New Rules

After going to Baltimore with the family we have learned two important things. The first is not to use a website to prepay for a rental car. When my husband went to pick up the car we had planned on, an Impala, they did not have any. Therefore they wanted him to get a similar car, but one that had less space than we had planned. Since he knew that wouldn’t work he looked at upgrading the current car. Unfortunately the only upgrades available were intermediate SUVs and Luxury cars. Since the SUVs available had just as little space as the cars he was looking at previously, we wound up getting a black Lincoln. We were styling!


If we hadn’t prepaid, my husband would simply have cancelled and gone to a different rental place to find a mini-van or something. But since we prepaid we couldn’t get a refund or anything, so we were stuck. So we decided to never to that again, at least when taking children and all their stuff.

As it worked out we barely had enough room. The front seat passenger side was completely stuffed, on the floor and seat. In the back I was sandwiched between both car seats and had just enough room on the floor for one foot on each side. The trunk was completely packed, the first couple days it took a while for my husband to pack it since he had to learn the right order to put things in. After a couple days it didn’t take nearly as long since he had it down to a science.

The second rule we now have is to use cash and use credit at hotels only, and then only because they require it. Somehow our credit card number was stolen while in Baltimore. We still have our card, so someone had to have swiped it through a card reader or written the numbers down to use somehow later on. Whoever did it was only able to use it twice at a grocery store before it was shut down, because of abnormal activity. It is now being investigated, but we can no longer use that card.

We used cash most of the trip, but used the card three times in Baltimore. Once for gas, once to eat out, and once at the hotel. So somehow it happened at one of those places. The only place the card was out of our sight was at the restaurant, so we assume it was there…but who knows. Live and learn.