“I stepped up to the counter to pick up my car and they said, ‘You’re over 74, You can’t have a car,’” he said.
What he missed was in the fine print of Routes Car Rentals’ Rules and Restrictions page in Travelocity. In the “Merchant Rules” section, it notes an upper age limit of 74 years of age for local renters…
I’m curious how this is different than the widespread practice of refusing rentals to those under age 25.
What places refuse car rentals under 25? Are there other factors at play?
Most places do IIRC. It has to do with insurance premiums being higher for drivers under 25, so if the rental place can assure their insurance company that no drivers will be under 25 then they get a better rate.
I used to think they all did in the US, but looking it up now it seems most states the minimum age to rent any car is 20 or 21, but you pay extra and often can’t rent certain cars, including all trucks that I could find, until you’re 25. Also, where I probably got my fact from, you often can’t be added as a driver to someone else’s rental until you are 25.
As someone who had to rent many cars traveling domestically in the states while under 25, there were a few tricks I would have to use. One was that New York had a law that over 18 could rent a vehicle with no fees past whatever insurance directly charged the rental agency (so usually fee-less) which was a big help. Sometimes you could arrange the booking in such a way you rented from NY and picked up the car in another market in the country, but very ymmv. Under 21 was otherwise just about always prohibited with the notable exceptions of U-Haul and Penske (if you really needed wheels, it was many times the ONLY options). 21-25 usually had outrageous fees (literally as much or more than rental cost) except with certain credit cards and corporate codes you could get them waived or reduced to a few dollars a day extra instead. And the last but least ethical tip would be to have a colleague as primary driver and only be a secondary driver as in my experience they only ever would bother with the age of primary driver. Your comment had me check and looks like only a few places seems to have that under 25 restriction for secondary driver, and honestly they are places that I can personally say didn’t check previously so it may have changed or also be very ymmv.
Used to be that they would allow under 25 to rent a car if it was job related travel. They didn’t want to piss of their business accounts who made them the most money… I don’t know if that is still the case.
I setup my membership account with the jobs travel information and discounts. Then I lied about the reason for the trip and paid for with my personal card.
Never had an issue after that.
Now I have a kid who runs into this sometimes, so good to know, thanks
I faced this from most of the large Canadian rental agencies when I was in that age bracket back in the 2000s - I only found one at the time that would rent to me, and they required the credit card of someone over the age of 25 (which they didn’t tell me until I actually showed up to pick up the vehicle). Things may have changed in the last decade or so but this isn’t something new for Canada.
This is common across the US, is it different in ither countries?
I have rented cars in the US when I was under 25. They just add a daily “underage” fee that’s ~$30-40.
If only we could do this with positions in government
This is extremely sad. I know it’s easy to brush it off as ‘the olds getting a taste of their own medicine’ or whatever, since we’re almost all too young here to really think about it, but this treatment must have been humiliating for that man. He is of sound mind and has done nothing wrong, yet has been deemed unfit to participate in a normal part of society almost arbitrarily.
Its more of a travesty because of how bad it is to get around in North America without a car
I can’t say I’ve ever seen or paid attention to an age range limit when renting vehicles before.
for local renters
This is a whole other part of the problem. “Oh, your car broke down and you need to rent one? Too bad!” I’ve also had to pay an extra large deposit for a local rental. Same with a local hotel. It sounds like he could rent elsewhere. Lots of potential discrimination here.
