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If you have someone to drive you to the airport and pick you up, or if you live close enough to take a taxi or shuttle to the airport for your summer flight, you can forget about long-term airport parking.

But if you don’t have a driver and aren’t close to your departure airport, driving and parking your car at the airport while you’re away can be cheaper than taking taxis.

Although long-term airport parking could expose you to grief in the form of high prices, overflowing airport lots or both, you have alternatives. Big and medium-size airports attract adjacent independent parking operations, most of which offer reserved parking at rates lower than airport long-term rates.

Finding cheaper lots

Although the agencies tout “free” parking, the parking-package room rate for one night is almost always higher than the hotel’s lowest available rate. But the difference in rates is much less than the cost of parking for a week in an airport-area parking lot. I’ve usually found the premium for a week or more of parking works out to only a few dollars a day, and much less than you’d pay at most big airports for just the parking.

The airport parking specialist agencies listed also say they offer similar deals at major cruise ports. But when you take a closer look, you find that most of the “cruise port” listings are actually for airport-area hotels with shuttles to/from the actual port area. And, in many cases, the “free” shuttle is one-way only: You pay for the return trip. Only a few hotels are actually located near the port.

A former intriguing option, Flightcar, folded last year. Its deal was to rent out your car at attractive rates to other travelers while you parked it “free” at the airport. I’ve heard about a new operation that seems to be re-trying the same model; more on that later.

Send e-mail to Ed Perkins at eperkins@ mind.net. Also, check out Ed’s new rail travel website at www.rail-guru.com.

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