In May, we are visiting my brother in law for his graduate school graduation in Nashville. We figured things would be busy or expensive in May, so we decided to book our travel plans early. After booking our plane flights, we made a reservation in the same hotel that my wife’s parents are staying at — right next to the school, and then I started looking into car rentals for the trip. Gone are the days when a trip can be quick and simple: two kids mean car seats, extra luggage, the whole thing.
I discovered that the hotel had a $20/day parking fee, which I think is a bit outrageous. So I started thinking — OK, how necessary is a car, really? Maybe we can get away with–oh, of course! Maybe we can use Uber to get to and from the airport and around town. It could get expensive. But my brother in law has a car, so he can come to where we are easily enough…oh, wait.
I canceled our hotel room and booked an Airbnb that is literally a block and a half from where he lives.
OK, so now we only need a car to get to and from the airport, and then obviously to get to the actual graduation ceremony on campus. That’s four car trips… there’s no $20 parking fee for the Airbnb, but the price of four Ubers is almost certainly less than four days of car rental, plus gas, insurance, and the like.
So no car rental either.
The whole thing started because the hotel wanted to charge a huge fee for parking — which probably seems to them like a good hook for easy revenue: keep room rates low and competitive (maybe even with Airbnb), but then snag people on the rental car they will surely need.
Unfortunately that spills over into car rental decisions. I realize I’m probably late to this party: I only just realized that Uber was also disrupting the travel car-rental market.
But there you have it.
