  Luckily, the manager on duty made an exception for me to allow me to keep my reservation but if things played out differently, I would have had to create a new reservation which undoubtedly would have been much more expensive.

LESSON: Make sure you keep the credit card that you make the reservation under and have it with you when you travel.

4 – Research all the rental companies

The big players don’t necessarily always win.  This is particularly true when you’re looking for a car rental outside of North America.  Sure, companies like Avis, Enterprise, and Hertz have locations internationally but there are many more local-based companies that you most likely haven’t heard of. 

Many times, there are local car rental companies that can be much cheaper than the big brands.

Here are a few examples from other countries that I’ve rented cars from:

• New Zealand – We rented from Jucy our first time to New Zealand and Hitch (now Snap) on our 3 week New Zealand itinerary.  Other companies we considered were Gorental, Lucky, Apex, USave, Ace, and Omega.
• Iceland – All the big companies were very expensive, so we ended up booking with Blue Car Rental on our 8 day Iceland Itinerary which was completely unknown to us but had excellent rates. At the time, didn’t have car rental coupon codes but it didn’t matter. The good news is that I’ve managed to source a bunch of car rental coupon codes to use when you rent a car in Iceland.
• UK – The regular players are there but don’t forget to check out Dollar in the UK as they have good rates as well.
• Japan – Japan’s an example of country where you’ll find the big car rental companies lurking around but they’re actually dominated by local agencies such as Times Car Rental, Toyota Rent-A-Car, Nippon Rent-A-Car, and Nissan Rent-A-Car. Since most websites are a bit of a mess for English-users, we found it much easier to book directly from Klook.

Lastly, it may also make a difference to look at the local country’s car rental websites. 

For instance, Enterprise.com is usually where I naturally go to search but if you’re renting in Canada you should look at Enterprise.ca and if you’re travelling to the UK, you should use Enterprise.co.uk.  Prices can be different on the regional sites even though you’re looking for the same cars.

5 – Don’t discount loyalty

You have to put value in loyalty programs and what will make your life easier.  I’ve been with National for a long time and I belong to their Emerald Club program.  While their prices may not always be the lowest, I find myself booking with them often because they’re the only car rental company where I can go out to the aisle and pick the car I want.  This is a huge time saver on top of knowing that there’s less chances of me being ID’d.

The worst is when you go out onto the lot and realize they gave you a crappy car and you have to go back inside to ask for something different.  This is a waste of valuable time when you’d rather be hitting the road right away to explore the new destination you’re in.

6 – Don’t pre-pay

Recently, a reader, April, let us know that there have been instances where customers that have prepaid have also been charged another rate after returning the car. In effect, customers have been double-dipped on by car rental companies.

If you do end up pre-paying for a rental to save money, double check your credit card statement to make sure nothing looks out of place or you’ve been charged twice.

Even if you haven’t prepaid, still check!

7 – Take photos of your car before you leave the lot

This is an easy one to forget because you just want to grab and go but it’s good practice to take photos of the exterior so that you have proof if they say you damaged the car but it was there to begin with.

Next level would be to take videos of the car. This might be easier to do as you can record your own walk around of the car and make live commentary of things that you notice.

In addition, there’s usually a slip of paper that comes with your car when you pick it up that indicates damage. If there’s anything noticeable, I always grab the parking garage attendant and make sure they mark it up.

8 – Check to make sure everything works

This happened to us on our 8 day Iceland Itinerary where we initially drove off with our SUV only to realize that the cigarette adapter wasn’t working. We don’t smoke but we use that to charge our devices and for road trips.

Lesson – check all of the electronics, air condition, windows, and all of the other basic car functions while you’re in the lot.

If something doesn’t work, you can easily switch cars.

9 – Don’t sweat the small stuff

This is something that I’ve encountered more times than I wish to admit.

During our 1 week Cape Town itinerary, I managed to curb the rims of our car on a turn. I swear this happens every time I drive on the opposite side of the road.

Since the damage was pretty minor, I didn’t say anything when we returned the car. To our surprise, even after their inspection, they didn’t say anything and we weren’t charged for the damage.

LESSON: Car rental agents aren’t as detailed in their pre or post assessment of the vehicle. Don’t stress about small nicks or curbed rims.

Usually, when you drop off a car, you park it in a lot, they check the odometer, and print you a receipt. Car rental agents are incredibly busy and need to move the line as quickly as possible and things like small curb damage aren’t easy to spot.

Upon talking to many agents over the years, what they’re mainly concerned about are windshield cracks and primary body damage. Small scuffs and curb scratches aren’t what they care about so you can get away with that if it happens to you.

Country-Specific Car Rental Guides

While the big car rental agencies can be found in most places, there are many places around the world where they either don’t have a presence or simply aren’t as cheap as the local options.

A few destinations where this is the case and we’ve covered extensively are:

In each of these articles, we cover the intricacies of renting a car in these destinations, local companies to look at, and if there are any, coupon codes to save money.

Frequently Asked Questions