Next time you're in McCarran Airport in Las Vegas and you decide to rent a car, you're in for a surprise. All the rental counters at the airport are gone. All that action has been moved to a new building about three miles away. Now, those seeking to rent cars will instead pile on one of the constantly-running shuttle buses that take them to the McCarran Rent-A-Car Center. There, eleven auto rental agencies are up and operating in a 1.7 million-square-foot structure that includes parking for 6,000 vehicles. That's about the same amount of enclosed space as the Empire State Building. The facility also boasts one of the world's largest gas stations with no less than 125 pumps.
The eleven car rental companies there are Advantage/US, Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hertz, National, Payless, Savmor and Thrifty.
When you return your rental car, of course, it works in reverse. You go to the Rent-A-Car Center, turn it in and ride one of the forty shuttle buses back to the air terminal. You can also check your baggage at the Rent-A-Car Center for some airlines.
Sounds like a nice idea…and I'm betting that if they don't have slot machines in the place now, they will soon. And someplace to eat. And then maybe they can get some Elvis impersonators and showgirls and pretty soon, you won't have to rent the car. You can just stay there for your entire vacation.