Last Updated on October 27, 2024 by Jonathan
Rental car startup Kyte, which provides door-to-door delivery service on both ends of your trip, is in retreat mode. Recently, it has pulled out of all but two major markets in the United States: the New York City area and San Francisco. The company says it is scaling back while it tries to reach profitability.
We’re all looking for services that make our lives easier and had high hopes for Kyte, which promises to deliver a vehicle directly to you and then come pick it up at end of the rental period, as long as you are within one of their service areas. With a Kyte car rental, there are no worries about finding the pickup location, no lines, no hassles.
How Does a Kyte Car Rental Work?
Getting Started
When you request a quote from AutoSlash for an off-airport car rental in the markets where Kyte operates, we now automatically include best deals from Kyte along with the best deals from other rental car companies, so you can compare them head-to-head.
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You book and pay for the rental car online ahead of time. On the first day of your rental, you just need to show your ID to the “Kyte Surfer” (a.k.a. vehicle delivery person) and then sign on the tablet to confirm receipt of the vehicle. That completes the handover.
If you cancel at least 48 hours prior to your scheduled delivery time, you are eligible for a full refund to your credit or debit card.
Eligible Drivers
You need to be 21 years old to rent with Kyte in most locations. In New York City, drivers as young as 18 can rent. Drivers under 25 are charged a $15-per-day young renter fee, which is a lot less than you’d pay with most rental car companies.
Additional Drivers
With Kyte, additional drivers are completely free which is a more generous policy than any other rental company. Note that additional drivers be added before the trip begins and must be present at the time of delivery with their driver’s license. Additional drivers must meet the age requirement.
Potential Extra Charges
Be aware that Kyte charges a (refundable) deposit of $300 for credit card bookings and $500 for debit card bookings.
Kyte offers both damage coverage and liability coverage for an additional fee. If you own your own vehicle and have a comprehensive policy that covers you when renting, you can decline both. If you do not own a vehicle but have a credit card that offers car rental insurance, then it should cover Kyte rentals (unlike many peer-to-peer rentals). That said, Kyte does require you to have liability coverage, which no credit card provides, so unless you have a non-owner policy you will need to purchase their coverage at around $14 per day.
All Kyte rentals come with 300 miles per day. The mileage is cumulative over the duration of your booking. A surcharge of $0.45 per mile will be charged if the limit is exceeded, but you can upgrade to unlimited mileage for an extra fee.
Kyte will automatically charge you for any tolls during the rental period. Unlike just about every other rental company, they do not charge a “convenience fee.” Parking tickets are your responsibility and if you don’t pay them, expect to be charged a penalty by Kyte.
Vehicle Choice
Kyte currently offers several vehicle categories, including Economy (Nissan Versa or similar model), SUV (Toyota RAV4 or similar model), and Sedan (Toyota Camry or similar model). All vehicles are guaranteed to come with Bluetooth, a phone charger, and phone mount. Kyte now rents all-wheel-drive SUVs, 7-passenger SUVs like the Dodge Durango, and the Audi Q3 compact luxury SUV (vehicle availability may vary by location).
Kyte provides its own vehicles. Unlike some of the peer-to-peer companies out there that rent out personal vehicles, they don’t offer unique or higher-end vehicles like Porsches, Teslas, or Range Rovers. On the plus side, since Kyte controls the whole experience, your rental will not get canceled at the last minute and leave you in a lurch as has been reported in the news recently when renting from popular car sharing services.
Returning Your Vehicle
There’s no need to fill up the tank at the end of the rental. Kyte has a customer-friendly policy of refueling at local market rates. While this may not be the cheapest price in town, it’s a far cry from the $10 per gallon many rental companies charge if you don’t accept their prepaid fuel option, which is never a good deal.
As with a traditional rental car, there is normally no need to wash or clean your rental before returning it. The exception would be if the vehicle was excessively dirty, smelly, covered in pet hair, or otherwise in non-rentable condition, which would incur a $200 deep-cleaning fee.
Traveling with Kids
Kyte does not currently offer car seats. But since they deliver the vehicle right to your house if renting locally, it’s less of an issue since you can simply use your own car seat from home. If you’re traveling with small children but renting your car from a location other than your home, you’ll have to plan ahead and obtain a car seat ahead of your trip.
Kyte Car Rental Locations
Kyte now only operates in the New York City area and San Francisco. Note that Kyte does not do pickups or returns right at airports, but will deliver and retrieve rentals just outside the airport at what it calls “handoff” locations. You can either take a taxi (or Uber or Lyft) from a hand-off location to the airport, or choose a hotel just outside the airport grounds that runs regular shuttles and hitch a free ride.
The company has been rapidly exiting major markets like Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Seattle.
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Current Kyte markets include:
- Jersey City
- New York City
- San Francisco
Kyte Car Rental Review
I have used Kyte to rent a car in New York City and it has worked as advertised. The actual rental process was basically a non-event, which is to say it was a very refreshing change from my previous New York City rental where I biked to and from the rental office to pick up and drop off my car.
Here’s a hot tip for New York City renters: Rent in Jersey City instead of Manhattan or Brooklyn. A recent price check found that rental rates across the river in Jersey City are anywhere from 20% to 50% less expensive than in NYC. That’s a significant sum, especially when rentals in Manhattan and Brooklyn can easily exceed more than $100 per day in the spring and summer.
Jersey City is an easy 23 minute ride from 33rd St. in Manhattan via the PATH train. For the cost of the $2.75 one-way fare, it’s no-brainer for those who are keen to save money. Even better, you can reserve a one-way Kyte rental for pickup in Jersey City and a return in Manhattan or Brooklyn, so you only need to deal with the inconvenience at pickup.
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