Great Rate for Minivan...Until I Pay for the Carseat!!!

[SalandJeff]

I'm finding a great rate for a minivan through the Alamo/Costco thread here. But the carseat if $9.00 per day

What do you do? Does everyone usually bring their own? If you check it, do you put it in some type of protective bag. Ours is a real pain to install. What does everyone think.

 

[Lucky'sMom]

I always bring our own car seat. When my kids were under 3, I used it on the airplane, anyway. After age 3, we put it in a carseat bag that we bought from a baby store. We just check it with the luggage...it's really no problem. For the price the car rental companies charge to rent one, you could buy a new one.

 

[robinb]

I bring my own booster and brought my own car seat. If your child is too big to use it on the plane, invest in a car seat bag that will protect it in the luggage compartment. You will save some $$ and your DD will be happier in her own seat. I also suggest a cheap luggage cart to bungie the seat to while going though the airport.

 

[maciec]

I bring the car seat on the plane and box up the booster and check it with our luggage.

 

[beattyfamily]

I bring my own as well. We bought a carseat bag at BAbies R Us for $20 and it gets checked with the rest of my luggage.

I've never encountered any problems at all. Personally, I would never rent a carseat for so many reasons.

 

[shafke]

We bring our own car seat. We used it in the plane an DD slept the entire trip down. For the booster seat for DS we put it in the stroller bag along woth the stroller and checked it with our luggage. No problems.

For getting through the airport with two kids, carry ons, and car seat we bought a cheap carrier for about $20 and attached what we could. The only problem is undoing everything to get through security and then having to tie it all back up.

 

[markey]

You might want to check the make of mini van. The one we rented in Dec 2004 was a Dodge Caravan and it had a build in car seat, you just had to flip it down. We did not pay any extra for this.

 

[4greatboys]

We take one carseat on the plane for my youngest and check the booster for my oldest. They do put it in a clear protective bag. So far so good its always been in the same shape when we got it back.
Paying for those rental carseats is a killer, I would rather just bring ours with us.

 

[robinb]

We take one carseat on the plane for my youngest and check the booster for my oldest. They do put it in a clear protective bag. So far so good its always been in the same shape when we got it back.
Paying for those rental carseats is a killer, I would rather just bring ours with us.

I would not count on your ailiner having a plastic bag. I flew into MCO once and had a bag on the way down and no bag on the way back (ATA, I think). They lost part of my booster seat (the arm rest covers) and no-one was at the airport to help me since they were pulling out of the Madison airport. I tried to contact ATA many times with a baggage claim, but I never got through to them.

 

[Lucky'sMom]

You also can't "count on" receiving a particular kind of mini-van (that would have built in car seats, for example). All of the rental companies have a variety of minivans, and you never know which ones will be available when you arrive.