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I have a callback in a secondary market that has v poor/non-existent public transport. I only had one other callback here and they offered me a rental car, so I asked for one on this callback. Recruiting said they don't have an arrangement for that through their travel agent, but I could do this and be reimbursed.

Now I'm wondering if I committed some kind of faux pas? I am young so the rental is going to be pretty expensive, and the firm has already made some mentions of wanting to keep costs down. I can't really think of how else to get around, though. Thoughts? Are rental cars standard fare in some cities and I'm just worrying over nothing?

Please don't quote, may delete this shortly.

The callbacks I've been on, the recruiters say to just take a cab to/from the airport, the office, and the hotel. They usually will not pay for the rental. They will, however, pay for the mileage you drive in the rental car, as the recognize you're not taking a cab.

In your case, given that the firm offered to let you rent a car, I don't see any problem with taking a rental car. I agree that you shouldn't spend exorbitantly on getting a rental car if you're making arrangements but that being said, for most large law firms (I wasn't clear where you were interviewing ...), callback costs are a drop in the bucket.

If I'm understanding the OP correctly, you're saying that one firm in the market offered you a rental car and the other one (for a separate trip) offered you reimbursement?

I had callbacks in LA which has a crap public transportation system and I was told to just use cabs, even though I thought it would be cheaper to just rent a car. Is that not an option where you are? It may require programming some cab companies' numbers into your phone, but maybe that's a solution?

Cab to hotel. Cab to firm. Cab to airport. You should not have rented a car, esp if the firm directly told you they wanted to keep costs down.

MrKappus wrote:Cab to hotel. Cab to firm. Cab to airport. You should not have rented a car, esp if the firm directly told you they wanted to keep costs down.

What if cab to airport is $120?

If cabs will be substantially cheaper, go that route. If it's someplace pretty rural, or where 4 cab rides are going to cost you about as much as a rental car, the rental car isn't unreasonable. FWIW, I wouldn't worry about it too much; it's not a faux pas to ask, but it would be a mistake to spend way more than is necessary.

Anonymous User wrote:If I'm understanding the OP correctly, you're saying that one firm in the market offered you a rental car and the other one (for a separate trip) offered you reimbursement?

I had callbacks in LA which has a crap public transportation system and I was told to just use cabs, even though I thought it would be cheaper to just rent a car. Is that not an option where you are? It may require programming some cab companies' numbers into your phone, but maybe that's a solution?

OP here. Yes, you understood me correctly.

When I said bad public transit, I was including cabs. This is not a place where there's a lot of cabs (almost certainly can't just get one on the street) but calling up a cab company might be an option. I will look into how that compares to rental costs. Thanks for everyone's input so far.

Anonymous User wrote:

MrKappus wrote:Cab to hotel. Cab to firm. Cab to airport. You should not have rented a car, esp if the firm directly told you they wanted to keep costs down.

What if cab to airport is $120?

Credited. Depending on the area, a cab could be substantially more expensive than a rental car. Parts of the Dallas/Fort Worth area come to mind.

Op, if this is really a secondary market, most of those are still pretty big cities. I don't think it would out you to say which one. If we knew, we could tell you with more confidence what the proper action should be.

Bosque wrote:Op, if this is really a secondary market, most of those are still pretty big cities. I don't think it would out you to say which one. If we knew, we could tell you with more confidence what the proper action should be.

The proper action is clearly the choice that costs substantially less. If they're basically similar, the firm won't care one way or the other.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:If I'm understanding the OP correctly, you're saying that one firm in the market offered you a rental car and the other one (for a separate trip) offered you reimbursement?

I had callbacks in LA which has a crap public transportation system and I was told to just use cabs, even though I thought it would be cheaper to just rent a car. Is that not an option where you are? It may require programming some cab companies' numbers into your phone, but maybe that's a solution?

OP here. Yes, you understood me correctly.

When I said bad public transit, I was including cabs. This is not a place where there's a lot of cabs (almost certainly can't just get one on the street) but calling up a cab company might be an option. I will look into how that compares to rental costs. Thanks for everyone's input so far.

Yeah, same with my callbacks. I had to get cabs through my hotel to get to the interview and then have the number stored on my phone to call for pickup.

The hindrance to my rental car dream was the fact that parking in LA is prohibitively expensive, so when that's factored in to the car costs, it became too high. If you're somewhere similar where parking is an issue, it may be why the firm was reluctant to allow a rental car. But everyone else's answers were correct: if a rental car is cheaper, go with that. Good luck!

Firms have a weird bias toward cabs, even in markets with crap public transit / heavy traffic like L.A. At about $35-40/day, a rental can be a lot cheaper (I find the best deals from Enterprise -- don't know if they're cheaper or I just get lucky).

I pointed this out to my LA host firm -- I had good rapport with someone there, and they still said they prefer simply doing cabs. When I got to the firm, I realized why: they have a huge stack of cab vouchers they give out to anyone who wants them.

I decided, given how huge LA is and that I wanted to spend some of my time in various neighborhoods seeing friends, etc., to just rent the car and pay for it myself. Despite this, they STILL wanted to give me cab vouchers.

Since the firm's paying for everything else, paying out of pocket was worth it for me. It's not often in life you get free flights, free food, etc. I'd rather have a car and know I can get to the CB on time (most important consideration) + not be trapped at the hotel for the rest of the day/night.

As to the poster below -- parking was free / validated at all of my LA CBs. Same for local CBs here in Chicago. No one seemed to bat an eye at that.

I rented a car on a callback. Came from an east coast school and had callbacks in downtown Los Angeles, Century City, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine, and downtown San Diego all on one trip. It made a lot of sense.