If you’re headed into an airport on business or for some other reason and just aren’t looking forward to that smelly taxi or crowded bus, why not just rent a limo to take you where you need to go? Most major airports have links to transportation rental services from their websites – start out there. If you fail to find anything on the airport’s website, try using Google or some other search engine to find a term like “limousine rental Dulles” or something along those lines. This will bring up a list of rental services near whatever airport you’ll be flying into.

After you’ve found a rental service, you can schedule a limousine to pick you up at the airport and take you to wherever you need to go. Arrive at that business meeting, or at the state capitol – maybe even at the steps of the Capitol building in Washington D.C., itself – in style. Again, there’s little more impressive than a stretch limousine when you’re set to impress.

Assuming the prom went well, you might eventually have cause to rent a wedding limousine. Like a prom, you’re going to have to pay for the ride to and from the wedding, as well as the few hours during the ceremony when the limo isn’t in use. There isn’t any way around this – budget in the full wedding time when you’re calculating the rental price. Again, drivers are paid by fifteen percent gratuity rates – don’t forget to budget that price, as well.

If you’re lucky, your wedding will be one of the best days of your life. If you’re unprepared, it may not be, and, well, you might not want to see where it goes from there. Whatever else happens, you can at least make sure the limo service runs smoothly if you adhere to a few simple tips. First, make sure you get a written contract with your limo dealer. If the dealer isn’t willing to give you a contract, they probably have a reason – that they can’t guarantee good service. If a rental service refuses to sign a contract, find a different rental service, especially if their prices are unusually low.

If you’re looking to rent a limo to take your date to the prom, you’ll have your own special set of circumstances. You’re young – you don’t exactly have experience in this sort of thing. What do you do? Whom do you rent from? As to rental services, see the section on how to rent below.

First, what do you pay for? Unfortunately, even during the few hours of the prom, you’ll still have to pay for the limousine – during that time, it’s in your service, and so the driver is on your paycheck. Resign yourself to having to pay for both the drive to and from the prom, as well as the time you stay there. Also, limousine drivers are paid based on gratuities – tips, in other words, like waiters in restaurants. Budget another fifteen percent on top of the rental price for the gratuity.

Limo rentals are most often charged by the hour, with rates that vary widely depending on the dealer and on how you intend to use the dealer. Because a limo is such a large investment, most dealers also stipulate a three-hour minimum rental time, so make sure to factor that in when you’re thinking about how much you’ll be spending.

Rates vary quite a lot depending on what you’re looking for, but generally fall in the range of between fifty and a hundred dollars an hour. The larger and fancier the limousine, the more you can expect to spend on it. Prom limousines and wedding limousines are rented for a set period – sometimes as much as five or six hours, which can quickly add up, especially against the meager bank accounts most high schoolers, college students, and newlyweds tend to own.

You can sometimes get a good deal for a limo, but remember – you get what you pay for, and this is just as true in the limo service as in anything else. Believe it or not, it really is possible to get a “cheap” limousine, and you’ll be able to tell, by old seats, rust spots, even problems with the air conditioning or sound system. If you’re looking to impress, you might as well get a good limo, as a rusty or old one will do nothing but make you look like someone over reaching your bank account.

For most people, this is a simple question. If you’ll only use it once or twice, it’s painfully obvious that you don’t need to buy one. If you plan on mixing with the big shots, though, it might come in handy. How much, exactly, would you be paying if you had to buy a limousine?

The answer is, quite a lot. For a new limo, you’re looking at anywhere from around seventy-five thousand dollars to over a hundred. If you’re thinking of buying a used car, it’s a little better – older models can be as low as fifteen or twenty thousand. If you’ve got money to spend and people to impress, it could make a decent investment – check out your options, see what’s available, and decide just how much of a bite you want to take out of that Swiss bank account.