If you are an avid traveler, you may need a safe space to park your car at the airport, as you fly away and return from your destination.
Luckily, there are a couple of relevant options depending on your travel duration and the type of vehicle. These are short-term or hourly parking, and long-term (weekly or monthly) airport parking.
To be specific, while short-term airport parking allows you to park your car at the airport for up to 24 hours, long-term airport parking can give you much-needed space for longer durations of weeks and even months.
As such, if you are going for a short trip for a few hours or a day, you should go with short-term airport parking. Whereas, if you are leaving for a longer trip of several days, weeks, or months, then you should go with the long-term airport parking.
Apart from the nature or duration of your trip, a few other factors that can make a lot of difference in short-term vs long-term airport parking include the cost and convenience.
Let’s take a closer look:
1. Cost
Short-term airport parking rates are higher than long-term airport parking costs.
This may surprise you, but short-term airport parking is relatively more expensive than long-term parking.
That’s because, while long-term airport parking is charged at lower per-day rates, short-term parking rates are often charged on an hourly basis, which could be a bit too high due to their higher demand at peak hours compared to the former.
On the other hand, long-term airport parking costs could also include shuttle or conveyance charges from the parking area to the terminals and vice versa. But even after that, they will still be much less compared to short-term airport parking rates.
To get the best deal, you can always consider off-site long-term parking, which offers even more discounts for longer trips, making it the best airport parking for long trips.
2. Proximity
Short-term airport parking is usually closer to the terminals, while long-term parking might be a bit far from the airport.
While long-term airport parking options include both on-site and off-site parking, they may be located a bit too far from the airport and thus may require extra time to reach the terminal.
Short-term airport parking spaces, on the contrary, are located right next to the terminals for easy and quick access. As a result, they do not need you to spend any extra time or bear the cost of a shuttle service either.
In essence, it is both time-saving and convenient, especially when you are going away for just a few hours or not more than a day.
3. Security
Long-term airport parking ensures high security and monitoring compared to short-term parking.
As convenient and time-saving as it is, short-term airport parking lacks proper security measures and regular monitoring of your parked car due to the high demand during peak hours and busy traffic. At the same time, high demand can also quickly increase the per-hour short-term parking rates.
Whereas long-term airport parking features enhanced security and monitoring from the parking agency at all times. Should anything go wrong, the agency will be completely responsible for the mishap and liable for the ramifications.
Although, that’s something that rarely happens. To be safe, you can always find the security measures of the nearby airport by googling ‘the security details of an airport parking near me' right from your home.
Speaking of which, let us give you a few more tips while we are at it.
Airport parking tips for travelers
- Start by comparing different parking options to see which one best fits your profile. This includes checking long-term against short-term airport parking rates, on-site and off-site parking services, and any other promotional offers that you can take advantage of.
- As we’ve mentioned above, long-term airport parking is relatively cheaper than short-term parking, while off-site long-term parking, is even cheaper.
- Either way, once you have selected your preferred parking choice, you must book it in advance if you don’t want to wait in line and waste any extra time.
- Also, keep a close eye on the airport’s website or your parking app to check the parking availability in real time. To find the best long-term parking at San Jose Airport, explore your options today.
- Last but not least, you might also want to take a quick picture of your parking spot, to be safer.
Recap
Finding cheap airport parking is all about your travel or parking duration.
The longer the duration, the lower the cost of parking on any given day. However, there are other factors too that can change the way you look at it.
That is, if your trip is only a day long then needless to say, you must only go with a short-term parking as getting a long-term parking is out of the picture.
On the contrary, if you are going for a while and may take days, weeks, or even months to return, then long-term parking is your best bet, both budget-wise and safety-wise.
As cost-effective as it is, long-term parking also comes with higher security and a monitoring facility. However, you may have to catch a shuttle to reach the terminal from the parking lot and vice versa once you return.
The good news is that with AM Airport Parking, you can book a parking space across all the airports in the United States with free shuttle services on every trip. Plus, if you book your airport parking spot on our website, you can save an additional 70% compared to on-airport parking.
On that note, have great parking and a pleasant flight!