A Sedona and Phoenix Trip on Miles and Points

• Southwest Airlines to Arizona
• Silvercar Phoenix Rental Experience
• Sedona and the Adobe Grand Villas
• Phoenix and the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch

A money savings deal, Silvercar is not.

Which is contrary to the majority of the posts we publish at Savings Beagle.

Usually, we write about deals and lower-cost alternatives on products and services we use every day.

This write-up will be a little different.

That’s not to say I didn’t find some money saving opportunities to use with my Silvercar rental, but when compared – price-wise – to traditional car rental companies, Silvercar would not fall into the “budget” category.

Getting the absolute best deal on my car rental in Phoenix, however, wasn’t the goal.

I’ve been aware of Silvercar for a number of years now, but have never been in a location where I could give it a try.

Until this trip.

So I decided to splurge for the sake of research – both for my own interest and for those of our readers.

Here’s my Silvercar Phoenix experience.

Silvercar

If you’re not familiar with Silvercar, this “About” statement from Silvercar.com will give you a rough idea of what this alternative to traditional car rental companies is all about.

“Silvercar is the airport car rental experience re-imagined. Designed especially for the connected business traveler, Silvercar delivers a fast, frictionless, consistent experience, featuring a single, premium car model every time — the Audi A4.

By using a smartphone to sign up, reserve, and select and unlock the car, Silvercar customers get on the road without delay. The return is just as streamlined and features easy drop-off and instant e-receipts. There are no lines, no counters, no hassles, and no upsells, and our friendly, experienced concierges are always nearby to assist as needed.”

Geared toward business travelers, and only offering Audi A4 cars, the rental pricing is typically higher than what you’d get from many of the major car rental agencies.

Not always, though.

Which is why you may want to add Silvercar to your list of car rental options when traveling to certain locations.

I say certain locations because Silvercar operates at limited U.S. locales.

Currently, you can find Silvercar at the following airports/locations:

• Austin
• Chicago O’Hare
• Dallas Love Field
• Denver
• Lauderdale
• Las Vegas
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Miami – South Beach
• Newark
• NYC – Brooklyn
• NYC – Brooklyn Downtown
• NYC – Manhattan
• Phoenix
• San Francisco
• Orlando – August 2017
• Seattle – July 2017

While pricing may be somewhat higher than what you’ll find at Budget, Alamo, Thrifty and the like, it might not be that much higher than Hertz, National, and Avis, car rental companies that cater more toward the business traveler than the family vacationers.

And when you factor in the more personalized, streamlined service aspect of a Silvercar rental, you just might decide the extra cost is worth it.

 

My Rental Experience

 

Reservation

 A week before the trip I set up an account on Silvercar.com, inputting the typical information a car rental operation would want – contact info, driver’s license info, insurance, and payment information.

Once completed, making the reservation was as easy as selecting the location and dates for the rental.

In my case, my wife and I rented at the Phoenix location for 4 days.

On the Silvercar website, there was a code listed in the upper banner for 30% off your first rental. I used the code and it automatically reduced the price by 30%.

Additionally, Silvercar has a referral program where the person referring gets a $25 Visa Virtual gift card, and the person renting gets one as well after his/her first rental.

I used a referral code with my rental and received the $25 virtual gift card the day after my rental ended.

Total price for my four-day Silvercar rental was $240. $215 if you factor in the $25 gift card.

If you think you might give Silvercar a try, enter my referral code when you sign up and we’ll each get $25 once your first rental is complete.

Referral Code: KGDNLTVS

Arrival

Upon arrival at PHX, there was a friendly Welcome-to-Silvercar Phoenix text waiting to be read.

The text directed me to the Silvercar App for reservation pick up instructions.

After a quick scan of the App, I was unable to find anything more than the basic reservation information. No matter, I had researched the process prior to leaving on the trip and had a pretty good idea how it was going to work.

The Phoenix airport has its entire car rental operation housed at an off-airport location a few minutes’ drive from the airport. That includes check in counters and the various rental agencies’ fleets of cars.

If you’re renting a car – no matter the company – you’ll take the car rental shuttle bus to the all-encompassing rental facility.

And that includes Silvercar rentals.

Although, Silvercar is not actually located at this facility, rather, it has its own, stand-alone building a minute or two drive away. They only use this facility as a pick up location.

I texted Silvercar to confirm the process and promptly received a detailed text confirming my understanding of the process, stating we should look for the silver Audi at the end of the rental car facility’s horseshoe driveway and asking me to text once we boarded the car rental shuttle bus.

Sure enough, once we exited the shuttle bus at the rental car facility, there was the silver Audi, and a Silvercar representative, waiting for our arrival.

Pick Up

After a quick introduction, we were off to the Silvercar facility to get our car.

I’m guessing the pick up process is location specific. Not too many airports have a car rental facility like the one in Phoenix, and it probably makes the pick up process easier to have Silvercar renters met here. City ordinances might play into it as well. Although, that’s just a guess on my part.

Other than being slightly odd regarding how and where we met the Silvercar representative, the process went off without a hitch.

Being a first-time renter with Silvercar, I needed to have my credit card and driver’s license checked prior to departure.

Those items taken care of, the Silvercar rep walked me through the checkout process, which included using the App to unlock the car, confirm there was no damage to the car’s exterior and acknowledge I was aware of and agreed to the rental’s Terms and Conditions.

All items checked, I submitted via the App and we were ready to go.

No paperwork to sign, no upselling and no long trek to the car.

The rep with whom we worked was extremely professional, helpful and fast.

Overall, a very good pick up experience.

The Car

I won’t get into the details of the Audi A4…you can read that here.

I’ll just say that every Silvercar is decked out with the latest technology – all included in the rental price. We especially appreciated the onboard navigation and in-car Wi-Fi Hotspot considering we were unfamiliar with Phoenix, Sedona and the route in between.

Drop Off

Drop off couldn’t have been easier or quicker.

The evening before our scheduled drop off, we received a confirmation text from Silvercar. It reminded us of our scheduled drop off time and asked us to contact them if our plans had changed.

As with any other rental, you’re required to return the car with a full tank of gas.

If you can’t, or don’t want to, fill the car before returning it, a reasonable $5 fee in addition to the cost of premium gas to fill the tank is added to your rental charge.

There are a few gas stations relatively close to the Phoenix Silvercar location, so filling it up was not an issue for us.

We arrived at the Silvercar facility, and after being greeted and asked how the rental went, we were driven – in the same car we had rented – directly to our airline’s departure door.

Total time at the Silvercar facility…maybe 1 minute.

The Silvercar rep who drove us to the airport unloaded our bags, thanked us for using Silvercar and was off.

Our Silvercar rental receipt was in my email inbox when I checked a few minutes later.

Total time from the Silvercar facility to our airline’s check in area…maybe 5 minutes.

Wrap Up

Silvercar is not the cheapest option when renting a vehicle.

To be fair, though, they don’t profess to be…that’s just not Silvercar’s business model.

If rock-bottom pricing is what you want, it’s best to look elsewhere.

However, if you desire a simplified rental process, professionally administered, utilizing well-appointed, all-inclusive quality vehicles, and don’t mind paying for that service, then I encourage you to give Silvercar a try.