WEEK 15 - WASHINGTON DC - sunday 1 august 2010

today we headed out to go car shopping. we need a car to drive across to los angeles, and the quote we have for our rental car is US$6000! no way! so we metro’d as far as we could over to virginia, then got a $30 taxi ride to the car auction place. we looked around, found a car, we were all ready to buy, and then the guy says, oh just ring and get your insurance sorted first.
after 40mins on the phone i finally get a quote for the only place that will cover us.
US$600 to set up the insurance because joseph is on an international license.
PLUS a minimum term of 6 months at US$433+tax a month! CRAZY! thats US$3500 plus the US$1900 for the car!
so we left that place and vowed to search the internet for an affordable rental car.
we got home and started searching.
avis is the cheapest, but the thing that is tipping the price is the LDW [loss damage waiver] insurance. you NEED this insurance.
basically how their insurance works is you pay it in four sections. LDW covers fixing your car with no excess. this is US$27+tax a day.
then there is ALI [additional liability insurance] for $15 + tax a day. this covers the other persons car and injuries up to a certain amount.
then theres anothe one to cover your injuries, but we have medical cover with our travel insurance so we dont need that one, and then theres another one to upgrade you ALI to a higher amount [eg a million bucks].
then on top of those fees, and the daily hire rate, and tax, we have to pay a one way fee of US$750 for driving it to los angeles.
so joseph started doing some creative searching, seeing if it was cheaper for us to hire state to state, instead of across the country.
in the end we’ve worked out if we hire from virginia to texas, swap cars and go from texas to las vegas, then swap again and go from las vegas to los angeles, we can get our LDW included in the rental, and the one way fee only works out $50 more. so in total doing it this way we are saving US$2000! so crazy!
so after we did a celebration dance, we booked the car, and then headed out for dinner to a chinese restaurant with james.
it was sooooo good, and pretty cheap too, so that was good. i got these yummy fried dumplings, mmmmmm!
then we headed back to james’ place and hung out with another one of his amazingly lovely friends, and had a few drinks and chatted, it was a really nice end to a great stay in washington dc.