Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
Do one for each parent, and use 2x companion fares, plus the bonus hundreds of westjet dollars for signing up to cover a big chunk of the base fares.
Book a rental car best deal now. Then register your confirmation with auto slash, and they will monitor prices and email you when they find something cheaper.
|
That works, but you might have to do a little extra work to keep the transactions on the correct card for the insurance and program (companion pass and luggage) purpose.
2x cards (one each parent) + companion passes and checked luggage on each. If you have some claims, the correct card vs the card for the tickets must be used.
Flights have to be split, and then figuring out which card to put accommodations and car rental and other costs. This might be more complex for some of the package deals that Westjet offers.
Welcome dollars, first year waived feed, $50 waived checked luggage, companion pass all add up fast and could probably get into almost $500+ per card savings or additional convenience included for OP's trip alone.
Car rental insurance wise, I agree to reject all of the ones offered by the rental company, but I don't fully agree on blindly using the basic ones on the credit card. Read the car coverage stuff carefully. In the past, I've read weird stuff where it will cover damage for your vehicle if you're at fault, but not the other vehicle. Some won't cover a replacement vehicle or tow if your rental vehicle has an issue.
Personally, I use an SEF 27 clause on my car insurance which is more coverage that I understand and covers more instances than just the rental. For instance, if OP is saying the parents are 70, if somehow OP hops into the parent's personal or rental to do a few things (because age) and something happens, it could become problematic on a credit card insurance, but SEF 27 is supposed to help cover most of anything that isn't covered. It'll also help to cover in other scenarios where you borrow someone's car and somehow they accidentally forgot to pay their insurance... at least it's not out of your pocket personally.
Trip planning wise, I agree with others that driving down on a rental is more nightmare than fun. It's more crazy Greyhound that fun road trip. I agree that flying down is the best option.
However, rather than flights and rental wise, rather than flying direct to Orlando, there's options to fly to other locations like FLL as mentioned.
Or as a hybrid option something like flying to and picking up a car rental in one city and return rental and flight from Orlando and doing a 1-2 day road trip (ie: New Orleans/Jackson Mississippi to Orlando road trip and do 5-7 hours of driving a day + 1 night hotel stay near the middle which gives time to see stuff in between). The kids might tolerate that type of driving more than 10 hour days of gruel.
