Flying-bring or rent car seat?

[fish8412]

We are flying and renting a car on a trip in a few months.  Trying to decide if we should rent a car seat with the car or bring LOs car seat?  LO is still in the infant car seat.  A part of me wonders about the brand/age/quality of the car seat through the car rental company.  What are your thoughts/experiences?  Thanks! 

[zandeela]

I am interested in what everyone has to say, but I cannot comment n which way to go.

[kimberpoo]

I've never done it. Personally, I think it would depend on if I needed to use the car seat on the plane. If using on plane, then yes, I'd bring my own. If not, I'd probably look at the reviews of the business and call to make sure the seats are safe and new-er.

[ellabee]

Ditto ^^. We're flying for christmas this year and will have to make the same decision.

[fish8412]

We book travel through AAA so I left a message for our travel agent about looking into the car seat type/quality/age.

Just found this. Leaning towards bringing our own, but still interested to hear opinions.

www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-10-05/car-seats-family-vacations-travel-tips

[babycaps]

I'd bring my own, especially if you are still using the bucket. But wouldn't worry about the base.

[sanibel21]

We flew and brought our own. Not the base though. Used the slots for the seatbelts. We have the one that fits right into the stroller so it wasn't very difficult for us to lug both car seat and stroller. If it was completely separate from our stroller, that may have been a different story.

[jtizzay]

Always bring own. I don't think I would ever trust the car company ones personally

[NellieOleson]

We bring our own. You can either check it with your luggage, or they will let you bring it to use on the plane if there is an extra seat available.

I wouldn't trust a rental, plus it is nice using a seat you are already familiar with.

We actually have a cheapo seat that we use for this kind of situation. Luggage handlers can be pretty tough with stuff and I don't like the idea of dragging our "good" seat through all that.

[maganonymous]

I didn't even know you could rent them...but I would bring my own. You just never know how rental items have been taken care of before you get them...

[RandomName]

For me it depends how much we'd be driving. If its only a little driving I would rent one. It the trip was primarily driving I'd bring mine. That said, when she was in her bucket seat I 100% would always bring hers.

[babycaps]

so we had to talk about this yesterday, since we have an upcoming trip and LO is too big for a bucket. We are probably going to purchase a cheaper convertible (ours is WAY expensive to be tossed around by the airlines).
And instead of a stroller, we will probably get a car seat transporter.

[nattybumppo]

If you are still in the infant, I'd just bring it. You can gate check it on the plane or if there's an extra seat, the airline should let you bring it on. (Though FWIW, my only kid flying experience has been with Southwest.)

We bought our secondary carseat for DD1 with travel in mind (it was also used in DH's car). It's the Cosco Scenera. It is super lightweight and cheap (we got it from walmart online for really cheap - less than amazon) and been easy to travel with. We also got the BRICA car seat travel bag which is really nice because it can be used as a backpack or pulled with wheels to get the carseat thru the airport.

The only downside is that it only has a 40lb weight limit. So DD1 (who is 3 and 95+ percentile in weight and height) can't use it anymore. Which is okay because we'll use it for DD2 when we travel in a few months. But DD1's replacement carseat in DH's car is much bigger/heavier and I don't know what we are going to use to travel with. I looked at the rental car website about carseat options but it looks like for 40lbs+, the rental car company only rents boosters! !!!!??!?! So I have to lug my giant carseat or let my 3 year old use just a booster?! Ugh. I have a few months to figure it out...

[bebeski]

I think most airlines let you check the car seat for free

[fish8412]

Jul 14, 2015 10:26:40 GMT -5 bebeski said:

I think most airlines let you check the car seat for free

Can you gate check both the stroller and car seat?

[nattybumppo]

Jul 14, 2015 11:34:36 GMT -5 fish8412 said:

Jul 14, 2015 10:26:40 GMT -5 bebeski said:

I think most airlines let you check the car seat for free

Can you gate check both the stroller and car seat?

I've gate checked both with Southwest.  I believe most airlines let you.  But you can call/check their website to be sure.

[fish8412]

Jul 14, 2015 11:36:29 GMT -5 nattybumppo said:

Jul 14, 2015 11:34:36 GMT -5 fish8412 said:

Can you gate check both the stroller and car seat?

I've gate checked both with Southwest.  I believe most airlines let you.  But you can call/check their website to be sure.

Yeah was planning on calling the airline to make sure.

[ellabee]

fish8412, are you guys buying an extra seat on the plane for LO?

I just asked my friend about this, who has taken a few flights with her LOs. She actually said that she brought the car seat to the gate and 3 out of their 4 flights, there was an extra seat available and they just let her bring it on board even though her LO was supposed to just be a lap infant. The 4th time she checked the seat at the gate.

[fish8412]

Jul 14, 2015 11:55:17 GMT -5 ellabee said:

fish8412, are you guys buying an extra seat on the plane for LO?

I just asked my friend about this, who has taken a few flights with her LOs. She actually said that she brought the car seat to the gate and 3 out of their 4 flights, there was an extra seat available and they just let her bring it on board even though her LO was supposed to just be a lap infant. The 4th time she checked the seat at the gate.

Nope we are holding her. That would be great if there was an empty seat for the car seat. We will ask at check in!

[walkek85]

We travel a lot (DS has been on 28 flights so far), and when LO was smaller we just brought the bucket car seat and checked it plane side. Now that he is in a convertible seat we went out and purchased a cheapie Cosco car seat from Walmart. HERE

Its lightweight and easy to travel with. If you plan to do any more traveling between now and by the time LO is 4ish (40lbs max on car seat) it would be a good investment. I also just sewed up a super simple and easy car seat bag out of duck cloth to protect it. You can also put it in a couple trash bags just to keep it clean.

[newmomma8]

I'm not trying to be preachy, so I'll just leave the link here.

csftl.org/

But since joining the Car Seat for the Little's group on FB, it's not recommended that any child our kids age be lap babies. We were going to go to Disney and I was going to do lap baby method and then I did the research and we ended up deciding on getting her a seat. It might be worth checking it out.