Introduction
Not sure about you guys, but here in Seattle, parking at the Seatac airport is very expensive. As you can see above, with the airport fees, “cost of living fee” (Seatac has implemented a $15/hr min wage,) and what looks like a 20% city tax, the $14.95 daily parking fee carries a whopping 50% tax and fees surcharge.
I had a Groupon for this place, but apparently there was a blackout date, and so I had $7.50 of expired credits that I wanted to use there. I also had some Costco 20% off gift cards from years ago as well. ELSE I WOULD NEVER PARK THERE AGAIN.
Better option – a hotel near the airport
Frustrated, I stumbled onto www.airportparking.com. I found a nearby hotel (the Embassy Suites) that would have only charged me $11 ALL IN. Don’t be fooled by the lower price of $5.99 either. Click through and you’ll notice that Skyway has $5 more in taxes and fees (this is because Skyway is located in Seatac while the Embassy Suites is located in a different city limit.)
My experience and downside of hotel airport parking
When I used the Embassy Suites for the first time, I had made my reservation online, printed out the receipt (THIS IS NECESSARY) so the front desk lady knew how much to charge me. She then gave me a receipt which I put on my car, and she told me to park at any open parking space. The only downside to parking at a hotel is that they usually only have 1 shuttle that only runs every half hour and are usually further away from the airport. I later found out Wallypark only runs 2 shuttles, but they are less than 15 minutes away from the airport, so you never have to wait long. So you just have to decide whether waiting up to 30 minutes is worth paying an extra $11 a day (yes I realize this is lowered if you park longer.)
totally agree with this…I use global airport parking when flying out of TPA. You can usually find a groupon + promo code. Comes out to $3/day or less for valet parking. I call an uber as I’m pulling in to the Intercontinental TPA and by the time I hand over my keys to the valet, the uber is there. Takes less time than parking in the $11/day economy lot and taking shuttle to terminal.
Man, $3/day is unheard of. Nice deal.
The first and last time I parked at a hotel near the airport. I had a scheduled late flight (11pm) and the damn shuttle took an hour to get me at the airport. Not worth it. I now use Uber/Lyft only to the airport as the hassle is not worth the savings parking in hotels near the airport.
That is the downside of the hotel parking. I guess you could have Uber’ed from the hotel to the aiport to save you time.
I always just park at a hotel, and don’t pay anything…works every time…I do look around the parking lot to make sure I don’t see any signs that say “no parking”. I wrote a post about this a few years ago. http://www.my13cents.com/2013/02/free-airport-parking.html
The 2 hotels I’ve parked at now give you a slip to leave on dashboard. I’d be worried they’ll tow my car if I did your trick. But props to you if this still works where you are.
Pick your hotel location well. My door lock got punched out and the repair was something like $400+
Oooph, sorry to hear Dave. Which hotel was this?
You should look into SpotHero as well. My wife and I use it to park at the Crowne Plaza – SeaTac and then just use the skybridge (no waiting for shuttles) to walk over to the terminal. It’s pretty easy and if you utilize SpotHero’s referral program it is usually the cheapest and most convenient.
Oh that’s nice. I’ll have to look into that next time. Thanks for the idea Matt.
Extra Car at SeaTac is cheap, fast and reliable. Their 30 day punch card works out to less than $8 a day all in. And you can just show up whenever you want. Reservations are only required around Christmas and Thanksgiving.
One of the Hampton Inns at SeaTac just let me leave a car there for free for 8 days after I stayed there and asked nicely as a Hilton Gold. I stayed on points and they couldn’t figure out how to add long term to a free room.
I used to do Groupon at Extra Car, but kept getting gouged due to all the misc fees. I haven’t looked at the punch card though. Is it a prepaid card or something?
It’s prepaid. All the fees are spelled on the website at checkout. Never have to pay anything at the lot unless you run out of days and then you can either pay standard rate or reload it at the same rate as the website. Very hassle-free.
Some places will let you leave your car there for multiple nights if you book one night…could use points and get a week of parking free!
That’s an interesting idea…