How to choose between the lots without overpaying

Six lot types, and choosing between them comes down to three things: whether the car is under cover, how long the shuttle takes, and what it costs per day. Everything else is noise.

The arithmetic almost nobody does

Take the long stay lot at six fifty a day and the fenced lot at nine. Two fifty a day apart.

On a four day trip that is ten dollars. The long stay lot is a twelve minute ride instead of eight, so you spend eight extra minutes on the ground, twice. Ten dollars for sixteen minutes at the two worst moments of a trip is a poor trade for most people.

On a fourteen day trip the same gap is thirty five dollars, the shuttle difference has not changed, and the trade is obviously right.

That is the whole decision. The break even sits around five days, and the desk will tell you which side of it your dates fall on.

When cover is worth paying for

Two months a year, decisively.

In July a car left on open ground for a week comes back at a temperature you cannot sit in, with a steering wheel you cannot hold and anything left on the seats deformed. In January it comes back under a sheet of ice that takes twenty minutes and a scraper you did not pack.

The covered deck is roughly four dollars a day above the fenced lot. For a July or January departure that is the best four dollars on this site. In April it is money spent on nothing.

When the valet drop earns its money

Three cases: a departure so tight that ten minutes decides it, a trip where somebody in the party cannot manage a shuttle comfortably, and a business run where the difference comes out of a different pocket than yours.

Outside those, it is twenty one dollars a day for a service that saves about six minutes.

What does not matter as much as people think

The exact bay. Everybody wants a spot near the shelter. It saves ninety seconds.

A slightly better daily rate at a lot with a worse shuttle. Covered above, and it is the commonest way to be annoyed with a decision that looked clever when you made it.

Reviews of parking lots. Almost entirely written on the two worst days of the year, at every lot in the country.

What genuinely does matter

Whether the space exists on the return day, not just the outbound one.

Whether your vehicle fits the bay. A van or a roof rack changes the lot, not just the price.

Whether you can find the exit at eleven at night. This is real, and it is why the desk sends the lot's own entry instructions with the confirmation rather than assuming you will work it out.

Send your dates on the booking page and the reply names the option that fits rather than the one with the biggest margin on it.