Enterprise Weekend Special Rental Car Promos: Worth It? [2020]

Are you interested in shaving some dollars off of the price of your rental vehicle? Well, if you’re thinking about booking a rental car with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, one way that you can do this is by booking an Enterprise weekend special promotional rate.

These rates can be very cheap but there are a few things that you need to know about these rates before you decide to book them. In this article, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about these rates.

What are Enterprise weekend specials?

Enterprise weekend specials are special promotional rates that you can get for rental vehicles at very low rates. These can offer great savings but there are special rules and restrictions to be aware of when considering these deals.

By the way, if you’re looking to cut down on your rental car costs, consider getting a card like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. It offers an early spend bonus worth $500 in travel after meeting the minimum spend and is great to cancel out all sorts of travel expenses. 

Tip: Use WalletFlo for all your credit card needs. It’s free and will help you optimize your rewards and savings!

Enterprise weekend specials rules

There are a few key factors to consider when thinking about jumping on these rates.

Friday through Monday

You must make your booking for Friday through Monday. This does not mean that you can pick any weekend dates, however. For example, you can’t make a booking Friday to Saturday or Saturday to Sunday. The booking must be made from Friday through Monday.

There are some reports of these offers being available for for some itineraries Friday through Tuesday but I’m not sure how common those actually go out.

I would advise to call into the particular center you’re thinking about renting from if you have a rental that you think might work with this promo and inquire with them — they might even be able to offer you even lower rates.

Time periods

Sometimes the terms and conditions will specify certain time periods that you need to make your booking in order to take advantage of the deals. For example, at the time of this article, the current terms and conditions state that the bookings “must begin on or after August 24, 2018 and end on or before May 21, 2019.”

 Economy or Compact car rentals

These offers only go out for Economy or Compact car rentals.

Here are the type of vehicles (via Flyertalk) that had fallen into these classifications in the past:

• Economy: Chevrolet Spark, Fiat 500 or Kia Rio
  
• Compact: Nissan Versa, Hyundai Accent, Ford Fiesta, or Toyota Yaris
• Standard: Chrysler 200, Dodge Avenger, Kia Soul
• Full-Sized: Nissan Altima, Volkswagen Passat, Dodge Charger, Chevrolet Malibu, Kia Optima, Hyundai Sonata, Toyota Camry, Mazda 6, Ford Fusion

100 miles per day

With these promotions you’ll be limited to 100 miles per day, which isn’t very much for many people over a three day period. If you go over this mileage amount, you’ll be subject to a 20 cent/mile penalty for each mile driven over 300 miles.

Booking Enterprise weekend specials

In order to book these special rates, simply visit the Enterprise website here.

The promotion/coupon code used for this offer should already be pre-loaded but if it’s not then try “Weekend Special.” You can see where to enter the promo code in the image below.

You’ll also need to make sure your dates are in line with the promo otherwise they won’t pull up the promotional rates.

Once you select your location, you’ll be able to search for the promotional rates. If you find a promo rate, you’ll know because you’ll be able to see where it states: “Promotion Applied.” The total rate for a 3-day rental with the promo code below was for $45.09, which isn’t bad at all.

I did have a lot of trouble finding these rates for major cities when I searched. I randomly chose Baton Rouge as an example after trying several large cities and not finding anything. I’ve also read that these promotional rates may not show up for airport locations so keep that in mind.

How much do you save?

With rates at $12.99, the savings can certainly begin to add up quickly with these promos. (Some prices in the past were as low as $9.99 but I think they might have increased the price universally to $12.99.)

I did a test with Baton Rouge, LA to see what the rates looked like for the same exact dates but without the promo code and the rates were over $100 more. That’s a lot more expensive but keep in mind that those higher rates don’t come with the mileage restrictions.

Tip: Use WalletFlo for all your credit card needs. It’s free and will help you optimize your rewards and savings!

Are these promos worth it?

I think that these promos can certainly be worth it for the right person. If you’re not going to be doing much driving and/or joyriding and are headed to a smaller city then these promos might more readily available and practical.

As long as you can stay under 100 miles per day and need to use the car for the entire weekend (plus Monday) then these promo codes could save you over $100 as shown above. However, sometimes the non-promotional offers can be quite cheap and the savings might not be so much. In those cases, you might want to ditch the promo if you think you might eclipse the 300 mile limitation.

For example, if you were driving an extra 100 miles per day over the limit you would be charged $20 per day. Assuming a $12.99 discount, that would be about $33 per day for the rental which could be on par with some other discounts. So if you have a road trip in mind these Enterprise weekend specials offers may not be worth it.

The biggest hurdle of all might be finding a city that offers these special rates, though. I’ve struck out with many major cities and since it appears airport locations don’t offer these rates, it could be extra difficult to find a location offering these special promotional rates.

Also, as far as I know, Enterprise does not publish a list of locations eligible for this promotion so that makes things a little extra difficult.

Terms & Conditions

Here are the official terms and conditions if you are curios.

Offer applies only to the base rate charge (time and mileage) and does not apply to applicable taxes, fees, surcharges, refueling, drop-off, delivery, youthful driver, additional driver, pick up, or one-way charges or any optional product or service (such as optional damage waiver of $50 or less per day), which are the responsibility of the Renter.

So just don’t forget that other fees can apply such as young driver fees which can range from $20+ per day.

Offer valid at participating neighborhood locations in U.S. and Puerto Rico only for rentals reserved in advance. Rental must begin on or after 8/16/2019 and end on or before 5/20/2020. Offer applies to Economy through Full Size car rentals beginning on Friday and ending the following Monday, and includes 100 miles per day per day; $0.20 for each additional mile. For more information, including an estimate of your total rental cost, visit our Internet website at www.enterprise.com.

Technically these weekend offers are special limited time offers and expire each year but they do tend to return every year.

Additional mandatory charges may be imposed, including, but not limited to a customer facility charge, airport concession fee, tourism commission assessment, vehicle license recovery fee, facility recovery fees, or other government-imposed taxes or fees. Enterprise reserves the right to terminate the offer or change the terms at any time. Offer is not valid at airport locations. This offer cannot be combined with any other discount and cannot be applied to a previous or existing reservation or rental. Offer is subject to vehicle availability at the time of booking. Renter and additional driver(s) must meet standard age, driver and credit requirements. Please check your auto insurance policy and/or credit card agreement for rental vehicle coverage. Other restrictions, including holiday and blackout dates, may apply. Pick-up and drop-off service is subject to geographic and other restrictions. Non-transferrable. Void where prohibited.

Final word

Overall, it’s nice to know about these special promotional rates but there are a lot of restrictions for these rates that really limit the use of the promos. Also, since the cities are pretty limited it can be difficult to put this promo to use. But if everything lines up for your car rental, you could save over $100 on a rental which is very good.