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I would check my own at baggage check in. Don't they charge a per day fee for car seat rentals? That could become pricey...

So I don't have experience myself, but it sounds like your choice is between a short trip using a seat with an unknown history, vs. the rest your seat's life having an unknown history.

With that said, we rented a toddler seat for my niece a few weeks ago from Hertz. It was cheap and they thought it was too tight for her (2.5).

I personally witnessed our car seat thrown in India last year. We used it on our first two long flights to London, then Delhi for J to sit in on the plane, but our 3rd flight on a tiny plane they wouldn't allow it, so we were forced to check it. When we got to our final destination in India, some men brought it down to the luggage area separately and threw it on the floor (without knowing we saw). Luckily, this was a cheap, light, car seat we bought specifically for flying. Had this been our regular car seat, we'd have to toss it and buy a new one. All that said, I would rent one!

i would rent one. you have to carry enough stuff traveling.

or just buy one when you get there... you can get one for $60 which would probably be cheaper than the rental.

@septca: i bought a cheap one for my mom's car and it's totally fine. they all have to meet the same safety standards.

@septca: we have the safety first guide 65. Cheap bit more padded than the next cheapest we found. Does the job!

Is the seat guaranteed on your arrival, or is it best efforts? That would be the deciding factor.

@septca: There is an obvious quality difference between the seats {padding, material, etc.} but they accomplish the same task.

For what it's worth, my LO tends to prefer the travel car seat {Safety 1st Alpha Omega} to one of our *better* ones {Britax Marathon and Recaro}.

We gate check the car seat - inside our own bag - before boarding, and retrieve it when we exit the plane. I'm sure it gets tossed around, but it hasn't been damaged once. Also, we check everything except for our stroller and car seat because we don't want to lug anything that's unnecessary around. We keep the stroller - for obvious reasons - and the car seat on the off chance that we are told there is an empty seat that we can have.

I actually just went through the same decision-making process! I'm flying to FL in August and was looking up car seat rentals at car rental places and the general consensus was that the rental seats are almost always GROSS because they are never cleaned. But what really made my decision for me was reading that our car rental company rents out seats that only rear face to 20lbs and there is no way I am forward facing my 1yr old!

I'm going to be buying a cheap cosco seat and checking it in the box to protect it so that I don't have to worry about my Nextfit getting messed up Good plan!