Renting car seats????

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

I'm asking this for a friend, who just doesn't get into these types of boards

She is flying down with her two girls, and then they are renting a car for the week. Both of her girls will need carseats. She isn't thrilled with the idea of lugging her car seats along (the girls are 5 and 6, so won't need them on the plane).

Have any of you dealt with this problem? If so, what did you do? Are there places that rent car seats, and could they deliver to the airport? Do car rental places rent car seats?

Just curious what you pros do....

TIA

 

[sharonk]

Most car rental places rent them, but the price is ridiculous. The last time we did it, it was $40 - $50 to rental a car seat for a week, so we decided we would just drive to wal-mart and buy a booster seat for $25! In the long run, it didn't matter though because our rental minivan had built in car seats!

 

[KerriMc]

For our five year old this past March we bought one of the backless boosters and just took that along. I wouldn't think they need actual carseats at the age of 5 and 6 yrs. You could even fit two of them in a fair size duffle bag. We packed hers in the regular luggage on the way down, but took it out and had it put in luggage in a clear plastic bag for the way home. We did rent a carseat for our little one, and it was clean and quite a nice carseat actually, but it cost us 49 for the week. That is a lot to pay for two kids.

Kerri

 

[tessqt]

We got a booster for our little guy, I was not about to pay for a car seat for our week. The backless boosters were gone from the Walmart we stopped at but got one with a back for $20. We found out the last night we were there our van had those in seat car seats, you know the seat can open into a carseat. Now I didn't have time to see how that worked so I don't know if it can work for older kids.

We stayed off-site our last night and the desk clerk took our seat, after we asked if she knew of anyone who could use it.

 

[Hockeymommy]

When we flew last year we just checked ours. They don't count as a checked bag, or at least they didn't last year on Delta.

 

[adamandallie]

We are travelling to Seattle next week and we are bringing our seats with us, all three. My oldest two are 4 and 6 and have the booster seat from Graco with the detachable back. We are just bringing the bottom half of the chairs in a large duffle bag. For my two year old we will be bringing her big Britax car seat on the plane since there is no way she will stay in her airplane seat without it. Bringing the seats was definitely cheaper than renting them for the week. It's also safer since I know that my car seats have never been in any accident.

I would buy the backless booster seats and check them with the luggage. If your friend's car ends up having the built in car seats than she can take the others home and return them to the store.

 

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

Thanks for your thoughts. I'll pass along your suggestions!

 

[officer tigger]

Last year I bought two car seat bags from Babies R Us. We checked them in as luggage. Worked well for us.