Today Only: Save $25 on Alamo Car Rentals

Today only at 1:00 pm EST, you can buy a $50 gift certificate for Alamo car rental for $25 through Daily Getaways.

From May 19, 2014 to June 20, 2014, a new travel deal will be available every weekday at 1:00 pm EST.  But you have to be quick to get in on the deals, because they usually sell out very fast!

Daily Getaways is a promotion sponsored by the US Travel Association and American Express.  You can buy discounted hotel and car rental points, and get cheap tickets to theme parks and other events.

And you’ll save an additional 10% if you use your American Express card.

Deal for May 22, 2014 – Save $25 on Alamo Car Rentals

Link:   Daily Getaways Calendar

Link:   Save $25 on Alamo Car Rentals

Today’s deal is for a $50 gift certificate to Alamo car rental.  You’ll pay $25 for the certificate, which can be used towards any Alamo car rental in the US.  You can buy a maximum of 3 certificates, but they can be used toward 1 rental.  So you could save $75 on rentals at Alamo.

If you use your American Express card, you’ll save 10% and pay ~$23.

Note:   The certificate can only be applied to the base rate for the rental, not taxes or extras.  So it wouldn’t make sense to rent a car for a day with a rate of say $25, because even if the total with taxes is over $50, you can only apply the certificate to the base rate.

The deal goes live today at 1:00 pm EST, so you’ll need to have the site loaded on your browser and ready to click on the deal just prior to that time.  There are only 2,000 deals available, so this will sell out quickly.

Is This a Good Deal?

Link:   Alamo Car Rental

Getting $25 off an Alamo car rental could be a good deal, especially if you planned on renting from Alamo anyway.

But the terms and conditions of this deal imply that it’s only valid if you book with Alamo directly.  So you can’t stack the deal with the methods I’ve written about to save money on rental cars.  For example, you couldn’t book a rental car through Hotwire, Priceline, or Chase Ultimate Rewards and use the gift certificate.

I did a search for a 2-day car rental on June 28, 2014, in Las Vegas on the Alamo website.  A compact car was ~$110 including taxes with their prepaid rate.  If you used the $50 Daily Getaways certificate, your net cost would be ~$85 (~$110 rental cost – $50 gift certificate + $25 cost of certificate).  Or if you used your American Express card, you’d save another ~$2 and pay $83 out of pocket.

To compare, I checked the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal for rental cars in Las Vegas on the same date.  A 2-day rental is ~$85, and you can’t use the gift certificate.  So you’d pay about the same using the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal (you’d only save $2 if you used the Daily Giveaways certificate purchased with an American Express card).

Note:  If the base rate for your rental is less than $50, it’s NOT worth using the Daily Getaways certificate.  Because you can only redeem it towards the base rate and not the taxes and extras!

Bottom Line

With today’s Daily Getaways, you can buy a $50 gift certificate to Alamo car rental for $25.  And if you use your American Express card, you’ll get an additional 10% discount.

You can use the certificate on any Alamo car rental in the US.  But the booking has to be made directly through Alamo, not a 3rd party travel website.

Booking rental cars at a discount will likely come up with similar savings.  But do a search if you have a rental in mind and see which deal works out better for you.