5 Ways to Cut Down on Rental Car Gas Prices

The 3,000 cherry blossom tress in Washington, D.C. will bloom for the 100th time this year, and hotels around the capital are offering travel deals. Head over to our Real Deals section for details on a hotel deal at the Liaison Capitol Hill, with rates starting at $199 a night during the festival (the deal includes a picnic lunch and metro passes). The 10 Kimpton hotels in the D.C. area also have a hotel–only deal that includes a $30 hotel credit and sake tasting, from $229 a night. If you are looking for a full vacation package to the cherry blossom festival, United Vacations is offering a deal that includes airfare from Chicago (other gateways are available for an additional fee) and three nights hotel for $578 per person, including taxes. The hotel is the Holiday Inn Arlington at Ballston, so you won't be staying in the heart of the capital, but a metro station is just three blocks away. Looking to really splurge? Some of D.C.'s swankiest hotels are also offering "deals," including the Ritz-Carlton, where the cherry blossom package starts at $929 per night, including dinner and a bike tour of the blossom along the Georgetown Waterfront. Of course, D.C. isn't the only city where the sakura will bloom. Check out our guide to 10 great cherry blossom festivals around the world, and get in the mood by flipping through our readers' best cherry blossom photos. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Stop and Smell the Cherry Blossoms D.C.'s Cherry Blossoms Without the Crowds Washington, D.C. Hotels: Reviews of the best affordable hotels in Washington, D.C.

Nature Valley has teamed up with hikers and videographers to create the ultimate virtual tour of three iconic American Parks—the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone National Park, and the Grand Canyon. The site, NatureValleyTrailView.com, which launched today, provides interactive maps of popular trails complete with videos of trail markers and points of interest. The result is 360-degree street-level imagery of over 100 miles in each park—as well as helpful information for each trail (distance, difficulty rating and elevation) for folks looking to embark on their own trekking adventure. To create the maps, eight hikers set out into the parks with an 11-lense, Dodeca 2360 camera, which captures video footage from every direction simultaneously (editors then stitch the images together to create an immersive experience). And while the team has only covered three parks so far, they have plans to expand into other parks. Hear about the team's experiences documenting the parks: The project calls to mind Google's efforts to bring street view into art museums and to document the remote villages of the Amazon River Basin, but Google had nothing to do with this project. The venture was sponsored by granola-bar company Nature Valley which has aligned itself with our national parks in an effort to preserve them. This project helps our parks in three ways—one, it provides much-needed cash to the park system, two it educates the public on these valuable natural resources, and three it digitally documents the land for eternity. Of course, the role of big business in preserving our parks is not without controversy. Critics worry that corporate sponsors will wield undue influence over parks. But before you start freaking out about advertisements cluttering our views of the Grand Canyon, keep this in mind—90 percent of our budget for the National Park Service comes from Congress. And, as Mother Jones reported in a recent article, there are plenty of rules that protect the parks from conflicts of interest and corporate pressure. As far as I'm concerned, I think it's cool—you can visit our nation's parks from the comfort of your couch, you can teach your children about the beauty and importance of our nation's natural resources, and when you're ready to visit you have a tool that can help you make the most of your experience. What do you think? SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Scalpers at National Parks? Best National Parks for Wildlife Viewing 7 National Parks You've Never Heard Of

Travelers are charged when they reserve a hotel room and don't show up. Same thing with flights, of course. For car rentals, though, there's usually no fee for being a no-show. But could the system change? For years, car rental operations have complained that they're the only major segment of the travel industry that accepts reservations and imposes no penalty when the customer doesn't follow through on their reservation. In many cases, a rental car can be reserved without even submitting a credit card. It's basically an honors system. Cancelling a reservation is encouraged, but there is generally no fee for the being a no-show without giving the rental agency a head's up. As things stand, the absence of such a fee gives rental agencies justification for accepting more reservations than they have cars. The assumption is that some of those making reservations won't actually pick up their vehicles. When the amount of customers at the rental counter outnumbers the cars on the lot, though, the car rental company must scramble, and sometimes customers who have dutifully made reservations wind up out of luck without a car. Increasingly, rental car agencies seem to want to change the system and start collecting fees on no-shows, just like their hotel and airline brethren. In a long guest column in Auto Rental News, Craig Parmerlee, director of business development for ACE Rent a Car argues that the time has come for "guaranteed reservations" in the rental car world. In a recent program, ACE and CarRentals.com teamed up to offer guaranteed reservations, in which the agency would guarantee that the reserved car would be ready for the customer, and the customer would be obliged to pay in full in the case of a no-show. The scenario is similar to the "prepay option" many rental agencies now offer. At this stage, about 20 percent of ACE's reservations are now guaranteed. After studying six months of "guaranteed reservation" data, ACE has concluded that the vast majority of customers who book this way are happy with the system. They understand the risks (losing money for being a no-show) and the upsides as well (cheaper rental rates). Parmerlee estimates that only 1 in 10,000 reservations results in an unhappy customer. As for that one individual, Parmerlee writes: While we hate to see even one unhappy customer, we know that we are able to provide better service and a better value to the other customers because guaranteed reservations give us a more reliable basis for planning the daily operation. Parts of the guaranteed reservation system make sense for rental agency and consumer alike. But it seems unfair for an agency to collect the rental fee in full from a person who never uses the car, and then the agency turns around and rents that car to another customer. In this situation, the rental agency is essentially doubling its revenues. Some compromise and limitations on fees seem more appropriate and fair. The hotel business seems like the most appropriate model: Perhaps there could be a fee assessed only for customers who fail to cancel within 24 or 72 hours of arrival, and the fee would only relate to a single day's usage, rather than the entirety of the reservation. That would seem much fairer. Interestingly enough, just as rental car agencies are pushing to become more like hotels or airlines in terms of fees, at least one hotel company is changing its reservation system to become more like car rental agencies. The La Quinta chain recently announced that it would begin accepting reservations without requiring a credit card number. The "LQ-Instant Hold" feature allows travelers to reserve a room on the day of arrival with the use of a smartphone (and a smartphone number). The reservation will be held for four hours, by which time the traveler is expected to arrive at the hotel and check in. And if the traveler doesn't show up, no harm, no fee. No charge is assessed, and the hotel is free to offer the room to another guest. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Rental Cars May Soon Be Safer Thanks to One Angry Mom Rental Cars: Are 'No Show' Fees in the Works? 6 Foreign Car Rental Fees to Watch Out for on Vacation