Pricing Truck Rentals: Budget vs Penske
[Notes from my move from Brooklyn to Mountain View, CA in July 2010. We rented a truck and towed a car. We drove via I-80/I-70. We stayed at Motel 6 when we could, and I asked my Android GPS to avoid tolls, especially East of the Mississippi.]
When I moved from California to New York I went with Budget Truck rental, based on price. It went well enough. This time I’m going with Penske, based on my sweetheart’s AAA discount. Penske’s web site is more polished, especially the “enter make and model of car to be towed” interaction. Today I received a 20% discount coupon for Budget. I made my reservation and was pleased that the price came out lower, until I reviewed my Penske reservation and saw they had included tax in their total. Budget did not. It also looks like Penske applies the AAA discount per-item, where Budget’s discount was only on the truck itself.
| Item | Budget | Penske |
|---|---|---|
| Discount | 20% coupon | 12% AAA + web discount |
| 10-day one-way 16′ truck rental | $1,291.20 | $1,250.06 |
| Tow Dolly | $185.00 | $264.00 |
| Hand Truck | $35.00 | $17.60 |
| 2-dozen furniture pads | $54.00 | $26.40 |
| “Cost recovery fee” | $33.00 | |
| Total | $1,598.20 | $1,558.06 |
Notes:
- Penske applies “web reservation” and AAA discounts to the truck rental.
- Budget coupon code ON113 for 20% off Sun-Thu pickups registers as “AARP discount.”
- Budget applies a “web reservation” discount of around 10% if you don’t enter a coupon code.
- Penske applies the AAA discount to tow dolly, hand truck, furniture pads.
- Budget’s tow dolly is cheaper.
- Penske hand truck and furniture pads are cheaper even before discount.
- Penske hand truck and furniture pads seem perfectly reasonable, where Budget looks like they’re padding the price.
- Budget tacks on their “cost recovery fee” after you enter your credit card to make the reservation, with a vague explanation that it is standard practice in the industry.
- Budget adds a refundable deposit of $150.
- Penske includes taxes in their total, making their total appear higher than Budget.
