My POV & HHG shipment is going to be delayed due to the upcoming labor strike affecting the east and gulf coasts. From what I hear, each day of the strike can create a backlog of 4 days at the port. If this lasts for a few weeks, my stuff may not even sail until the end of the year. Add to that at least 45 to 60 days travel from the US to Europe.
Knowing this, I am going to be out of pocket for my rental vehicle situation for me and my family. I'm a contractor and rental cars are not covered. The few options I thought of was to :
- Buy a decent car from the lemon lot and attempt to resell it when my vehicles get there.
- Try to get a long term rental lease deal 30 days at a time. This can be expensive sine I don't know when my vehicle will arrive.
- Buy a better used car from a dealership in Germany that caters to Americans and deal with the monthly payment, then resell it to the dealership when mine comes in.
I'm trying to get as close to breaking even if possible vs just renting if I do go the vehicle purchase route. I don't know if there are any dealers with a buyback guarantee where I can return it for a fee or not.
Are there any other ideas I'm not thinking of?
Need cheat code for getting long term rental vehicle
byu/SpartanJ5 inMilitaryFinance
Posted by SpartanJ5
7 Comments
There’s no good answer here whether civilian or uniformed. I came back from Korea in August 2020 and the car took 2.5 months. We agreed to stick with one car due to COVID and wait it out, so a rental was our choice. I was going to an ACS grad school program ~3 days a week which quickly turned remote for the year. It was a good ~$1k month through Avis but earned a few free rentals down the road in points. We looked at the lemon lot option but realized registration and insurance plus reselling takes time/effort and had concerns it would not be worth it vs ~$2.5-3K.
End result it was fine with the rental… Just annoying to eat the cost, but CC (CSR card) and Avis points at least gave me a tiny silver lining.
Edit: were oconus again in the Middle East as of summer ’23 and had the same issue waiting about 50 days. This time we uber’d a lot and did a few weeks of rentals. Much cheaper here and same result
Should have just sold the car instead of shipping and bought a new or used through MAS which will ship the car to your next duty station.
No great options, I just wanted to add look into USAA or NavyFed if you’re a member, they offer discounts for rental cars. Could save you some money if you go with that option.
Use Turo.com ?
Hit up people in your new command, best bet is renting from a shipmate or colleague an extra car. All the alternatives will be expensive, worst case by like a 10yo Civic or something that’s gonna hold nearly all its value while you drive it and is cheap to insure and drive
Ask 1SG for a ride I bet he’s super chill and won’t even ask for gas money
I don’t know if you’re going to be near it and other bases may have something similar. Ramstein has a junkyard where you can buy used cars that people have turned in. Some of them may potentially only need minor repairs to be drivable. I bought a BMW for 350 that worked well for me for a new that I didn’t have to do anything to in order for it to pass inspection and drive for around a year.