Budget Rent a car Review : Best Car Rental Booking Sites

About Budget Car Rental

It’s probably no surprise to learn that a company named Budget would offer some of the most cost-effective truck rental options available. Budget Truck Rental is an offshoot of Budget Car Rental, which was founded in 1958 and has always prided itself on its value-driven consumer focus.

After purchasing Ryder TRS, Inc. in 1998, the company expanded into truck rentals and today it boasts nearly 2,800 corporate-owned and dealer locations and 30,000 trucks in their extensive consumer fleet.

And while prices do vary depending on where you live, what size truck you need, and how far you’re traveling, you can usually get quite a good deal—and often even a discount on top of that—making it a good choice for DIY-ers who are moving both locally and long distance.

What is Budget’s Fastbreak program?

Fastbreak is the loyalty program from Budget Rent a Car. Unlike many rental car loyalty programs, the Budget Fastbreak loyalty program doesn’t offer any sort of elite status tiers or offer up points that can later be redeemed for free rentals or upgrades.

That said, joining the Budget Fastbreak loyalty program is still generally a good idea, and it can save you time and money.

How to become a Budget Fastbreak member

Becoming a Budget Fastbreak member is easy and comes at no additional cost. Simply register online

— a quick process that requires you hand over some personal information including name, address, driver’s license and credit card information (which will be saved and auto populates at checkout when you’re ready to rent a car).

Once you’ve become a member, you’ll receive a Fastbreak ID number, which can be found by logging into your account on the Budget website and clicking on My Profile.

Your Fastbreak ID is also the same as your RapidRez Number, which is what you’ll enter when making reservations through Budget’s website.

How to earn travel rewards through your Budget car rental

Cape Canaveral, USA – April 29, 2018: Budget logo on rental company. Budget is an American car rental company that was founded in 1958 in Los Angeles

While you won’t earn any sort of Budget rewards points for your car rental (aside from participation in special promotions), you can use your Budget car rentals to accumulate rewards in other travel loyalty programs.

Airline points and miles programs

Budget has over two dozen airline partners, and you can earn miles based on how much you spend with Budget. If you’re a Fastbreak participant, simply add your frequent flyer number when you reserve a car directly through Budget.

The amount of points or miles you receive varies by airline. For example, with Frontier, you’ll earn 50 Frontier Miles per rental day on all qualifying rentals, or 500 miles on qualifying rentals of five or more days. Meanwhile, you could get 250 points for Air Canada’s Aeroplan program per qualifying rental.

Other ways to maximize Budget Rent a Car discounts

Beyond joining the Fastbreak program, there are myriad ways to get bigger discounts or earn extra points on your Budget rental, like. Many travel credit cards wrap up rental car spending as part of their bonus “travel” category.

For example, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® earns 10x total points on car rentals when you purchase travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards® immediately after the first $300 is spent on travel purchases annually and 3x points on other rental car bookings outside of their portal.

You can turn around and use those points for pretty much anything ranging from cash back and gift cards to travel itself. You can even book rental cars with Chase Ultimate Rewards® points, upon which they’ll be worth 1.5 cents each (so the cost of a $150 car rental would be 10,000 points).

Other Budget car rental tips

Budget is the, well, budget-oriented brand of car rental giant Avis Budget Group, which also operates car rental company Avis, as well as car-sharing company Zipcar. Avis and Budget have a combined 11,000 rental locations in approximately 180 countries around the world.

An employee from Budget may come pick you up and bring you to the rental car center at no additional cost to you. Budget’s free pickup service is available only at some locations, though you can search for your prospective rental car facility to see if pickup service is available. If yes, you’ll need to call them to arrange pickup.

Like many rental car companies, Budget rents out more than just cars. They also offer some additional equipment that you might need for your road trip for short-term rental. While not all accessories are available at every Budget outpost, you can generally expect to be able to rent the following types of items (for an additional fee)

Budget up to speed in hire car ratings

Travelling can be an exciting time, even if you’re just staying in the country. However, while a road trip with friends can be an ideal getaway, you may not be able to do it in your own car.

Thankfully, there are plenty of rental car options available around Australia, but which one should you choose for your next trip? While it’s tempting to simply go for the cheapest option available, it may not pay off in the long run, as you might get an experience that matches the price tag.

And with 83% of respondents to Canstar Blue’s latest survey on the subject stating that they had hired a car for leisure, you don’t want a disappointing rental experience ruining the rest of your holiday.

The bottom line

Is the rental car loyalty program from Budget Rent a Car worth it? It’s hard to say no since this program is free to join and comes with the potential for discounts.

Further, the current promotion for earning 25 Budget Bucks for rentals of two consecutive days or more means that joining now makes sense if you anticipate renting with Budget at least twice between now and the end of 2021.

What’s more, if you enter your Fastbreak number into a rental car reservation site like Costco Travel, you’ll be able to take advantage of some (generally better) deals, while also getting the benefits of Fastbreak.