Car Rental 8 is a highly rated an international rental car broker that provides rentals in over 20,000 locations across 125 countries. They include all of the big brands car rental companies such as:
- Sixt
- Thrifty
- Dollar
- Fox
- Europcar
- Ace
- Advantage
They provide an easy to use portal, a customer support line, and pretty cheap rental prices.
Booking With CarRental8.com
A rental with CarRental8 can be booked in a few clicks across only three pages. You'll search for the car, select the car you want, enter your name/payment information, and click Book Now.
Search For Rentals
When you first pull up CarRental8.com, you'll be greeted by a search box. Here is where you'll enter in your pick-up/drop-off location along with your dates & times. Once you've done that, you can click Search Now.
Choose Car
Next, you will be given a list of vehicles that are available at the pick-up option you specified. These vehicles will be sorted by price, from cheapest to most expensive. CarRental8 does not give you the name of the car rental company you're booking with until after the booking is confirmed.
Each vehicle listed will tell you:
- Vehicle class (includes # of seats and doors)
- Standard amount of bags that can fit in the vehicle
- Details on how to pick up your rental
- The fuel policy (as in return it full or empty)
- What comes with the price listed (usually unlimited mileage and taxes/fees)
Once you've found the vehicle that fits your need, you can click on Book Now to proceed to the final step.
Review & Pay
The final page will require you to input your personal information, payment information, and decide on a few additional add-ons and insurance for your rental.
Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) & Theft Coverage
The Collision Damage Waiver for Car Rental 8 will cost you on a per-day basis. While Car Rental 8's CDW is pretty low compared to other car rental companies, it's still a charge that can easily be avoided by using a credit card that has primary rental insurance. This allows you to decline the car rental insurance offered by car rental companies and save some serious money on rentals. If you rent a lot and consistently pay for the CDW at rental car agencies, I highly recommend you look into learning about primary rental insurance.
Add-Ons and Protections
There are several protections and add-on you will be able to add from this screen. This includes:
- Navigation System (GPS)
- Satellite Radio
- Protect Package
- Cancellation Protection
- Infant, Booster, or Toddler Seat
- Additional Driver
Each of these add-ons will of course add onto the price of the rental. Most of these are self-explanatory in terms of what they are, but there are two that you'll want to take note of.
The first is Protect Package which allows you to cancel your booking up to 48 hours before pickup with full refund and no cancellation fees (except for the cost of the Protect Package). In the unfortunate event of an accident or glass and tire damage, Car Rental 8 will also reimburse your deductible up to $250.00 maximum. Do note that this option is usually selected by default.
Second is Cancellation Protection which allows you to cancel up until the day prior to pick up with full refund and no cancellation fees (except for the cost of Cancellation Protection). This could be worth picking up if you're not 100% on booking the rental.
Payment Details
The Payment Details section will list out the final costs of everything that has been selected. This will include the price of the car, any add-ons you selected, and the Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) & Theft Coverage if added. You'll want to review everything in the list to make sure you're paying for what you want.
Confirm & Pay
All that's left is to enter your payment details and pay for your rental. Car Rental 8 accepts all the major credit cards which includes:
- VISA
- MasterCard
- American Express (AMEX)
- Discover
Car Rental 8 also allows you to pay with PayPal in which it will take you to PayPal's secure portal to pay for your rental. Once you've decided on your method of payment, you can hit Checkout Now and your car will be booked!
Car Rental 8 Cancellation Policy
If you decide that you no longer want the car you booked with Car Rental 8, you can cancel the vehicle directly with them. If you didn't book your rental with the Cancellation Protection or Protect Package add-ons, you'll be charged a fee of either $40 or 5% of the pre-paid amount (whichever is the greater amount). If it's within 48 hours of pick-up you'll be charged a fee of either $55 or 5% of the pre-paid amount (whichever is the greater amount). The greater amount will usually always be the $40/$55 fee so that's what you should expect to pay if you didn't get the aforementioned add-ons.
If you do not cancel before the pick-up date and time, all charges will be final. This means you'll get no type of refund.
Another thing to note is that your driver's license must be issued from country of residence you selected. Car Rental 8 will not offer a refund if the primary driver cannot provide a valid driver's license and/or major credit card in driver's own name.
How Car Rental 8 Compares To Others
Car Rental 8 offers some pretty cheap prices that can be hard to beat at times. We'll compare the prices to CarRentals.com (which is owned by Expedia) and Kayak (owned by Booking.com).
We will keep the example of the week long rental at Detroit Metro Airport, and look at the prices offered by CarRentals.com and Kayak. The cheapest car rental price offered through CarRentals.com for the same dates is an intermediate vehicle with Thrifty which will cost you $254.
When you go to Thrifty's site to book direct, you'll find that the standard vehicle has the cheapest price of $283.81 (the intermediate costs $290).
KAYAK pulls results from several car rental booking sites as well as prices of cars booked direct. Looking at their results, they list themselves and CarRentals.com as being the cheapest options at $254.
Car Rental 8 provides the cheapest price hands down in this particular example. I ran two more examples using the main airports in Atlanta, Georgia and Denver, Colorado. Below are the cheapest prices that I received with no add-ons across each car rental portal.
| Atlanta Airport Prices 1 Week Rental, Late March |
|
|---|---|
| Hotwire.com | $172 Intermediate |
| Priceline.com | $173 Intermediate |
| Car Rental 8 | $186.91 Intermediate |
| CarRentals.com | $192 Dollar | Intermediate |
| KAYAK.com | $223 Intermediate |
| Denver Airport Prices 4 Day Rental, Early April |
|
|---|---|
| Hotwire.com | $110 Intermediate |
| Car Rental 8 | $111.40 Economy |
| CarRentals.com | $118 Fox | SUV |
| RentalCars.com | $123 ACE | Intermediate SUV |
| KAYAK.com | $135 Fox | Compact |
In most examples, Car Rental 8 is usually one of the better prices. It's beat out by Hotwire.com in the Denver example by a little more than a $1 in which Hotwire.com even offers a vehicle a few classes higher for more space. Both Hotwire.com and Priceline also offer vehicles that around $14 cheaper in Atlanta for the same size vehicle.
Summary
More times than not, Car Rental 8 will usually offer you a pretty good price on vehicle rentals. You'll want to check other portals like KAYAK, CarRentals.com, Hotwire, and others to see which portal is providing the best price. You'll also want to pay close attention to the vehicle size as well since some portals may offer a little more room for little to no price difference. Be sure to consider booking these rentals through cash back portals since most of these online travel agencies do not feature loyalty programs.
