Save Your Time, Money and Stress with Savvy (懂行，悟性）Rental Car Strategies

    Renting a car can be expensive, confusing, and stressful — but it doesn't have to be. Here are several helpful strategies to save money, time, and stress on your next (and every) car rental.

Sign Up for Loyalty Programs

    Rental car loyalty programs are free to join, so register for any programs you might use in the future. My favorite car rental loyalty program benefit is that I can skip the counter and head right to my reserved car. Some programs allow members to choose a car from the available pool. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

Optimize Your Strategy

    Do you really need a rental car from the airport? For instance, if your flight arrives at night, take a free hotel shuttle and pick up your car the next day. The car rental location might even be at your hotel or can pick you up (or deliver the car to you).{#blank#}2{#/blank#}

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    For a city trip, you may not even need a rental car. Research whether mass transit（运输）, taxi, Uber, bike rental, and other transportation methods will suffice(足够）. Parking charges at downtown hotels may cost more than your car rental rate, so it may be doubly in your favor to give up a rental car. In some locations, a bike might be more efficient and economical than a car.

 Search for Specials

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} In conjunction（结合）with your personal discount code, you may also find a last-minute rate, free rental day, or other promotion. My favorite annual travel deal is driving a car one-way out of Florida after Spring Break with rates as low as $1 per day.

Consider Alternative Rental Options

    Major car rental companies might have an associated discount brand at your rental location, like Firefly for Hertz.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} 

    An independent or smaller local agency may fit your needs; like A1 or Lucky Owl in Honolulu. Many people prefer to check rates on Hotwire and Priceline, especially for last-minute rentals.

A．Rental rates are likely lower away from the airport, plus you might save the cost of an entire rental day.

B．I use discount-finding websites to track my car reservations.

C．Smaller brands, like Thrifty and Fox, might offer better service and lower rates.

D．In addition to saving time and offering freedom of choice, loyalty members earn points and receive special promotions.

E．Check car rental company websites for current specials.

F．Skip the Car

G．Use a bike

    Would you like to travel? Here is some advice for you.

    Embassy Suites by Hilton Santa Ana Orange County Airport

    Neighborhood: John Wayne Airport (SNA), Orange County 1325 East Dyer Road, Santa Ana, CAOVERALL GUEST SCORE Very Good Based on 163 Guest Ratings

    Hotel Description

    Being close to airport and freeway access makes the Embassy Suites a top choice for our guests in the area. The 300-room Embassy Suites offers homey comforts for those on business and vacation alike—suites with separate living and sleeping areas, refrigerators, microwaves, coffeemakers, Wi-Fi access and two TVs. Wake up to a free cooked-to-order breakfast and enjoy the indoor pool and fitness center. A two-hour evening reception offers drinks and appetizers and the on-site restaurant serves American favorites. The property also has a business center with copy and fax services. Parking is available for an additional fee. Less than two miles from I-405, the Embassy Suites is within a half-mile of various restaurants and just three miles from John Wayne Airport. Our guests say the Embassy Suites' location, “brilliant” breakfast and “friendly” staff make it one of their favorite Santa Ana properties.

    Apps such as Snapchat already give users the ability to add dog ears, colorful hats and other images onto smart phone photos. Virtual(虚拟的)mirrors are a little different. They are designed to let users see what they would look like wearing something that they might want to buy, such as eyeglasses and earrings.

    A smart mirror is an app that turns the screen of a smart phone or other mobile device (装置) into a mirror, using its camera. As users look at the image(影像), the app will make it appear as if they are wearing the object. These smart mirror Apps are becoming popular among retail(零售的))businesses, which want to get people into their stores.

    Peter Johnson is with FaceCake Marketing Technologies. He said, “Virtual try-on off the ability to try on a great many objects, many more than they would be able to try on if were no such kind of App.” Recently, Johnson showed how an app called Dangle works. It lets store customers try on different earrings(耳环)without touching a single pair Dangle can be used on a computer. It uses the app's facial recognition technology to make it appear as if the user is wearing earrings. The earrings in the image appear almost real.

With Dangle, retailers can show customers all of their earrings in a short period of time—something almost impossible without technology. There are other good reasons to use the app. Trying-on goods with the virtual mirror means there is nothing to damage, lose or at risk of being stolen.

    Alec Gefrides is with the American technology company Intel. “We always hear about the big store closings,” said Gefrides. “But Intel sees technology becoming more important in providing customers with a better experience.”

D

    We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置) well after they go out of style. That's bad news for the environment – and our wallets – as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

    To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life – from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

    As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones."The Living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kid's room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices-we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TV's with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions(排放) more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

    So what's the solution(解决方案)?The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tables instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

A hybrid electric vehicle (混合动力车) or HEV is a vehicle driven by the combination of petrol engine and electric motor. Terrence has been driving a HEV for five years. He really doesn't understand why more people aren't accepting them. "I probably spend about $ 7 a day on petrol," the taxi driver told news. com. au. In his previous conventional vehicle Terrence said he was spending up to $ 30 a day on petrol, meaning he saves almost $ 6000 every year.

The Toyota spokesman said this was quite a high saving and official tests estimate (估计) an average driver would only save about 33 percent off their current bill. This means a driver paying $ 30 a day on petrol would see their bill drop to about $ 20 using the hybrid. "A taxi driver that drives in built-up areas and spends little time on highways will notice a higher fuel saving," he said. "Low speeds allow the electric motors to be used more and the petrol engine used less."

While some people are skeptical about how reliable hybrids are, Terrence said he had never run out of power. His Camry cost about $ 34,000 and so after five years, it's nearly paid for itself. "For cab drivers, it's a real advantage because of the cost-effectiveness," he said. Terrence has no complaints about the car. "I love it, the calm and quietness of it, the simplicity of it—you just jump in and go. The maintenance（保养）is really low. But the only difficulty is finding someone to service the car as there are not many experienced mechanics（机修工）."

Terrence said it's "extraordinary" that more drivers aren't buying more hybrid electric vehicles and that governments are not encouraging this more. "I think people have a view that you have to plug it in, which is not true. A lack of information about the cars may be stopping people from taking the plunge. It's not promoted at all for the public to understand—it's simplifying the actual owning of a car—you don't have to do so many things to own it and run it, it's just so much simpler. Why wouldn't the government promote such a thing?"